With the aim of creating a group of historical paintings that reflects the characteristics of the time, embodies profound thoughts, and consummates artistic skills and superb craftsmanship, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China approved the Chinese Civilization History Theme Art Project, an initiative jointly sponsored and implemented by the China Federation of Literary and Artistic Circles (CFLAC), the China’s Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the Ministry of Culture (MOC). Through the mediums of painting and sculpture, the project reflects on the 5,000 year history of the Chinese nation to narrate Chinese stories, spread splendid Chinese traditional culture, promote the education of history and tradition, cultivate the patriotism of the people, and construct a spiritual home. After five years of elaborate organization, conscientious construction and design modifications, 146 works are to be ceremoniously presented to the public in this exhibition at the National Museum of China.
As a companion project to the earlier 100-year Key Historical Events Theme Art Project presented to the public in 2009, the Chinese Civilization History Theme Art Project is a large-scale thematic art project implemented by the Chinese government. This grand project has attracted and agglomerated the most accomplished artists across the country and spanning different generations. These artists carried out their commissions with a deep respect towards history, a commitment to advancing culture, and an earnestness to exhibit their creative passions within their artworks. With the guidance of the Project Organizing Committee and a group of experts, the artists diligently studied historical documents and records, comprehended and grasped underlining significance of key historical events, and strengthened their understandings of cultural connotations. By imprinting their understanding of history and culture along with their artistic ideals into the artworks, the artists have produced creations that embody history, civilization and Chinese spiritual values. In the process, they employed ingenious conceptions, scholarly aptitude and exquisite artistic language to create artworks of epic proportion. The resulting artworks have reached the highest level ever accomplished by such historical painting projects, successfully highlighting focused representations of historical scenarios, broadened artistic languages and heightened spiritual explorations. The artworks both mark new heights achieved by Chinese artists in the domain of history art and also fill in long standing vacancies previously found in the thematic area of Chinese artistic creations.
Supported by the state special funds, this grand project was initiated in 2011. In 2012, CFLAC, MOF and MOC jointly released 150 selected subjects and project implementation measures to the press, and then launched an art proposal competition among Chinese artists at home and abroad, resulting in over 600 proposal sketches submitted by more than 1,000 artists living across the country and overseas. Through several rounds of evaluation and selection, 165 finalists were chosen, covering the mediums of traditional ink painting, oil painting, engraving and sculpture. During the organization and implementation process of the project, the Organizing Committee and Experts Committee formed a scientific and effective working mechanism. They played an important role in providing guidance for artworks submissions including with regards to their subject matter, variations of expressions, repeated deliberation of initial proposed sketches, and the execution of the final project and end review. During the process of project implementation, the leaders of the Organizing Committee and experts upheld a serious, impartial, prudent and conscientious working style, organized academic discussions, assisted the artists in overcoming production difficulties, and provided effective resources that guaranteed the implementation of this project.
We aim to reflect on the long history of the Chinese nation, and to honor devotion to the great causes behind the country’s rejuvenation. Founded on Chinese culture, the Chinese Civilization History Theme Art Project has cultivated the mind and drawn wisdom from the excellence of traditional culture, paid respect to history while showing boldness in creative implementation, and conscientiously absorbed the artistic essence from all times and cultures. It succeeded in artistically representing the brilliant course of the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, displaying Chinese cultural values and reflecting the spirit of the time. It also provided a precious creative outlet for tapping into the cumulative wealth of experience of the artists community to producing artistic creations with historical themes. We hope these works will be well liked by the public, stand by the test of time and write a colorful artistic chapter in the history of the Chinese civilization.
We want to express our sincere gratitude to all the leaders, experts, artists and the entire staff who have worked hard for the successful completion of this project.
The Organizing Committee of the Chinese Civilization History Theme Art Project
October 2016
Discovered in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province in 1973, the Hemudu site is a Mid-Neolithic site that existed in ancient China some 7,000 years ago. Among the excavations from the site are the remains of the pile-dwelling architectural complexes (stilt houses) composed of rows of piles, logs and planks, a large quantity of rice grain, pottery, stone artifacts and farming tools, such as wooden or bone plowshares, the bones of pigs, dogs and other domestic livestock, rhinoceroses, elephants, deer, tigers, monkeys, roe deer and a large quantity of poultry and fish, as well as water transport devices, including oars, demonstrating that China is one of the earliest countries to cultivate paddy rice in the world.
Some stunning artifacts, including the engraved ivory object designed with two birds facing the sun, the sun pattern disk-like utensil, the double bird pattern bone dagger, the five-leaf pattern pottery shred, the pig pattern pottery bowl, were unearthed at the Hemudu site.
Six oars were excavated at the Hemudu site in Yuyao, and a canoe was unearthed at the Kuahuqiao site, dating back to 8,000 years ago, in Xiaoshan, and the said canoe had been moored by a port in the offshore water. The remains of the canoe, wooden oars, etc., which were unearthed at the Kuahuqiao site, indicate that ancient people in the Wuyue area had already started making and sailing boats some 7,000~8,000 years ago, and that the coastal area in Southeast China is one of the earliest regions to create and sail canoes in the world.
Renowned for its painted pottery, the Yangshao culture flourished some 5,000~7,000 years ago. With Guanzhong in Shanxi, western Henan and southern Shanxi as its center, the distribution range of the Yangshao culture reaches as far east as the boundary between Shandong and Anhui, as far west as the upper reaches of the Wei River and the Gansu-Qinghai area, as far south as the middle and upper reaches of the Han River, and as far north as the Hetao area in Inner Mongolia, including the most famous sites, such as Banpo in Xi’an, Jiangzhai in Lintong, Miaodigou in Shanxian County, Henan, Xipo in Lingbao, Dahe village in Zhengzhou. The painted pottery objects unearthed at the site are characterized by the fish, bird and frog decorations, as well as the human faced fish pattern solar halo pattern, 12-sun pattern, eagle-shaped cauldron, human faced painted pottery bottle, boat-shaped painted pottery pot, among others.
The inhabitants in the early Yangshao culture led an equal, harmonious life in their farming settlements. The Jiangzhai site in Lintong, Shaanxi-in the ditch-enclosed settlements, about 100 houses were divided into five major communities, which can be deemed as five big clans, and the five complexes rounded into a square covering an area of over 1,400 m2, constituting a space of common activities, with all the doors of the complexes facing the central square and forming a typical circular radial layout. The inhabitants were engaged in farming, and concurrently in hunting, gathering and pottery making, and the entire settlements were economically self-sufficient, with an equal, harmonious relationship being enjoyed among the large or small internal blood groups and individuals as well.
First discovered in the Liangzhu town in Yuhang, Zhejiang in 1936, the Liangzhu culture flourished some 4,250~5,300 years ago. The Liangzhu culture made black-painted gray pottery and its economic pattern was rice agriculture, and the Liangzhu people were outstanding in bamboo and wooden objects-making, silkworm cultivation, silk and hemp weaving, etc. A large quantity of jade artifacts have been found at the Liangzhu site, with their exquisite craftsmanship, quantity and variety-induced complexity topping the list of all the country’s prehistoric cultural sites. Thousands of jade wares were often excavated in one single burial place, including a variety of jade cong (cylinders), jade bi (discs), jade yue (ceremonial axes), jade crown-shaped objects, among others. These jade objects were incised with deity, human and beast faces, with excellent craftsmanship and mysterious religious sentiment.
The elite burials of the Liangzhu culture were the complex of altars and burial places, such as the Fanshan tombs and Yaoshan tombs in Yuhang, Zhejiang Province. In recent years, the city ruins of the Liangzhu culture Mojiaoshan site in Yuhang were discovered, covering an area 2.9 million m2. The Liangzhu culture had already entered the early stage of national civilization.
During the Yao and Shun period prior to the Xia Dynasty, states had already come into being in the various regions of China, and the alliance of states occurred as well. Yao, Shun and Yu were primarily the rulers of their own states respectively, and then successively served as the leader of the state alliance in the Central Plains area. The legend of the abdication between Yao, Shun and Yu depicts the transfer and transition situation of the leadership within the state alliance. According to records, including the Yao Dian (Document of Yao) in Shang Shu (the Book of History), when he was old, Yao asked the various clan states to recommend a successor to his throne, and the people unanimously recommended Shun, saying that, despite of his father’s ignorance and stubbornness, his stepmother’s malice and cruelty and his half brother’s arrogance and evildoing, Shun was capable of moving, through his filial piety, his entire family to live in harmony. Through inspections in various aspects, Yao deemed that Shun was qualified to rule the country, and abdicated his throne to the latter. Prior to his formal succession to the throne, Shun had once handed over the power to Danzhu, Yao’s son, while he himself retreating to the south of the Southern River. However, putting no trust in Danzhu, the country’s various states and people supported Shun as leader, and Shun eventually accepted the throne.
As he belonged to the Youyu clan, Shun is referred to as “Yushun”, who migrated from the east to the area presently located in Yongji in Southwestern Shanxi, and therefore, he is also referred to as “a native of Jizhou”. After being in charge of the state alliance, Shun made considerable contributions to the political, economic and cultural development in the Central Plains area. When he was senile, Shun decided to abdicate and hand over the power to Yu, who, prior to his formal succession to the throne, proposed that the power should go to Shangjun, Shun’s son, and at the same time, Yu retreated to Yangcheng; however, the states still supported Yu, who eventually succeeded to the throne.
The legend of Yu the Great harnessing the flood is a tale known by one and all, containing both mythical elements and historical facts. According to the records of some ancient classics, including Lyu's Spring and Autumn Annals and Huai Nan Zi (Miscellany of Writing in Western Han), “In remote ages when the Mount Longmen channel was not yet opened up, the Lyuliang Mountain pass was not yet cut, either, and when the Yellow River was flowing out of Mengmen, the overflowing water triggered outburst floods”, when Yu tried to tame the floods, he “excavated the channel through Mount Longmen, hewed out the Yique Gate, harnessed waters, and leveled the land, enabling people to settle on land ”. And as Shi Zi (a pre-Qin classic work of the Eclectics) has it, the “river spirit” had once “rendered Yu the River Diagrams”, and Yu harnessed floods according to the water control map bequeathed to him by the river god, and all of this is mythical. The legend goes that Yu drew lessons from his father’s failure in flood control. Instead of trying to block the floodwater through diking and damming, Yu resorted to the method of dredging the riverbeds to facilitate the flow of rivers, and eventually succeeded in harnessing floods, and this has its historicity, indeed. “Yu married a woman from Mount Tushan”. In order to combat floods, thrice Yu had passed by his own doorsteps without even looking inside, earning him renown throughout the Chinese history.
Yu’s success in harnessing floods won him great acclaim in the state alliance. According to the records chronologized under the seventh year of the reign of Duke Ai of Lu in Zuo Zhuan (Master Zuo’s Spring and Autumn Annals), “when summoning the lords or local rulers on Mount Tushan, Yu was offered tribute of jade objects and silk fabrics from thousands of states”.
The Xia Dynasty is China’s first unified and pluralistic dynasty. The site discovered in and named after Erlitou village in Yanshi County, Henan was deemed by many archaeologists as the royal capital of the late Xia Dynasty. The large-scale site covers an area of over three sq. km. Among the palace complexes at the Erlitou site, the No.1 palace is the most spectacular. Composed of the principal palace, courtyards and enclosing walls surrounded by verandas, the entire palatial complex looks really impressive and majestic, symbolizing power, position and authority.
Bronze wares are the important cultural characteristics of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties. The bronze wares found at the Erlitou site are comprised of ding (tripod), jue (ancient wine vessel with three legs and a loop handle), jia (wine cup), he (wine vessel) and other ritual vessels; yue (battle-axe), ge (dagger-axe), qi (double-edged battle-axe), arrowheads and other weaponry; adze, chisel, drill, awl, knife and other tools; as well as various bronze tablets or bells inlaid with inlaid with turquoise, among others. The sacrificial vessels reflected the identity hierarchy, and weaponry indicated wars, all of which embodied the then social value orientation featuring “the state matters of crucial importance lying in worship and military affairs” (see the records chronologized under the 13th year of the reign of Duke Cheng of Lu in Zuo Zhuan).
Various jade sacrificial wares were also unearthed at the site, including yue (ceremonial jade axe), zhang (jade tablet), ge (ceremonial jade dagger-axe), jade sword, qi (double-edged jade axe), gui (jade bar for ritual services), etc., all of which were exquisitely crafted. A large dragon-shaped device glued with turquoise tablet mosaics, unearthed from an elite burial, is a precious elite heritage in the midst of early Chinese cultural relics with dragon images. Being referred to as “a land of propriety and music”, China boasted jade objects and jade sacrificial wares, constituting an important component of the country’s ritual and music civilization.
The oracle bone script, the form of Chinese characters inscribed on oracle bones - turtle plastrons or animal bones (chiefly the scapula of oxen) used in pyromantic divination, was discovered in 1899 by Wang Yirong from a traditional Chinese medicine ingredient named “dragon bones”. The first excavation was conducted by the archaeological group of the Institute of History and Language of the then Academia Sinica in the Yin (Shang) Dynasty ruins located in Anyang, Henan in 1928, and to date, a total of over 150,000 oracle bone script pieces, including over 4,000 individual Chinese characters, have been unearthed. Looked from its writing structure, the oracle script had already basically possessed the composition conditions of Chinese characters, i.e., the “six categories of Chinese characters”, with most of the oracle bone writings falling into four categories, including pictographs, compound ideographs, phonosemantic compounds (pictophonetic characters) and phonetic loan characters. The oracle bone script is the earliest known mature form of Chinese writing.
Before the discovery of the oracle bone script, the history of Yin Shang had almost stayed at the stage of a legend. Thanks to the oracle bone script found at the Yin ruins, a large number of authentic historical data have been presented before scholars, with the unearthed oracle bone writings and the actual document literature coinciding with each other, enabling people’s understanding of the history of the Shang Dynasty civilization to be closely linked together with the oracle bone script, the Shang bronzes as well as the archaeological excavations pertinent to the Shang Dynasty.
Bronze The civilization of China’s Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties (c. 21st century- 256 BC) is also referred to as the “Bronze Age Civilization”. The Erlitou culture of the Xia Dynasty boasted the bronzes of jue, jia, ding, etc., the Shang and Zhou period (c. 1600 BC - 256 BC) was the heyday of bronze wares, the bronzes in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period (770-221 BC) were also very advanced, and bronzes entered the end stage during the Qin and Han period (221 BC - AD 220).
The Shang Dynasty (c. 17th-11th century BC) bronze wares had already been cast with inscriptions, most of which were clan emblems or the names of sacrificial objects, and some recorded contents of events as well. The Shang Dynasty bronzes were decorous and stately, for instance, the well-renowned “Houmuwu” ding (sacrificial vessel), which is 137 cm high, 110 cm long, 77 cm wide and weighs 875 kg, had once been used as an important sacrificial vessel, featuring a majestic and massive shape, splendid and imposing decorative patterns and an exquisite casting technique. There were many animal-shaped bronze wares as well, such as a Shang Dynasty bronze elephant zun (wine vessel) unearthed in Lingli, Hunan. With the elephant trunk as its wine pouring orifice, the elephant-shaped vessel is supported by four stocky and strong legs and covered with various decorative animal patterns, including kuilong (a one-legged monster in fable), phoenix, fierce tiger, etc., on the background of cloudscape, which can well be deemed as a masterpiece of bronze art.
In addition to inheriting the technology and art of their counterparts in the Shang Dynasty, the bronzes made in Western Zhou (c. 1046 BC - 771 BC) are even more worldly renowned for their majestic repose and massiveness, many of which were inscribed with 300~400 characters, with Maogong ding (tripod cooking vessel made in late Western Zhou) inscribed with 497 characters topping the list. The contents recorded in such bronze script inscriptions include: enfeoffment, rewards for ministers, expeditions, conquests and offering war trophies and captives, official appointments, litigation and penalty, geographic boundaries, bestowal and transaction, etc., which constitute the indispensably important information for the historical and cultural research on the Western Zhou Dynasty.
Wu Ding, aka Gao Zong of Yin, was a king of the Shang Dynasty and his reign was regarded as the prime period of the late Shang. In his childhood, Wu Ding was ordered by his father to live among the common people to be familiar with their sufferings and problems. Having been enthroned, Wu Ding unconventionally promoted Fu Yue, who had emerged from obscurity and once served as a fortification worker, to be prime minister. Assisted by Fu Yue, King Wu Ding reformed governance and performed virtuous reign, the nation rapidly became powerful, and he succeeded in cultivating the allegiance of various vassal states. Soon afterwards, the Shang king launched external expansions through various expeditions. The Yin Wu (King Wu Ding) in the Eulogies of Shang in the Book of Songs has it that “Wu Ding was warlike, Jingchu he did strike. He entered its passes boldly, and wiped out his enemies completely”, indicating that King Wu Ding launched a punitive, southward expedition against the Jingchu Area. The inscriptions on the extant oracle bone artifacts contain a large number of divination inscriptions depicting the wars fought during the reign of Wu Ding, including the king’s personal expeditions as well as the expeditions to have been launched under the king’s order. The oracle script inscriptions also record that Wu Ding’s consort General Fu Hao had personally commanded troops for may a time in such expeditions. Fu Hao’s mausoleum was excavated at the palatial complexes of Yinxu (Ruins of Yin) in Anyang in 1976, and 1928 funerary objects made from different materials, including bronzes, jades, gem wares, ivory, were unearthed, and amongst the 468 bronzes, over 100 pieces were inscribed with “Fu Hao”. The funerary objects unearthed from the said tomb, such as bronze owl zun, oufangyi (rectangular wine vessel), sanlianyan (triple interlinked cooking vessel), great bronze battle-axes, ivory wine cups, etc., were all characterized by uniquely designed shapes and exquisite fabrication, representing the advanced level of the Shang Dynasty civilization. During his reign, which lasted as long as 59 years, King Wu Ding expanded Shang’s territory far and wide, as far east as the sea, as far west as modern Shaanxi, as far south as modern Hubei and Jiangxi, and as far north as modern Liaoning, enabling Shang to become a powerful country.
King Wen of Zhou was the regal title of Ji Chang, who was also referred to as “Xi Bo”, i.e., the chieftain of western lords, with his reign lasting 51 years. After he was enthroned in Zhou, a western state in the late Shang Dynasty, Ji Chang, on the one hand, positively developed agricultural production to bolster the economic strength of his state; on the other hand, he honored the wise and the learned and went all out to enlist the services of worthy talented people. According to the House of Duke Tai of Qi in the Records of the Grand Historian, King Wen expanded the territory of his state, launched punitive expeditions against the states of Chongguo, Mixu and the barbarian tribe of Quanrong, and established his capital city in Feng. The classics, including the King Hui of Liang in Mencius, have it that King Wen performed benevolent governance when administering Zhouyuan (the birthplace of Zhou)-the land around Mount Qishan, where farmers were only levied one ninths of their yields as the tax; all the officials with high or low ranks were assigned with their due fiefdoms as public emoluments, which were to be handed down to their posterity; no tax was laid on merchants for their transactions at border marketplaces; no prohibition was imposed on fishing on lakes; when someone had committed an offense, his innocent wife would be free from punishment, etc., enabling Zhou to cultivate the allegiance of neighboring states and tribes far and wide, which laid a sound foundation for Zhou to annihilate Shang later. King Wen was shown in the bronze inscriptions of Western Zhou and the documents and literature of Zhou to have enjoyed an illustrious position.
The Annals of Zhou in the Records of the Grand Historian, Chong Hou Hu (the ruler of Chongcheng who was named “Hu”) advised King Zhou of Shang with a malicious calumny, “‘Through conducting good deeds and accumulating virtues, Xi Bo has cultivated the allegiance of all the other lords, which shall be detrimental to Your Majesty.’ Therefore, King Zhou imprisoned Xi Bo in Youli.” San Yisheng, along with others, devised a tactic to bribe King Zhou, enabling King Wen to be free from jeopardy, eventually released and allowed to return to his homeland. King Wen is also credited with creating the Zhou Yi (I Ching) while he was imprisoned in Youli. According to the Autobiographical Notes of Tai Shi Gong in the Records of the Grand Historian, “in ancient times, when he was imprisoned in Youli, Xi Bo (King Wen) created the I Ching.”
Ting Wen of Zhou was the regal title of Ji Chang, who was also referred to as “Xi Bo”, i.e., the chieftain of western lords, with his reign lasting 51 years. After he was enthroned in Zhou, a western state in the late Shang Dynasty, Ji Chang, on the one hand, positively developed agricultural production to bolster the economic strength of his state; on the other hand, he honored the wise and the learned and went all out to enlist the services of worthy talented people. According to the House of Duke Tai of Qi in the Records of the Grand Historian, King Wen expanded the territory of his state, launched punitive expeditions against the states of Chongguo, Mixu and the barbarian tribe of Quanrong, and established his capital city in Feng. The classics, including the King Hui of Liang in Mencius, have it that King Wen performed benevolent governance when administering Zhouyuan (the birthplace of Zhou)-the land around Mount Qishan, where farmers were only levied one ninths of their yields as the tax; all the officials with high or low ranks were assigned with their due fiefdoms as public emoluments, which were to be handed down to their posterity; no tax was laid on merchants for their transactions at border marketplaces; no prohibition was imposed on fishing on lakes; when someone had committed an offense, his innocent wife would be free from punishment, etc., enabling Zhou to cultivate the allegiance of neighboring states and tribes far and wide, which laid a sound foundation for Zhou to annihilate Shang later. King Wen was shown in the bronze inscriptions of Western Zhou and the documents and literature of Zhou to have enjoyed an illustrious position.
The Annals of Zhou in the Records of the Grand Historian, Chong Hou Hu (the ruler of Chongcheng who was named “Hu”) advised King Zhou of Shang with a malicious calumny, “‘Through conducting good deeds and accumulating virtues, Xi Bo has cultivated the allegiance of all the other lords, which shall be detrimental to Your Majesty.’ Therefore, King Zhou imprisoned Xi Bo in Youli.” San Yisheng, along with others, devised a tactic to bribe King Zhou, enabling King Wen to be free from jeopardy, eventually released and allowed to return to his homeland. King Wen is also credited with creating the Zhou Yi (I Ching) while he was imprisoned in Youli. According to the Autobiographical Notes of Tai Shi Gong in the Records of the Grand Historian, “in ancient times, when he was imprisoned in Youli, Xi Bo (King Wen) created the I Ching.”
The annihilation of Shang was followed by the establishment of the Zhou Dynasty, which adopted the enfeoffment system as the way to rule its vast territory. The initial enfeoffment started after King Wu destroyed Shang, whereas the large-scale enfeoffment took place when Duke of Zhou acted as a dutiful regent and during the reigns of King Cheng and King Kang. According to the Ru Xiao Pian (the Achievements of Confucianism) in the Xun Zi, “Duke of Zhou brought the entire country under complete control, set up seventy-one states, and among all the vassal state rulers, fifty-three were surnamed Ji”; and the 28th Year of the Reign of Duke Zhao of Lu in Zuo Zhuan (Master Zuo’s Spring and Autumn Annals) has it that “fifteen of (King Wen’s) brothers were invested with fiefdoms, and forty vassal state rulers were from the Ji family”, indicating that most of the lords of Zhou were descendants of King Wen, King Wu and Duke of Zhou, other lords included the relatives of the aforesaid Zhou rulers, their followers or the state lords that had paid allegiance to them as well as some tribal chieftains. The most important fiefdoms in the Western Zhou Dynasty included the following: Jiang Tai Gong (Duke Tai, surnamed Jiang) was enfeoffed to Qi, with Yingqiu as his capital; Duke of Zhou was enfeoffed to Lu, with Yan as his capital, and the duke sent his eldest son Bo Qin to the fiefdom; King Wen’s younger brother Kang Shu was enfeoffed to Wei, with Zhaoge as his capital; King Cheng’s younger brother Shu Yu was enfeoffed to Jin, with Tang as his capital; Duke of Zhao was enfeoffed to Yan, with Ji as his capital; King Zhou’s elder brother Wei Zi was enfeoffed to Song, with Shangqiu as his capital, etc. Such vassal states had the obligations to pay tribute to and have an audience on schedule with the Zhou royal court, and to dispatch troops to assist any expedition launched by the king of Zhou. The Wang Hui Jie (King’s Audience) in the Yi Zhou Shu (the Lost Book of Zhou) records the ceremony of King Cheng’s audience with the vassal state lords upon the completion of the establishment of the eastern capital of Luoyang, as well as the grand occasion of the numerous neighboring ethnic groups receiving an audience with the king of the imperial dynasty of Zhou.
The Zhou Yi (the Book of Changes) or I Ching is an ancient text of divination based upon the Eight Diagrams. The Eight Diagrams and divination originated very early, dating back to the Neolithic period. The Eight Diagrams’ divinatory symbols composed of numerals have been found in the extant oracle divination inscriptions. Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian has it that “King Wen evolved Zhou Yi when imprisoned”, i.e., while he was imprisoned by King Zhou of Shang, King Wen of Zhou transformed and improved the Eight Diagrams, which was evolved into the sixty-four hexagrams. At present, Zhou Yi is believed by most of the researchers to have been arranged by many a person over a long period of time during the Shang and Zhou dynasties.
The Zhou Yi is composed of two components, the “Jing” and the “Zhuan”. The “Jing” refers to Guaxiang (manifestation of a divinatory hexagram), Guaci (explanation of the meaning of different hexagrams) and Yaoci (six line statements). The two basic symbols of “—” and “--”, or the solid lines and the broken lines, represent yin and yang, respectively, which were referred to as “yang yao” and “yin yao”, which can form eight combination patterns when stacked in three layers, hence the Eight Diagrams, each of which represents a basic thing - qian for Heaven, kun for Earth, zhen for thunder, xun for wind, kan for water, li for fire, gen for mountain and dui for lake. When their various permutations are overlapped, 64 possible hexagrams can be formed. The “Zhuan” refers to the commentaries and interpretations of the Zhou Yi made by some post-Western Zhou scholars, which were compiled into the Yi Zhuan (collection of commentaries to the Zhou Yi), including ten chapters, such as Wen Yan, Xi Ci, Shuo Gua. Before the Song Dynasty (AD 960-1279), the Yi Zhuan was traditionally ascribed to Confucius; however, scholars since the Northern Song Dynasty have doubted the historicity of such a statement. In modern times, many scholars hold that the Yi Zhuan was written during the Warring States Period (476-221 BC), based on the summaries of the commentaries and interpretations made by predecessors.
As China’s philosophical crystallization created in ancient times, the Zhou Yi showcases the metaphysical relationship between Heaven and man, nature and society, had been extremely influential to the pre-Qin thoughts, and can well be deemed as the progenitor and origin of ancient Chinese dialectical thought.
Among the Five Hegemons (lord protector of feudal lords) of the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC), Duke Huan of Qi was the first to be recognized as the leader of the vassal state alliance. He rose to be a major regional power in the seventh year (679 BC) of his reign, and his hegemony lasted over 30 years in the Central Plains.
To accomplish his hegemony, Duke Huan appointed Guan Zhong, an outstanding politician, to be his prime minister. According to the Biographies of Guan Zhong and Yan Ying in the Records of the Grand Historian, “Thanks to the resourcefulness”, Duke Huan of Qi became the lord protector. Relying on Guan Zhong, Duke Huan rectified the state administration by setting up five official positions under the prime minister to assist the central administration, and establishing a state administrative system with the state ruler as the supreme administrator. The entire realm of the state was divided into 21 different village units, each carrying out a specific trade, including 6 villages of workers and merchants, and 15 villages of Shi (a social stratum between senior officials and common people). Military organizations were established in the various administrative levels. In the economic sector, Guan Zhong abolished the public land system and levied taxes according to the fertility degrees of the fields. As the State of Qi boasted both seas and mountains, Guan Zhong established the specialized salt agencies in charge of salt production, and the iron agencies to make farming tools, and minted coins to adjust the pricing. As a result, Qi became a major regional power with a strong army in a matter of a few years.
Having become the leader of the vassal alliance, under the slogan of “respecting the king and defending against the barbarian”, Duke Huan united, by taking advantage of the legitimate status of the royal court of Zhou, with the vassal states to resist Chu and Bei Di (northern nomads) that often threatened the Central Plains. As the lord protector, Duke Huan helped the neighboring states of Xing, Wei and North Yan against the troops of Rongdi (the non-Chinese tribes). Over 100 years later, Confucius said, “Without Guan Zhong, we might have had to be wearing disheveled hair, clad in the left-buttoned clothing and subject to foreign rule”, and he continued, “it was due to Guan Zhong that Duke Huan was able to assemble the feudal lords on numerous occasions without resorting to the use of his war chariots. Such was his goodness! ” After Guan Zhong and Duke Huan died, the latter’s sons fought against each other for the throne, and the hegemonic power shifted to the State of Jin.
Among the seven leading states during the Warring States Period (476-221 BC), Wei and Qi were the first to vie against each other for hegemony. Under Marquis Wen of Wei, Li Kui was appointed to be prime minister, and the state underwent reforms and was to first to become a regional power. Through reforms, the states of Qi and Qin also became powerful and were not reconciled to see Wei becoming a superpower. In addition, being not resigned to be dominated by Wei, the State of Zhao fostered an alliance with Qi and attacked Wei, a dependency of Wei in 354 BC. Wei dispatched its Senior General Pang Juan to lead troops against Zhao, and captured Handan, the capital of Zhao. Zhao sought assistance from Qi, which dispatched Tian Ji and Sun Bin to lead troops to help Zhao. Sun Bin devised the tactic of “besieging Wei to secure Zhao” and relived Zhao of besiegement by Wei. In 342 BC, Wei launched a massive expedition against Han, which pleaded Qi for rescue. Qi once again sent Tian Ji and Sun Bin to command troops to secure Han. Through the Battle of Maling, the troops of Wei were completely annihilated, Pang Juan committed suicide, and Shen, the crown prince of Wei, was taken prisoner. Subsequently, under the joint attacks by Han, Qi, Chu and Qin from different directions, Wei was repeatedly defeated, and eventually had to acknowledge allegiance to Qi.
By taking advantage of the weakening of Wei, Qin advanced east, causing the confrontation between the two leading powers of Qin and Qi. In 288 BC, King Zhaoxiang of Qin made an agreement with King Min of Qi to claim to be kings simultaneously, with one being the Western King, and the other the Eastern King. Senior General Yue Yi of the State of Yan, in alliance with Qin, Chu, Han, Zhao, Wei, etc., launched a massive punitive expedition against Qi, and captured over 40 cities of the latter, the vitality of which was therefore greatly undermined, and the confrontation between Qi and Qin also came to an end. Afterwards, Chu, Han, Wei, Yan and Qi declined successively. Zhao was defeated by Qin in the Battle of Changping, and some 400,000 soldiers of Zhao, who had surrendered, were buried alive by their enemy, and hence, Zhao declined. Qin embarked on the way to unite the other six states.
Shang Yang, a native of Wei, whose original name was Gongsun Yang, later was enfeoffed by Duke Xiao of Qin to Shang (today’s Shang County, Shaanxi Province), and therefore, he is also referred to as “Shang Yang”. Shang Yang first went to Wei for shelter, but was left in a lowly position, so he came to Qin. Duke Xiao was overjoyed after having had a conversation with Shang Yang, and put the latter in an important position to conduct reforms.
In 359 BC, in his first reform, Shang Yang put forward: 1. To reward military exploits, weaken the hereditary system for ministerial ranks and emoluments; 2. To rearrange the household register and group households by fives and by tens, with each supervising the other; 3. To reward farming and weaving. Shang Yang’s new reform lasted 10 years and achieved remarkable results. As a result, Qin became increasingly prosperous and powerful.
In 350 BC, Qin moved its capital from Yong to Xianyang, and Shang Yang started conducting his second reform: 1. To implement the county system; 2. To abolish the “nine squares” land system, reward the cultivation of unsettled lands and wastelands, acknowledge the private ownership of land, and levy taxes according the the acreage of land; 3. To uniform measures and weights; 4. Pursuant to Li Kui’s Book of Law, to formulate the law of Qin, which is to be promulgated for implementation throughout the country.
In 338 BC, Duke Xiao of Qin deceased, and the prince crown was enthroned as King Huiwen of Qin. Shang Yang was falsely accused of “fomenting to rebel” by informers, including Prince Qian, leaving Shang Yang having no choice but to flee to his own fiefdom, where his resistance was defeated, and was executed by Chelie (dismemberment by being fastened to five chariots, cattle or horses and being torn asunder). Because Shang Yang’s reforms had long been popular among the people, “although Shang Yang had perished, the law of Qin did not fail”. Shang Yang’s proposals were still being implemented even after his demise. Qin became an advanced, powerful state at the time, and then went on the road to annex the other six states, promote the Qin systems and build a feudal empire.
“Wearing Hu Dress and Shooting on Horseback” was a military reform conducted by King Wuling of the State of Zhao during the Warring States Period. Situated in Northern China, Zhao was adjacent to the nomads, including Dong (East) Hu, Lin (woods) Hu, Lou Fan, Xiongnu (the Huns). Seeing that those “Hu people” (the northern barbarian tribes) were good at horse riding and archery, with extremely highly flexible mobility, King Wuling was determined to implement the military reforms featuring “Wearing the Hu Attire and Shooting from Horseback”. Chariots and infantry had always constituted the main body of the military forces of the various states in the Central Plains at the time, with armored soldiers wearing loose robes, huge sleeves and heavy, cumbersome armors, which were very inconvenient for mountain operations. However, King Wuling’s reform proposals were strongly opposed by the conservative forces of the nobility. The king had to repeatedly debate with them and tried to convince them to oblige by taking the lead to wear the Hu dress and practice horseback archery.
King Wuling’s military reform measures included: 1. To replace the previous the clothing featuring wide robes and large sleeves with the Hu styled short, close-fitting attire, use a leather belt, and wear leather boots so as to adapt to horseback training and operations; 2. To build up a cavalry, recruit cavalrymen and archers; 3. To set up “cavalry quarters” and construct military fortified points specialized in training cavalry.
As the military strength of Zhao had been greatly bolstered through “wearing the Hu attire and shooting from horseback”, it soon annihilated the State of Zhongshan first, and then inhibited the southern states of Wei and Qi, drove the three Hu nomads away to further north, and “expanded its territory by one thousand li”. King Wuling built up, through “wearing the Hu attire and shooting from horseback”, a strong cavalry, the superiority of which were extremely influential to the development of the armies of the various states in the Central Plains. Ever since then, the various states gradually used cavalry to replace chariot troops as their main forces. “Wearing the Hu attire and shooting from horseback” can be well deemed as an important military reform in ancient China.
Confucius’s given name was Qiu and his courtesy name was Zhongni. Born in Zouyi (modern Qufu, Shandong) in the State of Lu, he was the most important thinker, educator and statesman in ancient China, as well as the founder of Confucianism.
As a child, Confucius lived in poverty. He had had a few minor positions, including Weili (a granary caretaker) for the aristocratic Ji family of the Lu state. After the age of 30, he began to recruit disciples and gave lectures, and at the age of 50, he participated in government and political affairs, and rose to the position of High Commissioner of Justice of the Lu state. At 55, when marginalized in the political arena, Confucius began a journey with his disciples to various neighboring countries, and traveled for 14 years before eventually returning home to his native Lu state at the age of 68, and then he devoted his last years to the cultural and educational cause until he died 73.
Confucius’s profession is to teach students and was one of the first people to set up a private school. He recruited his disciples indiscriminately, without considering their family background, age or wealth, and he espoused “providing education for all people without discrimination”. Legend has it that he received a total of 3,000 disciples, among whom “72 were virtuous and worthy”. He asserted that “he who excels in learning can be an official”. He taught his students four subjects, including “morality and conduct”, “rhetoric and speech”, “government affairs” and “literary studies”.
Confucius conducted teaching and scholastic research as well. In his last years, he selected, edited and rearranged, amongst a large quantity of ancient books and records that had been handed down, the Book of Songs, the Book of History, the Book of Rites, the Book of Music, the Book of Changes, and the Spring and Autumn Annals, which were referred to as the “Six Arts”, or the “Six Classics” in the Han Dynasty (206 BC - AD 220), which constitute the most important classics of Confucianism. Confucius’s thoughts are mainly collected in the Confucian Analects, which contains Confucius’s deeds and activities recorded by his disciples.
Laozi was one of the most influential thinkers in ancient China. According to the Biographies of Laozi and Han Fei in the Records of the Grand Historian, “Laozi, surnamed Li, named Er, courteously named Dan, was a native of Qurenli village,Lixiang Township, Kuxian county of the Chu state”, and seeing that Laozi was passing through the Hangu Pass and was soon going to live as a hermit, the pass superintendent Yin Xi courteously requested him to write the Laozi (Tao Te Ching).
Composed of 5,000 Chinese characters only, the Laozi expounds a comparatively complete ideological system. In his view of nature, Laozi asserted that, being the origin of the world, “Tao” brings forth all things in the universe. In terms of epistemology, Laozi initiated the conscious, epistemological method, and held that this world should be consciously experienced and cognized. Laozi’s paramount contribution to ancient Chinese philosophy was that he put forward the dialectical thought. He pointed out that, being opposite and complementary, all things are the unity of opposites and can be transformed into each other, for instance, “being and not-being grow out of one another; difficult and easy complete one another; long and short test one another; high and low determine one another; pitch and mode give harmony to one another; front and back give sequence to one another”; “Misery! - happiness is to be found by its side; Happiness! - misery lurks beneath it. Who knows what either will come to in the end?”, among others.
Laozi was opposed to the harsh and ruthless and asserted the administration of state affairs through “letting things take their own course”. He argued, “the people do not fear death, why threaten them with it?” He also disclosed the moral hypocrisy and fraudulence of the the ruling system. He held in esteem the conservative, backward social idea of “small territory and population”, lauded “ignorance without desire” and “keeping records by tying knots”, and yearned for the social life characterized by “a neighboring sate within sight, and the voices of the fowls and dogs should be heard all the way from it to us, but I would make the people to old age, even to death, not have any intercourse with it”.
Zhuangzi, named Zhou, is a native of Meng (northeast of modern Shangqiu, Henan) of the Song state during the Warring States Period. He once served as a minor official in Qiyuan of Meng, living in the time of King Hui of Liang and King Xuan of Qi (late 4th century BC). Once, King Wei of Chu sent messengers to see him with expensive gifts, promising to make him his chief minister, but Zhuangzi answered, “I had rather amuse and enjoy myself in the midst of a filthy ditch than be subject to the rules and restrictions in the court of a sovereign. I have determined never to take office, but prefer the enjoyment of my own free will.” Zhuangzi lived in poverty, and he once went to see the king of the State of Wei, wearing his patched coarse clothing and worn-out shoes tied with cords. In his last years, he had to make a living by making straw sandals, leading an impoverished intellectual life and “writing books with over 100,000 characters”. The extant Zhuangzi is comprised of 33 chapters, with the seven “Inner Chapters” being generally accepted as having been actually written by Zhuangzi himself, while the “Outer Chapters” and “Miscellaneous Chapters” by his disciples or later authors.
Zhuangzi further developed the “Tao” put forward by Laozi, stressing that man is an integral part of nature, “Heaven, Earth and I come into being together, and all things and I are one”. Having keenly observed the miseries of human life, Zhuangzi put forward “Xiao Yao” (carefree wandering) as a state to be pursued in one’s life, for instance, he exemplified in his “Xiao Yao You” (Free and Unfettered Travel) - In the Northern Ocean there is a fish, called Kun (leviathan), which is no one knows how many thousand li in size. The fish transforms into a bird, called Roc, whose back spreads over no one knows how many thousand li. When Roc flies, “it flaps along the water for 3,000 li, and then it soars upon a whirlwind to the height of 90,000 li”, for a flight lasting six months on its way to the Southern Ocean, which is the Celestial Lake. However, the soaring of the roc still needs the help of its long wings and the mighty wind, and the genuine “carefree wondering” believed by Zhuangzi would be: by following the law of nature, master the changes of the six factors (wind, cold, summer heat, humidity, dryness and fire) in nature so as to be able to wonder along the infinite realm.
Mozi, named Di, was the founder of Mohism during the Warring States Period. His thoughts are recorded in the Mo Zi, or the Mohist Canon, which was arranged by his disciples.
The ideological system created by Mozi consists of ten major components: “Universal Love”, “Non-Aggression”, “Exalting the Virtuous”, “Exalting unity”, “Moderation in Expenditure”, “Moderation in Funerals”, “Against Music”, “Against Fatalism”, “Will of Heaven” and “Explaining Ghosts”, among which “Universal Love” is the core of Mohism. Universal love is to love all the people, and treat others as ourselves. Cherishing universal love is to be opposed to wars, namely “Non-Agression”. “Exalting the Virtuous” suggests that a sovereign practice meritocracy, without considering the hierarchy or family background of the worthy people. “Exalting Unity” is to identify oneself with the superior on the precondition of “Exalting the Virtuous”. “Moderation in Expenditure”, “Moderation in Funerals” and “Against Music” are to advocate austerity, oppose the extravagance and corruption of the aristocrats, and object to elaborate funerals. Mozi held that both music and dancing are sybaritic, so he was “against music”. “Against Fatalism” is to be opposed to predestination, and he believed that “an official shall not remain in power and position forever and a commoner shall not be subject to a permanently lowly status, either”. But he advocated “Reverence for Heaven”, as Heaven has its own will and can reward the virtuous and punish the wicked. and therefore, people must be obedient to the will of Heaven. In addition, he asserted that ghosts and deity did exist, and argued that people should “worship ghosts”.
Mohists were also well-established in logic, mathematics and some other natural sciences.
Mencius, named Ke, a native of the State of Zou (modern Zoucheng City, Shandong Province) in the middle of the Warring States Period. Mencius was a disciple of Confucius’s grandson, Zi Si. Mencius is considered one of the most prominent representatives of Confucianism, and his eponymous work, the Mencius, has been handed down.
Mencius put forward the theory of “human nature has an innate tendency toward goodness”, which means that everyone is born with a good nature, and he believed that each and every individual was innately endowed with “the feeling of compassion”, “the sense of shame”, “the feeling of deference” and “the sense of right and wrong”, which were the sprouts or foundation of benevolence, righteousness, propriety and wisdom. He advocated the doctrine of the implementation of “benevolent governance”, and held that a sovereign was supposed to “extend grace” and conduct the extension of his the innate “goodness”, which is “benevolence”. He asserted that, to perform the “benevolent governance”, the people must be allowed to own their permanent property. “the people who have permanent property will also have permanent confidence, whereas those who do not have permanent property will not have permanent confidence. Those who have no permanent confidence will indulge themselves in evildoing and pursue nothing but their self-interest.” The “permanent property” means the property that can be possessed for a long period of time, and the “permanent confidence” refers to stable moral values and code of conduct, which would request a sovereign to make regulations on the people’s property, and ensure that the people own their own land. The so-called “a five-mu house” and “a 100-mu farming field” were the due “permanent property” envisioned by Mencius for each individual household. Mencius also brought forth his political thought - “The people are the most important element in a state, next are the gods of land and grains, and the least is the ruler himself”; advocated the outlooks of value featuring “sacrificing one’s life for the sake of righteousness”, and lauded the standard of morality of “neither riches nor honors can corrupt him, neither poverty nor humbleness can make him swerve from principles, and neither forces nor threats can subdue him. Such a man is a great one!”
Living in the late Warring States Period, Han Fei was a nobleman of the State of Han. He and Li Si were fellow disciples of Xunzi, and he preached the legalist philosophy. Han Fei had repeatedly petitioned and remonstrated King An of Han about taking the necessary measures to enrich the state and increase its military power, but his advice was not accepted. Therefore, he retreated and started writing books and establishing his own theories. When his theories were passed on to Qin, where King Zheng, or the future Qin Shi Huang, First Emperor of Qin (259-210 BC) was preparing for unifying the entire country. Having read Han Fei’s Gu Fen (Solitary Wrath) and Wu Du (Five Social Groups), the King of Qin was full of admiration for the author, “Alas! If I could see and befriend this man, I would be happy to die without any regret!” So the king launched a war against Han, coercing the latter to hand over Han Fei. When Han Fei arrived in Qin in 233 BC, the overjoyed king of Qin conversed with him day and night. However, Han Fei’s arrival aroused jealousy from Li Si, who framed Han Fei with a calumny. Consequently, Han Fei was imprisoned; Li Si even sent him poison and forced him to take his own life. Although Han Fei had deceased, his thoughts were to be adhered to by Qin Shi Huang, Li Si and Emperor Qin II, and became the guiding ideology of the Qin Dynasty.
Han Fei put forward a complete set of autocratic monarchy theory with a combination of the law, political trickery and authority. He held that the law was the sole criterion to handle administrative affairs; the political trickery was the means to be used by the sovereign to control and manipulate his subjects; and the authority was “the ruler’s strength of muscles and bones” as well as the precondition for implementing the law and political trickery, and none of the aforesaid three elements could be omitted, and must used in combination.
The Book of Songs or the Classic of Poetry was China’s first poetry collection, comprising a total of 305 poems composed over 500-odd years from the early Western Zhou to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period. Generally referred to as the “Three Hundred Poems”, the anthology is deemed as the starting point and or source of the Chinese poetry. Originally entitled the “Poetry”, which was later compiled by Confucius and became one of the five canonical classics of Confucianism, and it is therefore known as the Classic of Poetry. The collection consists of three components, i.e., the Feng (Airs), Ya (Hymns) and Song (Eulogies). The Feng is also referred to as Guo Feng (Airs of the States), i.e., the airs of the 15 states, which contains a large number of lyrics of ancient folk songs, constituting the essence of the Book of Songs. The Ya is classified into the Lessor Court Hymns and the Major Court Hymns, most of which are the works composed by the nobility for praising the merits of their kings. The Song consists of the Eulogies of Zhou, the Eulogies of Lu and the Eulogies of Shang, the contents of which tend to be hymns used for sacrificial rites or grand courtly panegyrics lauding merits and virtues.
The Book of Songs has reached an extremely high artistic level, the expression techniques or literary devices employed by which have been summarized by predecessors as the Fu (straightforward narratives), Bi (similes or explicit comparisons) and Xing (implied comparisons, namely describing other things or scenarios first to lead to the objects to be praised). The Book of Songs had already been extremely influential in the Spring and Autumn Period. Sentences of the book were frequently quoted by dukes, ministers and other high-ranking officials on political and diplomatic occasions to express their viewpoints, attitudes or sentiments. The Book of Songs have exerted a profound and lasting influence upon the later generations.
Qu Yuan, named Ping, was a great patriotic poet of ancient China, and his works include the Li Sao (On Encountering Sorrow), Tian Wen (Heavenly Questions), Jiu Ge (Nine Songs), Jiu Zhang (Nine Pieces), etc. Qu Yuan was a member of the Chu nobility, living in the time of King Huai of Chu. In the beginning, Qu Yuan was trusted and put in an important position by the king, and rose to the position of Zuo Tu (Left Minister), in charge of issuing decrees and orders and participating in the internal political affairs and diplomacy of Chu. He proposed to reform Chu’s politics through the formulation of new new laws and orders, and to resist against Qin through an alliance with Qi, demanded that “the virtuous and the worthy are to be recommended and conferred upon with official positions, the rules and regulations are to be followed with due impartiality” (see Li Sao), namely the virtuous and the talented should be selected to take office, who would administer state affairs per the criteria. However, slandered by Zi Lan (the youngest son of King Huai), Zheng Xiu (the favored consort of King Huai), Minister Shangguan and other corrupt nobility members, Qu Yuan was relieved from his official post and banished by King Huai who listened to the calumnies. Upon the succession of King Qingxiang, Qu Yuan was exiled again. When Chu was completely defeated by Qin and the Chu capital, Ying, was captured, seeing that his country being fallen, his home lost and the people plunged into misery and suffering, the extremely desperate poet committed suicide by diving into the Miluo River.
Comprising over 2,400 characters, the Li Sao poem, which is deemed as the representative masterpiece by Qu Yuan, is the longest lyric in ancient Chinese literature. Starting by writing about his own life experience and morality, the poet displayed his faithful aspirations in pursuing lofty ideals as well as his profound and sincere patriotic sentiments, and also disclosed the political corruption and the rampancy of the dark factions in the State of Chu. While having inherited the excellent traditions of the Book of Songs, Qu Yuan’s poetic works initiated the creation road characterized by realism and romanticism, and has exerted a significant influence upon the development of Chinese literature.
The Master Sun’s Art of War, aka Sun Wu’s Military Strategy. Sun Wu, courtesy name: Chang Qing, was born in the aristocratic Tian family of the State of Qi in the late Spring and Autumn Period. He traveled from Qi to Wu, where he presented himself to King Helu of Wu, together with his 13-chapter treatise on military matters. Having read and studied the text, the king was profuse in praise, and he was so impressed that he made Sun Wu his senior general, and subsequently succeeded in “defeating the western power of Chu, challenging the northern powers of Qi and Jin, and subduing the southern state of Yue”.
Characterized by a dialect thought, the Art of War regards all military matters as a whole, stresses the command of the “Jie” (chances) and “Du” (extent) in the transformation of matters, is adapt in grasping the essence from the phenomenon and opposed to inaction and passiveness, and lays emphasis on giving play to man’s subjective initiative. What the entire Art of War stresses are the methods and means to win over the enemy, as well as a great variety of stratagems.
With its great and profound thought and its voluminous and meticulous contents, the Master Sun’s Art of War has been beyond compare in the midst of the treatises by military theorists, and greatly influential to the formation and development of the later military theories in all the Chinese history. Therefore, it is acclaimed as the “progenitor of the texts on military matters over hundred of generations” and the “origin of military treatises for thousands of ages”.
The Master Sun’s Art of War, aka Sun Wu’s Military Strategy. Sun Wu, courtesy name: Chang Qing, was born in the aristocratic Tian family of the State of Qi in the late Spring and Autumn Period. He traveled from Qi to Wu, where he presented himself to King Helu of Wu, together with his 13-chapter treatise on military matters. Having read and studied the text, the king was profuse in praise, and he was so impressed that he made Sun Wu his senior general, and subsequently succeeded in “defeating the western power of Chu, challenging the northern powers of Qi and Jin, and subduing the southern state of Yue”.
Characterized by a dialect thought, the Art of War regards all military matters as a whole, stresses the command of the “Jie” (chances) and “Du” (extent) in the transformation of matters, is adapt in grasping the essence from the phenomenon and opposed to inaction and passiveness, and lays emphasis on giving play to man’s subjective initiative. What the entire Art of War stresses are the methods and means to win over the enemy, as well as a great variety of stratagems.
With its great and profound thought and its voluminous and meticulous contents, the Master Sun’s Art of War has been beyond compare in the midst of the treatises by military theorists, and greatly influential to the formation and development of the later military theories in all the Chinese history. Therefore, it is acclaimed as the “progenitor of the texts on military matters over hundred of generations” and the “origin of military treatises for thousands of ages”.
The Dujiangyan irrigation system or the Dujiangyan Weir is a well-renowned water conservancy project, the construction of which was headed by the Shu Governor Li Bing and his son Erlang during the reign of King Zhao of the State of Qin. The system’s infrastructure is located on the Minjiang River, to the west of Guanxian County. Originally the Minjiang rushed down from the northwestern portion of Sichuan, making the stretch below Guanxian prone to flooding, which was to be alternated by droughts.In 250 BC when the father and son started harnessing the Minjiang, they first gouged a gap from the Mount Yulei located to the east of the Minjiang and to the west of Guanxian, introducing the river water to irrigate farmlands, and the gap was referred to as the “Baopingkou” (the Bottle-Neck Channel), and the bourock detached from Mt. Yulei, the “Detached Bourock”. As the terrain of Baopingkou was rather high, the flow rate of the water distributed by the channel was not large enough, and did not play a big role in either flood diversion or irrigation. Seeing this, Li Bing and his son led the people to build a levee in the middle of the river, splitting the river into the inner and outer streams, which were blocked by the fence-like, movable wooden tripods known as the Ma Cha. When the water rose, all the Ma Cha in the inner and outer streams was opened up for flood discharge, whereas in the dry season, the Ma Cha in the outer stream would be blocked so as to elevate the water level in the inner stream and divert the water to the Baopingkou channel to irrigate farmlands. The Dujiangyan irrigation system not only solved the Minjiang’s flooding once and for all, but also ensured a regular and bountiful harvest in the over 3 million mu (200,000 ha.) farmlands of the Chengdu Plains despite drought or excessive rain, enabling the Chengdu Plains to become the well-renowned “Nature’s Storehouse”, or the land of plenty. The Dujiangyan Weir ensured smooth flow of the Minjiang, and promoted the development of navigation. The Dujiangyan irrigation system turned the previous flooding calamities into water benefits, and is still in use today. Li Bing’s and his son’s “official term benefiting an entire region” has won them an enduring, commendable reputation.
In 238 BC, the 22-year-old King Ying Zheng of Qin, who took over the reigns of government upon coming of age, put Minister Li Si and General Wei Liao in important roles, planning the maneuvers to annex the other six states. During the 10-year long unification war launched by Qin, the State of Han was annihilated, in 230 BC, the Wei state, in 225 BC, the Chu state in 224 BC, the states of Zhao and Yan, in 222 BC, and eventually the Qi state in 221 BC.
The historical significance of Qin Shi Huang, First Emperor of Qin’s unification of China: 1. Through wars to annex the other six states, Qin succeeded in unifying the country and establishing the first unified centralized feudal dynasty in the Chinese history; 2. It unified the area surrounding the Nanling Mountains and the southwestern barbarian tribes, unleashed punitive expeditions against the nomad Xiongnu, or the Huns; 3. It abolished the enfeoffment system, and implemented the system of prefectures and counties throughout the country and; 4. It unified currency, weights and measures and language, implementing “the unified wheel spacing, the unified written script”.
Upon the unification of the six states, Qin implemented the systems of emperor and centralized bureaucracy, abolished the enfeoffment, promoted the prefecture and county system, and established the administrative setup characterized by the two-tier local administrative units of prefecture and county being directly under the jurisdiction of the central government. The implementation of the system of prefectures and counties laid the foundation for a unified country with multiple nationalities.
Upon the unification of the country, Emperor Qin Shi Huang promoted the unification and standardization of script, declaring the Xiao Zhuan, or the small seal script of Qin to be the unified written script. In addition to the current seal script, the emperor ordered Cheng Miao to arrange the Li Shu, the official script, which was to be promoted across the country.
In the seventh lunar month of the first year (209 BC) during the reign of Qin Emperor II, the imperial court enlisted the impoverished inhabitants of Luzuo to settle in and garrison Yuyang (modern Miyun, Beijing). Over 900 garrison soldiers, including Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, were dispatched to garrison the border areas around Yuyang. However, they were stopped halfway in the Daze village in Qixian County (in modern Suxian County, Anhui) by flooding from a severe rainstorm, and it was impossible for them to make it on time. The harsh Qin laws mandated “execution for those who showed up late” for government jobs, regardless the nature of the delay. The band leader Chen Sheng went to discuss with Wu Guang about their dilemma of expecting death in either fleeing or uprising. Figuring that they were doomed anyway, they would rather risk their lives fighting for the political power than face execution. They also believed that “the country’s people had tolerated Qin so long” that, if revolted by this opportunity, the country’s “multitudes should respond”. So they killed the two escort officers and staged an anti-Qin uprising, with Chen Sheng claiming himself as a general, and Wu Guang, his deputy. The insurrectionary army successively stormed and captured Daze village, Qixian County, and the army expanded rapidly. By the time when they captured Chen (modern Huaiyang, Henan), the onetime capital of Chu, they were already in possession of six or seven hundred war chariots, with over one thousand cavalrymen and thousands of foot soldiers. By then, Chen Sheng “made himself the king, with a reigning title of Zhang Chu”.
Upon claiming himself to be a king, Chen Sheng sent Wu Guang to lead the main forces to attack Xingyang, and dispatched other insurrectionaries to capture Jiujiang in the south, Nanyang in the southwest, and territory of the former Wei state in the north; he also appointed Zhou Wen as a general to lead troops to assault Guanzhong. Zhou Wen committed suicide after he was defeated by Zhang Han, Wu Guang was assassinated by his own men, and Chen Sheng was assassinated by his chariot driver Zhuang Jia in Xiachengfu (northwest of modern Mengcheng County, Anhui). The peasant uprising led by Chen Sheng and Wu Guang ultimately failed.
Responding to the uprising of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, Xiang Yu and Liu Bang, among others, also rose in arms. Through the Battle of Julu, Xiang Yu annihilated the indispensable main forces depended upon by the Qin Dynasty. However, Liu Bang arrived in Guanzhong prior to Xiang Yu and accepted the surrender of Zi Ying, the Qin emperor, leading to the eventual demise of the Qin Dynasty. Later, Xiang Yu arrived in Guanzhong with his army and Liu Bang got through the Hongmen Banquet due to his humble manner. Xiang Yu made himself the self-styled the King of Western Chu and Liu Bang was labeled King of Han living in Sichuan, Chongqing and Gansu. Xiang Yu had labeled 18 Kings.
Soon after, Tian Rong claimed himself as the King of Qi, and rose in arms in an anti-Chu alliance with Peng Yue. Pursuant to Han Xin’s strategem, Liu Bang secretly advanced to Chencang, occupied Guanzhong, and led troops to capture Pengcheng, Xiang Yu’s capital, while the latter was busying himself attacking Tian Rong, the self-claimed King of Qi. Xiang Yu hurried back with some 30,000 crack troops, defeating Liu Bang, who fell back upon Xingyang. On the one hand, Liu Bang sent envoys to make peace negotiations with Xiang Yu so as to gain a respite; on the other hand, by using a strategem, Liu Bang succeeded in sowing discord between Xiang Yu and his chief counselor Fan Zeng, who did leave Xiang Yu. In the territory of former Liang, Peng Yue assaulted Chu’s troops and blocked the latter’s food transport route; Senior General Han Xin captured former Qi and Yan, threatening the Chu troops from the east and; Liu Bang collaborated with Ying Bu, or King Jiujiang, who was stationed in the south. Consequently, the onetime powerful Xiang Yu’s strength was considerably weakened, with a situation going from bad to worse. In 203 BC, Xiang Yu pleaded with Han for peace, the two sides agreed to cease hostilities with Honggou (an ancient canal) as the boundary, and Xiang Yu led his troops to retreat eastward. However, Liu Bang dispatched his troops to chase Xiang Yu and besieged the latter in Gaixia. Eventually, the completely defeated Xiang Yu managed to break through the encirclement and arrived in the Wujiang River, where he committed suicide. In the second lunar month of 202 BC, Liu Bang was enthroned in the south of the Fanshui River near Dingtao, with the reigning title of Han, in the ensuing fifth month, he moved his capital to Chang’an, and established the Han Dynasty (202 BC - AD 220).
The Song of Great Wind was composed by Liu Bang. In the twelfth lunar month of 203 BC, Liu Bang unleashed a campaign against Xiang Yu in Gaixia (in modern Guzhen County, Anhui), forcing the latter to commit suicide by the Wujiang River (northeast of modern Hexian County, Anhui). As per the advice made by his counselors, such as Zhang Liang and Chen Ping, Liu Bang appointed Han Xin, Ying Bu, Peng Yue, among others, as kings, in exchange for their support, so as to triumph over Xiang Yu during the Chu-Han Contention. In 202 BC, upon the establishment of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang started eliminating the non-Liu vassal states. In the seventh lunar month of the twelfth year of Han (195 BC), Ying Bu, the King Huainan, plotted a rebellion, and in the ensuing tenth lunar month, Liu Bang vanquished Ying Bu. When he returned in triumph, the emperor dropped by his hometown, summoned his elders and brethren to a banquet. In a state of drunken ecstasy, Emperor Gaozu played the Zhu (a 13-stringed ancient Chinese musical instrument) and sang the Song of Great Wind - “As the mighty wind blows, clouds drift overhead; having exerted my sovereign prowess within the four seas, I have now returned to my hometown. Oh, how can I obtain the brave warriors to defend my entire territory?! ” In the genre of the Chu songs, the lyrics reflected the emperor, who had accomplished the most dominant position and returned, clad in the finest attire, to his hometown, was eagerly aspiring for enlisting the virtuous and worthy talents. The ambitious and magnificent song has won the emperor a reputation with enduring charm.
During the reigns of Emperors Wen and Jing of the Han Dynasty, they continued the policies of reduction the burden of taxation and cost, incentives for production and the rehabilitation of the people, which were adopted at the beginning of the Han Dynasty. Emperor Wen issued several imperial orders to encourage and urge local authorities to boost agriculture, breeding and cultivation, and to encourage farmers to develop production. At the same time, the emperor also lowered the tax rates, and issued an order to reduce and exempt the land tax. In criminal punishments, the crimes of inappropriate discussions about the government and policies and the crime of guilt by association were abolished, and the form of corporal punishment was also abolished. Emperor Wen sought to recruit talent, reformed the appointment system of officials, and set no barriers for the choice and appointment of talent. Emperor Wen also led by example to be thrifty and did not allow the nobles and officials to randomly levy from the people and tried to reduce the burdens of the ordinary people. Therefore, during his rule, the Western Han Dynasty became stable, and society became prosperous and the people became richer.
When Emperor Wen died, his son, Emperor Jing, ascended to the throne. The new emperor continued to implement Emperor Wen’s policies on agricultural development. After his enthronement, Emperor Jing was thrifty and showed his love to the people, and offered opportunities for the people to rehabilitate by lowering the land tax to one-thirtieth of the farmland output. He also vigorously constructed the water conservancy projects to facilitate agricultural production, and abolished some crimes and mitigated some punishments, including the whipping punishment. During his reign, he succeeded in quelling uprisings of the seven states including the Wu and Chu, ordered that princes could be conferred the title of kings and could only collect taxes but could not participate in the political and administrative affairs, and cracked down on separated regimes and consolidated the power of the central government.
Emperors Wen and Jing ruled for about 40 years, and they reversed the trend of backward economy and social turmoil at the beginning of the Han Dynasty. During their reigns, a prosperous social landscape was formed, in which “officials diligently performed their duties, the people worked hard and happily, bumper harvests were reported and grain output increased annually”, and “the country maintained peace both at home and with neighboring states, every family was getting richer and richer, and it was a prosperity that few of the later generations could possibly attain.” So, in the Han Dynasty, the country was prosperous and strong, and the people were richer and lived happily.
Liu Che, or Emperor Wu, was the fifth emperor of the Han Dynasty, and he ruled for 54 years, was the emperor when the Han Dynasty was in its prime and prosperous years. He was the ruler with talent and vision, and was a man of military and civil achievements. He succeeded in building the Han Dynasty into the then strongest and most powerful country.
On the political front, he issued the Tui En Ling ordinance, which was meant to weaken the power of the vassal states which were conferred and set up at the beginning of the Han Dynasty, to strengthen the centralized power and the supervision system. On the economic front, the emperor stressed the importance of agriculture and gave little importance to the development of commerce. He rectified the fiscal system, issued the Suan Min and Gao Min ordinances on taxation on craftsmen and punishment on craftsmen tax evasion so as to collect asset taxes from craftsmen and businessmen and to punish those dishonest merchants. The emperor also issued orders to bring the salt and iron business under the official monopoly, forbade the vassal states to mint coins, ordered to unify the mintage and use of the Wuzhu coins. Emperor Wu ordered the creation of the official ranks mainly responsible for regulating and controlling prices, and the official departments responsible for operating transport and trade businesses, and these measures helped strengthen the economic power of the country. Emperor Wu ordered the massive construction of water conservancy projects and the relocation of some people to the northwest to reclaim farmland for agricultural production. In terms of the military, the emperor reformed the military system, and dispatched Wei Qing and Huo Qubing to fight against the Huns. The Han Dynasty army finally succeeded in the war and the Huns were no longer militarily and financially capable of challenging the Han Dynasty, and this helped ensure the safety, peace and stability at the northwestern border regions and the whole country. On the diplomatic front, Emperor Wu sent Zhang Qian to the western regions. Zhang maintained close liaison with the Darouzhi state, opened up the northwestern regions, helped build the famous Silk Road, and developed and strengthened the economic and cultural exchanges between China and the west. In the northeastern regions, the emperor dispatched army to suppress Korea under the rule of Wei Man. In 108 BC, in the regions that used to be under the rule of Wei Man, four prefectures -- Xuantu, Lelang, Zhenfan and Lintun -- were set up. In the southern regions, Emperor Wu conquered the Nanyue state, dispatched army to the southwestern tribe states, and gradually brought the states of Yelang and Dian as well as many tribes to the embrace of the Han Dynasty. Emperor Wu was the emperor, after the unification of China by the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, who further expanded the territories of China, and helped lay the foundation for the vast territory of China.
In 138 BC, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, in an attempt to cooperate with the Darouzhi state to fight against the Huns, sent Zhang Qian on a diplomatic mission to the Western Regions. Zhang Qian and his entourage were detained by the Huns when they were passing the areas controlled by the Huns. The Huns applied the stick and carrot approach, but Zhang did not yield or surrender. After more than 10 years of being detained by the Huns, Zhang finally got a chance and escaped. After escaping to Dayuan (the Fergana region now), and then to Kangju (the Samarqand region now), Zhang finally arrived in the Darouzhi state. At that time, the people of the Darouzhi state had settled down near the upper reaches of the Amu Darya River, and were no longer willing to wage war with the Huns. Zhang Qian, after staying in the Darouzhi and Daxia states for more than one year, was captured again by the Huns when he was on his way back to the Han Dynasty. Taking the chance of a turmoil among the Huns, Zhang Qian finally escaped and returned Chang’an, and Emperor Wu honored him with a position of imperial palace counselor.
In 119 BC, Zhang Qian, leading a diplomatic delegation of 300 people, was on his second mission to the Western Regions. Two horses were prepared for each of the delegation. They also brought about 10,000 oxen and sheep with them, and carried “huge amounts” of gold, silk and other goods. When they arrived in the Wusun state, Zhang tried to persuade the Wusun people to unite with the Han Dynasty to jointly defend against the Huns, but the persuasion efforts failed. Then, Zhang Qian sent his deputies to the Dayuan, Kangju, Rouzhi and Daxia states. In 115 BC, Zhang Qian and dozens of envoys, sent by the Wusun state to accompany Zhang, returned to Chang’an. The deputies of Zhang Qian’s diplomatic mission, sent to other states, also returned to Chang’an. After that, the states in the Western Regions continued to send envoys to Chang’an, and the Western Han Dynasty also dispatched envoys to the states in the Western Regions, and the Han Dynasty and the states in the Western Regions established close diplomatic relations since then.
Zhang Qian, with his two diplomatic missions to the Western Regions, made outstanding contributions to the opening of the Silk Road between the Han Dynasty and the states in the Western Regions.
In 138 BC, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, in an attempt to cooperate with the Darouzhi state to fight against the Huns, sent Zhang Qian on a diplomatic mission to the Western Regions. Zhang Qian and his entourage were detained by the Huns when they were passing the areas controlled by the Huns. The Huns applied the stick and carrot approach, but Zhang did not yield or surrender. After more than 10 years of being detained by the Huns, Zhang finally got a chance and escaped. After escaping to Dayuan (the Fergana region now), and then to Kangju (the Samarqand region now), Zhang finally arrived in the Darouzhi state. At that time, the people of the Darouzhi state had settled down near the upper reaches of the Amu Darya River, and were no longer willing to wage war with the Huns. Zhang Qian, after staying in the Darouzhi and Daxia states for more than one year, was captured again by the Huns when he was on his way back to the Han Dynasty. Taking the chance of a turmoil among the Huns, Zhang Qian finally escaped and returned Chang’an, and Emperor Wu honored him with a position of imperial palace counselor.
In 119 BC, Zhang Qian, leading a diplomatic delegation of 300 people, was on his second mission to the Western Regions. Two horses were prepared for each of the delegation. They also brought about 10,000 oxen and sheep with them, and carried “huge amounts” of gold, silk and other goods. When they arrived in the Wusun state, Zhang tried to persuade the Wusun people to unite with the Han Dynasty to jointly defend against the Huns, but the persuasion efforts failed. Then, Zhang Qian sent his deputies to the Dayuan, Kangju, Rouzhi and Daxia states. In 115 BC, Zhang Qian and dozens of envoys, sent by the Wusun state to accompany Zhang, returned to Chang’an. The deputies of Zhang Qian’s diplomatic mission, sent to other states, also returned to Chang’an. After that, the states in the Western Regions continued to send envoys to Chang’an, and the Western Han Dynasty also dispatched envoys to the states in the Western Regions, and the Han Dynasty and the states in the Western Regions established close diplomatic relations since then.
Zhang Qian, with his two diplomatic missions to the Western Regions, made outstanding contributions to the opening of the Silk Road between the Han Dynasty and the states in the Western Regions.
The Imperial College was the highest learning institute of the Han Dynasty. In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, there were only privately-run schools and no officially-sponsored learning institutes. Emperor Wu adopted suggestions from Dong Zhongshu to set up the Imperial College in Chang’an, which had branches in five classics. The teachers of the college were called academicians, and the students were called the imperial students or academician’s disciples. The students mainly learned about the five classics which included the Poetry, the History, the Rites, the I Ching, and the Spring and Autumn. At the beginning, the number of academician’s disciples approved by Emperor Wu was 50, and by the time of Emperor Yuan of the Han, the number of disciples already increased to about 1,000, and about 3,000 by the time of Emperor Cheng, and more than 10,000 people by the time of Wang Mang.
In the early years of the Han Dynasty, the imperial court, for the purposes of restoring agricultural production and maintaining social stability, advocated the non-interference governance politically, and on the economic front, adopted the policies of minimal corvee and taxations, and in terms of culture and education, preached the teachings of Huangdi or Yellow Emperor and Lao Zi. During the reign of Emperor Wu, when the economy was greatly improved and developed, he strengthened the feudal imperial centralized rule, and applied the autocratic policy of “rejecting all other schools of thought and esteeming Confucianism only”. In particular, in selecting officials, the most fundamental requirement was that they had to be well-versed in Confucian classics and teachings. At that time, Confucianism was the only respected school of thought, and became the statutory thought and governing ideology of the dynasty.
Sima Qian, courtesy name Zichang, was born in Xiayang in Zuopingyi (now Hancheng in Shaanxi province). As influenced by his father, Sima Qian read intensively in history books and was well-versed in history, and learned the Old Text of the Book of Documents from Kong Anguo. When he was 20, he had already traveled extensively along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the central regions of the country, learned about the local customs and gathered local tales and fables. In 108 BC, Sima Qian inherited the title of grand astrologer and began to write the Records of the Grand Historian. Later, because he defended for Li Ling who was defeated by surrendered to the Huns, this made Emperor Wu angry, who ordered to put Sima Qian in prison with the punishment of castration. In 96 BC, Sima Qian was remitted and began to serve as grand historian again. He continued to compile the books of history, and with painstaking efforts for more than 10 years, completed the writing and compilation of the monumental Records of the Grand Historian.
In 130 chapters with 520,000 Chinese characters, the Records of the Grand Historian includes five sections -- Basic Annals, Hereditary Houses, Ranked Biographies, Treatises and Tables. The Records of the Grand Historian chronicles the history from the Yellow Emperor, onward to the Tang, Yu, Xia, Shang, Zhou and Qin dynasties, and to the early years of the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. The Records of the Grand Historian blazed new trail in the chronicled history, and could be considered China’s first book of history. In the Records of the Grand Historian, Sima Qian not only recorded the life and achievements of emperors and high-ranking officials, heroes and celebrities, but also different people at the grassroots level. In compiling the book, Sima Qian followed the principle of being factual and true and “not attempting to sing praises for anyone nor trying to hide the evil for anyone”. In narrating the historical figures and events, Sima Qian was impartial to any one or any event, praised those who deserved it and criticized those who should be criticized. In Sima Qian’s words, the Records of the Grand Historian was the true account of the past in his own language. Sima Qian was one of the greatest historians in the Chinese history, and the Records of the Grand Historian has an extremely important position in the study of China’s history.
The Fu was one of the major forms of literature in the Han Dynasty, and was a kind of rhymed prose. In the form of rhymed prose, it “was not sung but recited” to describe in details various forms of objects. “When describing the appearance of the objects, it seems that a sculpture of the objects is presented,” that was the role that the Fu played in literature. In the early years of the Han Dynasty, due to the influence of the Chu Ci (the Song of Chu) by Qu Yuan, the Li Sao style was very popular, and the most representative works included Lament for Qu Yuan by Jia Yi. During the reign of Emperor Wu, the Fu had its prime stage, and Sima Xiangru was the greatest Fu writer. His works, including Rhapsody on Sir Vacuous and Rhapsody on the Imperial Park, were the most representative and best-known works of the Fu during that era. After that, Yang Xiong was also a great Fu writer.
During the Han Dynasty, the Yuefu poems were also very popular. The imperial court set up a music bureau to gather folk songs, and composed them into the Yuefu poems. During the reign of Emperor Wu, the Yuefu music bureau extensively gathered folk songs. After improvement by literati and poets, these Yuefu poems, due to the fact that they originally were folk songs, could truthfully reflect the social and economic situation of the times and the people’s lives and sentiments. Many of them had complete story lines and were highly romantic, and were literary treasures with high social and artistic values. The Mulberry by Road was the best-known of the times.
Filial piety is considered the traditional virtue of the Chinese culture. It is said that filial piety was worshiped as early as the periods of Emperors Yao and Shun. According to the Canon of Yao, Book of Documents, Emperor Shun’s father was ignorant and stubborn, his stepmother was cruel and harsh and his brothers were arrogant and bullying, but Shun could get along well with the family members with his filial and obedient moves and activities.
The Classic of Filial Piety makes thorough and detailed explanations about the virtues and moral ethics of the Confucianism. It is said that the Classic of Filial Piety was written by Confucius, but as early as the Southern Song Dynasty, people already began to question whether or not it was written by Confucius, and believed that it was probably written by others. There were also people who believed that the Classic of Filial Piety was a collection of words and teachings from the disciples of Confucius, and was compiled into the book during the period of the Qin and Han dynasties. The Classic of Filial Piety claims that filial piety is the fundamental of all rules and principles and the core of all virtues. It advocates that filial piety should be the governing principle for all activities of the people.
The Classic of Filial Piety makes thorough and detailed explanations about the virtues and moral ethics of the Confucianism. It is said that the Classic of Filial Piety was written by Confucius, but as early as the Southern Song Dynasty, people already began to question whether or not it was written by Confucius, and believed that it was probably written by others. There were also people who believed that the Classic of Filial Piety was a collection of words and teachings from the disciples of Confucius, and was compiled into the book during the period of the Qin and Han dynasties. The Classic of Filial Piety claims that filial piety is the fundamental of all rules and principles and the core of all virtues. It advocates that filial piety should be the governing principle for all activities of the people.
Zhang Heng (AD 78 – 139), with Pingzi as his courtesy name and born in Xi’e of Nanyang (today’s Shiqiao town in Nanyang of Henan province), was a great astronomer, mathematician, writer and inventor during the Eastern Han Dynasty.
During the Han Dynasty, there were three kinds of schools of thought about the universe -- the Gaitian school, the Huntian school and the Xuanye school. Zhang Heng was a representative of the Huntian school. Zhang Heng not only paid attention to the study of astronomical theories, but also the research and development of mechanical instruments. Zhang Heng designed the water-powered armillary sphere as well as the seismograph.
During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the armillary sphere Zhang Heng designed was powered by water, and via the gear movements, demonstrated in the astronomical phenomena, and occupied an important position in the history of the astronomical apparatus. It was similar to what we know as the celestial globe today.
In AD 132, Zhang Heng invented the seismograph which was used to monitor earthquakes. The seismograph was made of bronze and eight chi (nearly two meters) in diameter. It was shaped like a wine vessel, and intricate devices were installed inside. Eight dragon heads were installed to point to the eight directions, with one small bronze ball in the mouth of each dragon. There were eight mouth-opening toads squatting below the dragon heads. If there was an earthquake in one direction, the bronze ball in the mouth of the dragon facing that direction would fall into the mouth of the toad below, and people would therefore know where the earthquake happened. In AD 138 the seismograph accurately monitored a strong earthquake happened in the region where it is today’s Gansu province.
Wang Chong, with Zhongren as his courtesy name and born in Shangyu of Kuaiji (in today’s Shangyu in Zhejiang province), was a materialist thinker and philosopher.
Wang was born into a poor family and used to travel to the Eastern Han capital Luoyang to study at the imperial school. According to records of the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, poor and not having money to buy books, Wang often went to bookshops in Luoyang, where he “read the books on sale and acquired and accumulated knowledge.” He served as a prefecture official for a short period of time, and spent the rest of his life at home to teach and write. His works included Lun Heng (Critical Essays), which was composed of 85 essays (84 of them remains today), in more than 200,000 words.
Wang Chong, in the Lun Heng (Critical Essays), was exceptionally critical, and claimed that his thinking might run against the doctrines of Confucianism. The Confucianism thinking of the Han Dynasty referred to the idealist philosophy and thinking which was proposed by Dong Zhongshu, and its core was the doctrine of “mutual correspondence between Heaven and man”. Wang Chong believed that disasters were a kind of natural phenomenon, and were caused by the natural movements and changes, and had nothing to do with the mankind. He did not believe in the superstition that man would become ghosts after death, opposed the theories of spiritual immortality and ghost, and criticized divination and superstition.
Wang Chong inherited the historical evolution thinking ofXun Zi and Han Fei, and stressed that history was evolving and progressing, and opposed the trend of exalting the past and denying the merit of the present. He exposed and criticized the disgraceful conducts of the aristocrats and urged for social and political reforms and changes.
In the Eastern Han dynasty, the increasingly serious social crisis and decaying politics coupled with natural disasters caused nearly one hundred times of minor and massive peasant uprising during more than eighty years from Emperor Andi to Emperor Lingdi as recorded in the history. Among them, the Yellow Turbans Uprsing led by Zhang Jiao is the most famous.
Zhang Jiao was from Julu (today’s Pingxiang, Hebei), the leader of Tai Ping Dao (a Taoist society). In the first year of Emperor Ling, declaring himself Great Teacher, he propagated his faith by practicing medicine and enlisted followers together with his brothers Zhang Bao and Zhang Liang. He also sent eight disciples to travel around propagating his faith. During more than ten years, they enlisted several hundreds of thousands of followers scattering from the north area in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River to the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River region.
After adequate preparation, Zhang Jiao decided to launch a nationwide uprising on March 5 in the year of Jiazi (184 AD) and brought forward a slogan, “The old emperor has perished; the new regime will soon arise; in this year of Jia Zi, let there be prosperity in the world.” Unexpectedly, a month before the scheduled uprising, Tang Zhou, a disciple of Zhang Jiao, informed the Eastern Han government of this uprising, commander Ma Yuanyi was arrested and killed and more than 1,000 Luoyang people were killed. Zhang Jiao decided to launch the uprising in February ahead of the schedule and called himself “Heavenly General”. The rebels were named Yellow Turban Army for their symbol of yellow turban.
Traditional Chinese medicine is a splendid pearl in Chinese civilization. In this field, Bian Que, a famous doctor in the Warring States period, invented the pulse theory and was an expert in internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, pediatrics, ophthalmology and otorhinolaryngology and other subjects. Bian Que applied the method of "Looking (at their tongues and their outside appearances), Listening (to their voice and breathing patterns), Inquiring (about their symptoms), and Taking (their pulse)" for clinical diagnosis and acupuncture for treatment. According to the legend, the medical work Nan Jing (Classics of Questions) was written by Bian Que. Compiled by a physician in the Warring States period in the name of Huangdi, Huang Di Nei Jing, the first systematic medical work in China, occupied an important position in traditional Chinese medicine theory. Zhang Zhongjing was a physician in the late Eastern Han dynasty, who is regarded as “the sage of Chinese medicine”. His Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases is a must-read masterpiece for doctors. Hua Tuo, a famous physician in the Eastern Han dynasty, was an expert in advanced anesthesia, anatomy, diagnosis and hemostasia at that time. He made successful abdominal surgical operations and other complex surgical operations. Sun Simiao in the late Sui and early Tang dynasty was known as the "King of Medicine". Valuable Prescriptions for Emergencies (Bei Ji Qian Jin Yao Fang) and Supplement to Valuable Prescriptions (Qian Jin Yi Fang) compiled by him epitomized many medical achievements. He made significant contributions in many fields such as nutrition and health, medicine, gynecology and obstetrics, pediatrics and acupuncture. Li Shizhen in the Ming dynasty compiled Compendium of Materia Medica, which was a medicine masterpiece in ancient China including 1558 kinds of medicines recorded by various Materia Medicas and additional 374 kinds. Acupuncture is an important part of traditional Chinese medicine. Illustrated Manual of Acupuncture Points of the Bronze Figure by Wang Weiyi in the Northern Song Dynasty and the life-sized bronze figure for acupuncture made by him are also great innovations in the history of Chinese medicine.
Traditional Chinese medicine is a splendid pearl in Chinese civilization. In this field, Bian Que, a famous doctor in the Warring States period, invented the pulse theory and was an expert in internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, pediatrics, ophthalmology and otorhinolaryngology and other subjects. Bian Que applied the method of "Looking (at their tongues and their outside appearances), Listening (to their voice and breathing patterns), Inquiring (about their symptoms), and Taking (their pulse)" for clinical diagnosis and acupuncture for treatment. According to the legend, the medical work Nan Jing (Classics of Questions) was written by Bian Que. Compiled by a physician in the Warring States period in the name of Huangdi, Huang Di Nei Jing, the first systematic medical work in China, occupied an important position in traditional Chinese medicine theory. Zhang Zhongjing was a physician in the late Eastern Han dynasty, who is regarded as “the sage of Chinese medicine”. His Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases is a must-read masterpiece for doctors. Hua Tuo, a famous physician in the Eastern Han dynasty, was an expert in advanced anesthesia, anatomy, diagnosis and hemostasia at that time. He made successful abdominal surgical operations and other complex surgical operations. Sun Simiao in the late Sui and early Tang dynasty was known as the "King of Medicine". Valuable Prescriptions for Emergencies (Bei Ji Qian Jin Yao Fang) and Supplement to Valuable Prescriptions (Qian Jin Yi Fang) compiled by him epitomized many medical achievements. He made significant contributions in many fields such as nutrition and health, medicine, gynecology and obstetrics, pediatrics and acupuncture. Li Shizhen in the Ming dynasty compiled Compendium of Materia Medica, which was a medicine masterpiece in ancient China including 1558 kinds of medicines recorded by various Materia Medicas and additional 374 kinds. Acupuncture is an important part of traditional Chinese medicine. Illustrated Manual of Acupuncture Points of the Bronze Figure by Wang Weiyi in the Northern Song Dynasty and the life-sized bronze figure for acupuncture made by him are also great innovations in the history of Chinese medicine.
The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art is the first mathematical book in ancient China and the most important one among the Ten Mathematical Manuals. Mathematicians of the later generations mostly started from this book for the study and research of mathematical knowledge. It systematically summarized the mathematical achievements of the Warring States period, Qin and Han dynasties. The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art is the earliest one mentioning fraction, recording surplus and deficiency, and also described the negative and its addition and subtraction algorithm for the first time in the world’s mathematics history. Closely related with real life, the book, involving many fields such as arithmetic, algebra and geometry, was the world's most advanced applied mathematics at that time. It was modified, deleted and complemented by many people over a long time and gradually fixed in the Eastern Han dynasty. It indicates that a complete system of ancient Chinese mathematics was formed, making contributions to the development of the world's mathematical system.
The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art is the first mathematical book in ancient China and the most important one among the Ten Mathematical Manuals. Mathematicians of the later generations mostly started from this book for the study and research of mathematical knowledge. It systematically summarized the mathematical achievements of the Warring States period, Qin and Han dynasties. The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art is the earliest one mentioning fraction, recording surplus and deficiency, and also described the negative and its addition and subtraction algorithm for the first time in the world’s mathematics history. Closely related with real life, the book, involving many fields such as arithmetic, algebra and geometry, was the world's most advanced applied mathematics at that time. It was modified, deleted and complemented by many people over a long time and gradually fixed in the Eastern Han dynasty. It indicates that a complete system of ancient Chinese mathematics was formed, making contributions to the development of the world's mathematical system.
The Longzhong Dialogue describes the conversation between Zhuge Liang and Liu Bei in their first meeting in late Eastern Han dynasty. It was named The Longzhong Dialogue by the later generations because it happened in Longzhong, Hubei (today’s Xiangyang area, Hubei). Xu Shu, a counselor of Liu Bei, recommended Zhuge Liang and called him a latent dragon in the common world. He proposed Liu Bei personally visit him, saying that "we can only come to visit him but force him in no case". Liu Bei urgently sought for talents, so he went to the humble cottage in Longzhong, Xiangyang for three times to visit Zhuge Liang. Zhuge Liang at the age of 26 talked about the famous “Longzhong Dialogue” with Liu Bei. He accurately analyzed the world situation, pointing out that “Cao Cao dominated the whole northern China and got advantage in politics by holding Emperor Xiandi as hostage, so we can’t compete with him; after the development by three generations of Sun family, Jiangdong area was basically consolidated, not to mention its geographical advantages, so we can’t covet it; Jingzhou is a rare strategic location controlling the critical place of the Yangtze River. Liu Biao was stupid and incompetent, so we can snatch Jingzhou from him and then despoil Yizhou and made this place a foothold. We can take the strategic policy of uniting Sun Quan in the east and resisting Cao Cao in the north, and waiting for the opportunity to achieve the dominant position. Zhuge Liang's intelligent view thoroughly impressed Liu Bei, and Zhuge Liang left retirement to assist Liu Bei from then on.
In AD 208, Cao Cao unified northern China and led troops southward to attack Jingzhou in order to unify the north and south China. Liu Bei in Jingzhou retreated to Xiakou (today’s Hankou, Hubei) and sent Zhuge Liang to Jiangdong to negotiate with Sun Quan for alliance to resist against Cao Cao in union. Cao Cao led more than 200,000 soldiers, which were claimed to be 800,000, encountered 50,000 soldiers of Sun-Liu allied troop in Red Cliffs (today’s northeast Jiayu, Hubei).
Cao Cao’s foot soldiers and cavalries lost their power in the river. The newly adapted Jingzhou marines were very poor in combat effectiveness and also sick from an epidemic, so they were defeated in the first battle and retreated to the north bank to confront against Sun-Liu allied troop across the river. Because northern troops were not accustomed to fighting on water, Cao Cao ordered to link the warships with iron chain, so that soldiers can walk on the ships as steadily as on land. Huang Gai, a general of Zhou Yu, recommended fire attack and got approval. Huang Gai sent a letter to Cao Cao and faked himself a turncoat. At that night, when the southeast wind arose, Huang Gai led dozens of boats with first ten loaded with oil soaked dry firewood covered in cloth, with banners concerted with Cao Cao, sailing to Cao Cao’s boats under the southeast wind. When they got close to the enemies, Huang Gai ordered to ignite the firewood. The burnt boats crashed into Cao Cao’s boat array under the wind, and suddenly everything was caught fire and the fire soon extended to the barracks on the bank. “Too many soldiers and horses were burnt or drowned”. Sun-Liu allied troop pursued the enemy troops in retreat. Cao’s troops suffered heavy casualties with half of soldiers died, and retreated to Xiang and Fan area.
After the Battle of Red Cliffs, Liu Bei followed up the victory by conquering four Prefectures, Wuling, Changsha, Guiyang and Lingling, and served as the governor of Jingzhou the next year, laying a solid foundation to develop and push on towards Yizhou. Cao Cao retreated to the north. Sun Quan kept the alliance relationship with Liu Bei to resist Cao Cao. Thus, the confrontation among the Three Kingdoms was formed from then on.
Jian'an is the reign title of Emperor Xiandi of the Eastern Han dynasty, and Jian’an period covers about fifty years from the Yellow Turbans Uprising to the last year of Jingchu period of Emperor Mingdi of the Wei. In the process of contention and merger of many forces who competed for the occupation of the Central Plains, Cao Cao achieved the reunification of the north, and established a literati group around himself and his sons by gathering a group of scholars in Yecheng (in today’s Linzhang County, Hebei Province). The representative figures of the Literature of the Jian’an Period are "Three Caos" and "Seven Sages". "Three Caos" refer to Cao Cao and his sons, Cao Pi and Cao Zhi, who won great reputation in the history of Chinese literature. Cao Cao was the leading figure and founder of the Literature of the Jian’an Period and more than 20 Yuefu poems by him were preserved till now, among which the masterpiece Hao Li Xing describes the miserable scenes in the war and Duan Ge Xing is very popular and well-known. Cao Pi is the second son of Cao Cao. His graceful and grieving poems are mostly on the theme of love and sorrow. Two Yan Ge Xing are the earliest extant seven-character poems. His Historical Allusions and Essays is an important work in the history of Chinese literary criticism. More than 100 poems, verses and articles of Cao Zhi were handed down, such as Taishan Liangfu Xing depicting the life of common people, Beauty and Luo Shen Fu describing love. The details how Cao Zhi wrote the Quatrain of Seven Steps are even widely spread and known to all. The famous Seven Leading Sages of the Jian’an Period were Kong Rong, Chen Lin, Wang Can, Xu Gan, Ruan Yu, Ying Yang and Liu Zhen. Too many talented people and scholars emerged during the Jian’an Period and made new breakthroughs on the creation of poem, verse and article.
Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove were a group of famous scholars in the Wei and Jin dynasties. They were Ji Kang , Ruan Ji, Shan Tao, Liu Ling, Xiang Xiu, Wang Rong and Ruan Xian. These scholars objecting to the ethical code and contemning the influential people often drink and talk in the bamboo grove and landscape in Shanyang (today’s Xiuwu, Henan), so they were called "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove”. The word "Metaphysics" originated from a sentence in Laozi, “Metaphysics is the gate of all wonders”. Ji Kang and Ruan Ji believed that the universe was composed of Yuan Qi (the most primitive substance). Considering the Confucian ethical code opposite to the nature, they advocated respect for the nature and objection against the Confucian ethical code. They suggested not to indulge in fame and fortune or be constrained by the trivial rites but to conform to the nature and set oneself free. The Guqin music Guangling San played by Ji Kang is very famous. Even before the execution, he still asked for a Guqin to play this music in sufficient easiness, sighing with mixed feeling that “Guangling San is over from now on!” Xiangxiu wrote commentaries for Zhuangzi, and later Guo Xiang added more complements so that Zhuangzi Zhu was completed and handed down.
Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove were a group of famous scholars in the Wei and Jin dynasties. They were Ji Kang , Ruan Ji, Shan Tao, Liu Ling, Xiang Xiu, Wang Rong and Ruan Xian. These scholars objecting to the ethical code and contemning the influential people often drink and talk in the bamboo grove and landscape in Shanyang (today’s Xiuwu, Henan), so they were called "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove”. The word "Metaphysics" originated from a sentence in Laozi, “Metaphysics is the gate of all wonders”. Ji Kang and Ruan Ji believed that the universe was composed of Yuan Qi (the most primitive substance). Considering the Confucian ethical code opposite to the nature, they advocated respect for the nature and objection against the Confucian ethical code. They suggested not to indulge in fame and fortune or be constrained by the trivial rites but to conform to the nature and set oneself free. The Guqin music Guangling San played by Ji Kang is very famous. Even before the execution, he still asked for a Guqin to play this music in sufficient easiness, sighing with mixed feeling that “Guangling San is over from now on!” Xiangxiu wrote commentaries for Zhuangzi, and later Guo Xiang added more complements so that Zhuangzi Zhu was completed and handed down.
Tao Yuanming, courtesy name as Yuanliang and assumed name as Wuliu Xiansheng, was born in Chaisang, Xunyang (today’s Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province) in the late Eastern Jin dynasty and the early Song of the Southern dynasties. After a few years of being an small official, Tao Yuanming resigned and returned back to a farming village in seclusion. As his poems were mostly on the theme of pastoral life, Tao was described as “the Great Poet of Tianyuan (landscape poetry inspired by pastoral scenes)”, which created a new realm for Chinese classical poetry.
On Returning to Live in the Countryside, by Tao Yuanming
“From youth I was never made for common life,
My nature was ever to love the hills and mountains.
By mischance I fell into the dusty world,
And, being gone, stayed there for thirteen years.
A captive bird longs for the woods of old,
The fish in the pond dreams of its native river.
So I have returned to till this southern wild,
To a simple life in my own fields and garden.
Two acres of land surround my home,
My thatched cottage has eight or nine bays,
Willow and elm shade the courtyard,
Peach and plum spread in front of the hall.
Dim, dim in the distance lies the village,
Faintly, faintly you see the smoke of its chimneys.
A dog barks deep in the long lane,
The cock crows on the top of a mulberry tree.
There is no dust and no confusion here,
In these empty rooms, but ample space to spare.
So long have I lived inside a cage!
Now at last I can turn again to Nature.”
The poem is a unique style indicating the nature by refining structure with real life and sincere feelings in simple language.
Tao Yuanming's Peach Blossom Spring is a graceful prose, describing a world with the context of a Wuling fisherman's travel in the Peach Blossom Spring, a paradise with no exploitation or competition for power, but only simple and peaceful life.
Tao Yuanming's poems made great influences on future generations. Since ancient times, many people appreciated Tao Yuanming’s philosophy of life attached on pastoral scenes free from vulgarity and his peaceful and natural artistic style.
Tao Yuanming, courtesy name as Yuanliang and assumed name as Wuliu Xiansheng, was born in Chaisang, Xunyang (today’s Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province) in the late Eastern Jin dynasty and the early Song of the Southern dynasties. After a few years of being an small official, Tao Yuanming resigned and returned back to a farming village in seclusion. As his poems were mostly on the theme of pastoral life, Tao was described as “the Great Poet of Tianyuan (landscape poetry inspired by pastoral scenes)”, which created a new realm for Chinese classical poetry.
On Returning to Live in the Countryside, by Tao Yuanming
“From youth I was never made for common life,
My nature was ever to love the hills and mountains.
By mischance I fell into the dusty world,
And, being gone, stayed there for thirteen years.
A captive bird longs for the woods of old,
The fish in the pond dreams of its native river.
So I have returned to till this southern wild,
To a simple life in my own fields and garden.
Two acres of land surround my home,
My thatched cottage has eight or nine bays,
Willow and elm shade the courtyard,
Peach and plum spread in front of the hall.
Dim, dim in the distance lies the village,
Faintly, faintly you see the smoke of its chimneys.
A dog barks deep in the long lane,
The cock crows on the top of a mulberry tree.
There is no dust and no confusion here,
In these empty rooms, but ample space to spare.
So long have I lived inside a cage!
Now at last I can turn again to Nature.”
The poem is a unique style indicating the nature by refining structure with real life and sincere feelings in simple language.
Tao Yuanming's Peach Blossom Spring is a graceful prose, describing a world with the context of a Wuling fisherman's travel in the Peach Blossom Spring, a paradise with no exploitation or competition for power, but only simple and peaceful life.
Tao Yuanming's poems made great influences on future generations. Since ancient times, many people appreciated Tao Yuanming’s philosophy of life attached on pastoral scenes free from vulgarity and his peaceful and natural artistic style.
Tuoba Hong, the Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei dynasty succeeded to the throne in the age of 4, and Feng, his grandmother and grandma-empress was in power on behalf of the emperor authority. Feng played a greater role in the early reform of Emperor Xiaowen. In the early period of the Northern Wei dynasty, all the officials got no salary. Military generals and officials obtained their income by means of reward, plundering, extorting, embezzlement and doing business, resulting in corruption and sharp social contradictions. Grandma-empress Feng and Emperor Xiaowen started the early-period reform such as paying salary, reorganizing official system and punishing corruption. Emperor Xiaowen introduced the land equalization system so that farmers could obtain a certain amount of land and the land annexation was inhibited, which was conducive for the state to levy taxes and services. He also implemented three chiefs system and land rental system. Three chiefs system made many peasant households directly controlled by the state. Land rental system moderated the burden on farmers and improved their production and living conditions.
In AD 490, Emperor Xiaowen came into power and moved the capital to Luoyang, introducing a series of late-period reforms focusing on sinicization, including wearing Han clothes and banning clothes of minorities on the court; changing the language by banning Xianbei language on the court; changing the native place by specifying the native place of Xianbei people being Luoyang after the capital was moved; changing the bureaucratic system by abolishing the original Xianbei bureaucratic system and following mostly from the Southern dynasty; approving the marriage between Xianbei and Han people, and the royal families taking the lead in the intermarriage with Han people; changing into the surname of Han people, regulating “the official arrangement of the important family" and establishing the System of Hereditary Aristocracy. “The official arrangement of the important family" played a negative role in the development of the Northern Wei dynasty but a positive role in the sinicization of Xianbei people.
The reform of Emperor Xiaowen was a model of national integration in China’s nationality history.
Zu Chongzhi, living in the Northern and Southern dynasties, was born in Laiyuan County, Hebei Province. He was an outstanding mathematician, astronomers, calendar scholars, litterateur and mechanical inventors in ancient China. His most outstanding achievement in mathematics was the calculation of Pi.
Ancient Chinese people learned from the practice that the circumference of a circle is "a little more than three times of the diameter” but didn’t agree on the remainder of the “little”. Before Zu Chongzhi, mathematician Liu Hui put forward a scientific method for calculating the circumference－“cyclotomy”, getting the approximate circumference by jointing regular polygons in a circle. The "precise value" he worked out as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is 4 decimals. On this basis, the "precise value" Zu Chongzhi worked out as the ratio is 4 decimals, that is, a number between 3.1415926 and 3.1415927, which was the world's highest level at that time. A thousand years later, the Arabian mathematician Al Cassie surpassed him in 1427, achieving the "precise value" of 16 decimals.
Jia Sixie was born in Yidu, Shandong (today’s southern Shouguang, Shandong) in the late Northern Wei dynasty. He once served as the prefecture chief of Goyang Prefecture (today’s Linzi, Shandong) and other officials. He carefully investigated and researched the local agricultural production technologies and consulted with experienced farmers. After the middle age, he began to be engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry, and personally participated in agricultural production and grazing. Between the second year of Yongxi period of the Northern Wei (533) and the second year of Wuding period of the Eastern Wei (544), he completed the famous agricultural science work, Important Arts for the People’s Welfare.
The book is divided into 92 chapters, containing totally more than 110,000 words. The book quoted more than 150 ancient books and recorded more than 30 agricultural proverbs. It’s the earliest agricultural science book preserved in China and the world, as a guide of material production and social life in the Northern dynasties, with detailed explanation of almost all agricultural production activities including cultivation techniques of various crops, such as planting, tillage, soil, fertilization, rotation and seed, etc., the cultivation of vegetables and fruit trees, sericulture, the use of wild plants, breeding of livestock, poultry, fish and silkworm and prevention and treatment of diseases, the processing of agricultural, subsidiary, and animal products, brewing and food processing, as well as the production of stationery and daily necessities, etc.
On March 3 of the lunar calendar in the ninth year of Yonghe period of the Eastern Jin dynasty (AD 353), Wang Xizhi met with 41 scholars and painters including Xie An and Sun Chuo at Lan Pavilion, Shaoxing. They drank and wrote poems and the collection of their poems was the Meeting of Scholars at the Lan Pavilion. Wang Xizhi wrote the preface with a brush, that is, the Preface of the Lan Pavilion, describing the scene of the meeting of scholars at that time. It’s beautiful in phrasing and graceful in calligraphy, praised by Mi Fu, a calligraphy and painting artist in the Song dynasty, "the best running script in the world".
Wang Xizhi (AD 321-AD 379), courtesy name as Yishao, was born in an old and well-known family. His father Wang Kuang was the prefecture chief of Huainan Prefecture and his uncle Wang Dao was the prime minister of the Eastern Jin dynasty. Wang Xizhi was born in Linyi, Langya, Shandong, and later settled in Hueiji (today’s Shaoxing, Zhejiang) for his love of the landscape there. He served as the Eastern Jin Secretary, Ningyuan General, Jiangzhou governor in succession, and the general of right army and Kuaiji Neishi finally. Wang Xizhi was frank and never constrained by the ethical code. During the tenure, he expressed important and practical political views to the Prime Minister Xie An, and he was also concerned about the hardships of the common people. In the eleventh year of Yonghe period (AD 355), Wang Xizhi resigned from the official post in excuse of illness. He built library, planted mulberry fruit, taught children, wrote poetry, made painting and calligraphy, and traveled with famous scholars. Wang died in the fifth year of Shengping period of the Eastern Jin dynasty (AD 361). Wang Xizhi was a famous calligrapher of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, known as the "saint of calligraphy" by the later generations. Preface of the Lan Pavilion is his representative masterpiece.
The grotto art occupied a special position in more than 5000 years of China civilization. Chinese grotto arts were widely distributed, among which the most famous are the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, Yungang Grottoes and Longmen Grottoes.
Mogao Grottoes is located in Dunhuang City, Gansu Province, at the joint site of three routes of the "Silk Road" in the north and south. It is the grotto art left along the route in the process of the integration of Buddhism with Chinese culture after it was introduced in China.
Mogao Grottoes were built in the pre-Qin period of the Sixteen Kingdoms, and developed into a large scale after the successive building in the Sixteen Kingdoms, the Northern dynasties, the Sui dynasty, the Tang dynasty, the Five dynasties, the Western Xia dynasty and the Yuan dynasty. It is the world's largest and oldest existing sacred land of Buddhist art with the most abundant contents containing 735 caves, 45,000 square meters of murals and 2415 clay sculptures.
Yungang Grottoes are located at the south foot of Wuzhou Mountain, 16 kilometers west to Datong, Shanxi Province, originally being Pingcheng, the capital of Northern Wei dynasty. It was built in AD 460, the first year of Emperor Wencheng of the Northern Wei dynasty. It contains 252 niches and more than 51,000 statues, representing China's outstanding Buddhist grotto art since the 5th century to the 6th century. Among them, the Five Grottos in Tanyao was a masterpiece in the first peak period of Chinese Buddhist art with precise and unified layout design.
Longmen Grottoes are located on the cliffs of the east and west mountains, Yishui, Luoyang City, Henan Province, which was built around AD 493 when Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei dynasty removed the capital to Luoyang. Later, it experienced continuous large-scale construction over 400 years since the East and West Wei dynasty, Northern Qi Dynasty to the Sui and Tang dynasties. It remains 2345 niches, more than 2680 inscriptions and stele carvings, and over 70 pagodas and 100,000 statues, demonstrating extremely high artistic attainments of ancient Chinese working people.
Huineng (AD 638 –AD 713), whose surname was Lu, was born in Yanshan, Hebei (today’s Zhuozhou). After his father died in his childhood, Huineng moved to Nanhai and supported his mother by selling firewood because of the poverty. One day at the age of 24, when he was selling firewood in the market and overheard a passenger chanting Diamond Sutra, he was inspired to learn Buddhist Sutra from Master Hongren in Huangmei Temple. After that, as a disciplinant, he went through numerous hardships and difficulties, and inherited from Hongren, the fifth Zen Master in Huangmei Temple. He finally became the sixth Zen Master, also known as the Zen Master Huineng, the actual founder of Zen Buddhism in China.
Zen Buddhism created by Huineng was a great reform in the history of Chinese Buddhism, claiming that everyone holds Buddha nature. Instead of tedious Buddhist scholastics and religious rituals, stressing spiritual practice for lifetimes or donation, chanting Buddha or obsession in meditation, he advocated “self-practice and self-enlightenment” and “being Buddha by epiphany”. He completed the sinicization, secularization and popularization of Buddhism, which made Zen culture an important part of Chinese traditional culture and promoted Chinese Buddhism to a new stage. His doctrines were recognized and supported by the rulers. After his death, Emperor Xianzong of the Tang dynasty conferred the posthumous title “Zen Master of Dajian", and Emperor Taizong, Renzong and Shenzong of the Song dynasty all conferred additional posthumous titles, among which Emperor Shenzong conferred “Zen Master of Dajian Zhenkong Pujue Yuanming”. Some well-known writers such as Wang Wei, Liu Zongyuan and Liu Yuxi all wrote Stele Inscription for Huineng.
Huineng (AD 638 –AD 713), whose surname was Lu, was born in Yanshan, Hebei (today’s Zhuozhou). After his father died in his childhood, Huineng moved to Nanhai and supported his mother by selling firewood because of the poverty. One day at the age of 24, when he was selling firewood in the market and overheard a passenger chanting Diamond Sutra, he was inspired to learn Buddhist Sutra from Master Hongren in Huangmei Temple. After that, as a disciplinant, he went through numerous hardships and difficulties, and inherited from Hongren, the fifth Zen Master in Huangmei Temple. He finally became the sixth Zen Master, also known as the Zen Master Huineng, the actual founder of Zen Buddhism in China.
Zen Buddhism created by Huineng was a great reform in the history of Chinese Buddhism, claiming that everyone holds Buddha nature. Instead of tedious Buddhist scholastics and religious rituals, stressing spiritual practice for lifetimes or donation, chanting Buddha or obsession in meditation, he advocated “self-practice and self-enlightenment” and “being Buddha by epiphany”. He completed the sinicization, secularization and popularization of Buddhism, which made Zen culture an important part of Chinese traditional culture and promoted Chinese Buddhism to a new stage. His doctrines were recognized and supported by the rulers. After his death, Emperor Xianzong of the Tang dynasty conferred the posthumous title “Zen Master of Dajian", and Emperor Taizong, Renzong and Shenzong of the Song dynasty all conferred additional posthumous titles, among which Emperor Shenzong conferred “Zen Master of Dajian Zhenkong Pujue Yuanming”. Some well-known writers such as Wang Wei, Liu Zongyuan and Liu Yuxi all wrote Stele Inscription for Huineng.
Zhenguan (AD 627 – AD649) was the reign title of Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty, who was the second emperor of the Tang dynasty in 23 years of reign. During his reign, Taizong appointed Wei Zheng and other virtuous officials, maintained benign administration and open-mindedness to remonstrance and developed enlightened policies which promoted economic development; moreover, he also applied a opened-up policy to the foreign countries by making the "Silk Road" as a link between the material civilizations in the East and West. All these resulted in a rarely peaceful and prosperous period in the history with stable society, wealthy country and strong people, and people’s life and work in peace and contentment in Zhenguan period. “Dropped things by the sidewalk would never be taken; Unbolt doors at night would never be trespassed”. So it’s called the “Benign Administration of the Zhenguan Reign Period” in the history.
Taizong was a wise emperor in Chinese history. After he ascended the throne, he took Emperor Yang of the Sui dynasty as teaching material by negative example to caution themselves and the subordinates. He compared the relationship between the people and monarch to water and vessel, recognizing that "the waters can both float and capsize a vessel”, so he paid special attention to the administration of officials, appointed virtuous officials and kept an open mind on various opinions. Following his encouragement, more than 30 officials expressed their opinions direct to him, among which Minister Wei Zheng advised him for more than 200 times in totally hundreds of thousands of words, all directly pointing out his faults and striking the current evils. Taizong accepted in most cases or followed the better ways, which did great help to improve the state affairs. After the death of Wei Zheng, Taizong said sadly, “With copper as mirror, you can dress properly; with history as mirror, you can know rise and decline well; with other people as mirror, you can see gain and loss clearly. Wei Zheng died, and I lost a mirror.”
The Prosperous Scene of Chang’an refers to the grand celebrations for every festival held in Chang’an in the Tang dynasty, besides the large scale, precise layout and splendid atmosphere of Chang'an City. On the "Lantern Festival", January fifteenth of the lunar calendar, streets lightened by the festive lanterns like in the daytime, all the people went out to view the lanterns, and everywhere was crowded by the passengers. Royal palace and noble families also lit up festive lanterns at home competing with each other for beauty and fascination. On January fifteenth of the lunar calendar, the second year of Xiantian period (713), Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dynasty held a lantern show outside the Anfu Gate, Chang’an, “Lighting up 50,000 lanterns 20 Zhang high in the sky, people dressed with beautiful brocades and decorated with gold like clusters of flower trees". Changan girls in new gorgeous costumes danced and sang under the lanterns for three days, enjoying to their full content. As Zhang Hu, a poet of the Tang dynasty described in the poem Night Lantern on January Fifteenth of the Lunar Calendar, “Numerous doors unlocked and lanterns lit up, the capital was immersed in the middle of the joy of January; three hundred people danced together, the sound of singing echoed in the sky.” The lantern festival also contains performances and recreational activities. The performances included two categories, a wide variety of dancing dramas and acrobatics, extraordinarily bustling with vitality.
The wealth and harmony in Chang'an City was also attributed to the groceries and wine shops run by foreign merchants, which attracted literati and poets to drink together. As Li Bai wrote in Wine Vessels in Front, “the Hu (Persian) girl is as beautiful as a flower, smiling in the spring breeze and dancing. You must get drunk before going home.” It described the exiting scene of drinking in a Hu wine shop. Hu style was very popular in Chang’an City, and Hu and Han culture blended, mutually benefiting and complementing each other, adding fresh blood and vitality to the prosperous Tang dynasty and demonstrating the self-confidence and open tolerance of the Tang dynasty.
Hanyuan Temple, built in the second year of Longshuo period (662), was the main hall of the Daming Palace in Chang'an City in the Tang dynasty, a place where the emperor held court and regular conferences.
The Tang dynasty got strong national strength, economic development and cultural prosperity since Zhenguan period. Because of the enlightened and open foreign policies, Chang’an in the Tang dynasty was not only the political, economic and cultural center of China, but also a truly international metropolis where envoys, students and businessmen from all over the world gathered. The poem by the poet Wang Wei, "all the heavenly palaces opened the gates; all the people paid visit to the emperor” described the scene that the envoys from various countries gathered in the capital to visit the emperor of the Tang dynasty. Many countries such as Tenjiku (today’s India and Pakistan), Papua (today’s Myanmar), Chenla (today’s Cambodia), Simhala (today’s Sri Lanka), Campa (today’s Vietnam), Srivijaya (today’s Sumatra), countries in the Western Regions and Central Asia, Byzantium in the West (East Rome), Persia (today’s Iran), the Great Caliphate Empire (Arabia) and Japan all sent envoys to Chang'an. The emperors of the Tang dynasty held grand ceremonies at Hanyuan Hall of Daming Palace.
The Tang Code, also known as Yonghui Law Code, was an important code completed in Yonghui period of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang dynasty, containing totally 30 volumes composed of 12 law articles and commentaries explaining the articles one by one. In The Tang Code, the law articles and commentaries were equal in legal effect. As authoritative and unified interpretation for the articles of the whole book, commentaries facilitated judicial trial, so that according to the Old Tang Book; Penal Records, “all the cases were tried based on the analysis of the commentaries". The Tang Code was the earliest feudal code of China making significant influences on China and all other Asian countries, and as a representative of the Chinese legal system.
In judicial practice, The Tang Code provided a basis and convenience for judicial trial for the judges. However, whether the case trial was fair and honest was related to the moral quality, professional ethics and competence of the officials. Death penalty in the Tang dynasty must be approved by the emperor and repeated for three times before the execution. Before The Tang Code was published, Emperor Taizong paid much attention to the stability of the law and avoided inconstant in policy. He ordered to judge the case strictly follow the law code instead of the mood of the emperor. Therefore, a good law requires a large number of judges complying with the law to implement and embody it.
Xuanzang, whose autonym was Chen Hui was born in Goushi, Luozhou (today’s Goushi Town, Yanshi, Henan). He was the famous Zen master Sanzang in the Tang dynasty and one of scripture translators in the history of Chinese Buddhism. He was very clever since his childhood and began to read classical Chinese books at the age of eight to nine. In the tenth year of Daye period of Emperor Yang of the Sui dynasty (614), the imperial court decided to recruit 27 monks by public examination and Xuanzang was admitted by the examiners and became a monk in Jingtu Temple. Four years later, after Xuan Zang traveled to famous temples in Sichuan, Hubei, Henan, Hebei to learn Buddhist scriptures, he discovered that the earlier translations did not convey the complete meaning, so he was inspired to learn and bring back the Buddhist scriptures from India.
In the second year of Zhenguan of the Tang dynasty (628), Xuanzang at the age of 28 started his pilgrimage for Buddhist scriptures from Chang'an to Tenjiku (ancient India). He spent 17 years to travel tens of thousands of kilometers in the regions around Xinjiang, Central Asia and India, taking risks of too many hardships and difficulties. He learned from famous Indian monk Jiexian and some other eminent monks to study Yogacara-bhumi-sastra and some other Buddhist scriptures, and translated Laozi and Maha yana-Sraddhotpada-sastra into Sanskrit and passed them into India. In the nineteenth year of Zhenguan (645), Xuanzang returned to Chang'an with more than 600 Buddhist scriptures, and realized his long-cherished wish of the pilgrimage for Buddhist scriptures. He was devoted to the translation of Buddhist scriptures in Hongfu Temple and Daci’en Temple, Chang’an until his death.
Xuan Zang occupied an extremely important position in the history of Chinese Buddhism and world culture. He devoted his whole life to the Buddhism career by translating many classic scriptures to enrich the culture of China and leave a rich cultural heritage for the future generations, and also became a symbol of the cultural exchanges between China and India.
Jianzhen, a eminent monk of the Tang dynasty, surnamed Chunyu, was born in Yangzhou, Jiangsu. He became a monk at the age of 14 in the Dharma name Jianzhen. In October, the 12th year of Tianbao period of the Tang dynasty (753), 66-year-old and blind Jianzhen finally succeeded in his sixth sail to Japan. In December, Jianzhen and his partners arrived at Kyushu, Japan and received a warm welcome. The next year, Jianzhen was invited to Todaiji Temple, the most famous temple in the capital Nara. Japanese imperial court specially built an altar for Jianzhen to promote strict ordination system. More than 400 Japanese people including the retired emperor Shoumu, retired empress Koumyou, Koken Tenno, empress, officials and monks were initiated into monkhood on the altar. Jianzhen was honored as the founder of Japanese Vinaya School of Buddhism.
Jianzhen was invited to Japan for the purpose of teaching Buddhist theories, carrying forward Vinaya School of Buddhism, and spreading profound Chinese culture. Twelve years passed since he made up his mind to sail to Japan until his success. He was frustrated in all the first five voyages and experienced many tests of the society and the natural environment, suffering great spiritual and physical trauma from the hard and miserable long journey. After the fail in the fourth voyage to Japan, Jianzhen got blind but he was persistently committed to the original ambition and finally succeeded in the sixth voyage. After arrived in Japan, Jianzhen worked hard for ten years, and made outstanding contributions to the development of Japanese Buddhism, architecture, sculpture, medicine, literature, calligraphy and other fields, as well as far-reaching influences on Japanese culture. On May 6, 763, Jianzhen died in Japan at the age of 76.
Princess Wencheng was the daughter of the royal clan of Li Shimin, namely Emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty, who was influenced by her family since childhood to learn culture and rituals and believe in Buddhism. In 641, she married Srongsten Gampo of Tubo (Tibetan regime in ancient China).
In 636, young Srongsten Gampo unified the Tibetan Plateau. Longing for the system and prosperity of the Tang dynasty, he sent envoys with precious gifts to the Tang dynasty for proposal for several times but Emperor Taizong refused. In 640, he made a more pious and respectful proposal to the Tang dynasty again, Emperor Taizong finally agreed to send his daughter of the royal clan to marry him. In 641, Taizong sent King Jiangxia Li Daozong to escort Princess Wencheng into Tubo. Srongsten Gampo personally led troops to meet them in Bohai (today’s Eling Lake and Zhaling Lake, Qinghai).
Princess Wencheng brought a lot of books concerning medicine and production technologies, a variety of grain and vegetable seeds, and exquisite handicrafts, playing a great promoting role in the development of farming and animal husbandry, handicraft, religious culture in Tubo; and the princess herself was also popular and esteemed among local people, and became a messenger of friendship between Han and Tibetan people. The statues of Tibetan Btsan-po (the title of King in Tubo) and Princess Wencheng are still enshrined in the famous Potala Palace and the Jokhang Monastery today.
Imperial examination is a system which select officer through the examination.
Imperial examination system began in the Sui dynasty and finished in the Tang dynasty. Nine-rank Judging System was abolished in the Sui dynasty and established two subjects, namely ambition and etiquette, and honesty and efficiency established Jinshi subject, electing officials of each subject by examination. Besides Jinshi subject, Tang dynasty also established Xiucai, Mingjing, Jinshi, Junshi, Mingfa, Mingshu, Mingsuan and some other subjects.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the imperial examinations were divided into four levels, namely the county examination, provincial examination, academy examination and palace examination. Those who passed the county examination were called Xiucai. Those on the list who passed provincial examination were called Juren and the No. 1 was called Xieyuan. The academy examination enrolled the first three hundred as Gongshi and the No. 1 was called Huiyuan. Those enrolled by the palace examination were divided into three ranks. The three in the highest rank were the No. 1 called “Zhuangyuan”, the No. 2 called “Bangyan”, and the No. 3 called “Tanhua”. The three ranks were all called Jinshi.
In the imperial examination, the Tang dynasty elected talents by testing poetry and verse, when poem was very prosperous; Song dynasty elected talents by testing Confucian classics argumentation, when Neo-Confucianism was popular; the Ming and Qing dynasties elected talents by testing stereotyped writing , that is, an article in the format of eight-legged essay on the topic of a quotation from the Four Books and Five Classics, with several sentences for introduction, elucidation, transition and conclusion. The imperial examination system was abolished in the 31st year of Guangxu period of the Qing dynasty (1905), when school education was promoted in the society.
China is the first country which mastered printing in the world. The block printing in the Sui and Tang dynasties was developed from seal and stone carving. Hu Yinglin of the Ming dynasty believed that block printing originated in the Sui dynasty, got common in the Tang dynasty, prevailed in the Five dynasties and reached its peak in the Song dynasty. The earliest extant block printing is the Diamond Sutra printed by Wang Jie in the Emperor Yizong period of the Tang dynasty. The Sutra is about 30 cm high and 5 meters long, made up of 7 printed pages. The first page is a painting, followed by the text of Diamond Sutra, both exquisite in painting and character carving, which indicates that the printing technology at that time was quite developed. The earliest block-printed edition mentioned in the Chinese literature is the book Female wrote by Zhangsun, the emperor of Taizong of the Tang dynasty, collecting typical female characters in feudal society. In the ninth century, it’s quite common to print books with block printing in China.
After the invention of block printing, some publishers in today’s Sichuan and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River printed calendar books, poetry, primary school books and Yin and Yang superstition books. The early twelfth century, the printing industry of the bookshops in Zhejiang, Fujian, Shanxi and some other places has been developed. The forms of printing technologies included writing carving, red-ink carving and multi-color overprinting. China's block printing was eight hundred years earlier than that in Europe. The invention of block printing and the circulation of carved books played an important role in the cultural transmission and preservation of Chinese culture at that time.
The prosperous Tang dynasty is a glorious period in the history of calligraphy and paintings. The quantity of calligraphers and calligraphy works and the far-reaching influences were all unprecedented. All calligraphy styles including seal, official, regular, running hand and cursive scripts were all well developed, creating a rich and colorful Tang dynasty art of calligraphy. In the rise of the unconstrained calligraphy style in the prosperous Tang dynasty, Zhang Xu, Huai Su and He Zhizhang took a full interpretation of the art of cursive script. Yan Zhenqing and Liu Gongquan created the unique grand manner of the Tang dynasty calligraphy with precise regular script. The new achievements of running script were made, Seal and official scripts were also revived in the prosperous Tang dynasty.
The painting activities of Yan Lide and Yan Liben brothers and Weichi Yiceng, together with the wall paintings represented by the Dunhuang 220 cave, promoted the artistic development in Tang dynasty. Wu Daozi, also known as “the Sage of painting”, and his school of painting illustrated the great artistic achievements of the prosperous age of the Tang dynasty. Poet Wang Wei was also known for his landscape painting and Zhang Xuan was a representative painter of traditional Chinese women genre painting in the prosperous age of the Tang dynasty. After the prosperous age of the Tang dynasty, Li Sixun and Li Zhaodao, who are father and son, elevated landscape painting into a new height and the landscape painting was regarded as model. Xuan Ji, the painter of prosperous age of the Tang dynasty, was specialized in drawing crane while Bian Luan’s bird-and-flower painting has a bright color and vivid figure. All these symbolized the flourishing atmosphere of the art of painting and calligraphy in the Tang dynasty.
The Eight Great Men of Letters of the Tang and Song dynasties is a collective title of eight great prose writers of the Tang and Song dynasties, namely Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan in the Tang dynasty and Ouyang Xiu, Su Xun, Su Shi, Su Zhe (known as the Three Su), Zeng Gong and Wang Anshi in the Song dynasty. The Eight Great Men of Letters of the Song dynasty were no finalized yet. In the early Ming dynasty, Zhu You collected classical proses by the eight writers, Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan, Su Shi, Su Xun, Su Zhe, Ouyang Xiu, Wang Anshi, and Zeng Gong together and published in the Prose Collection of the Eight Great Writers, when the title of the Eight Great Writers was mentioned for the first time. Later, when Tang Shunzhi compiled the book Article Compilation, he only selected works by these eight writers for the Tang and Song dynasties. Mao Kun once again selected the classical proses of these eight writers to compile the Anthology of The Eight Great Men of Letters of the Tang and Song dynasties totally containing 164 volumes, and the title was passed down from then on. Since the eight writers were highlighted in the Ming dynasty, all people who studied ancient prose regarded them as great masters. These eight writers all advocated and participated in the prose movement of the Tang dynasty and the prose innovation movement of the Northern Song dynasty, objecting to couplet-polished diction and advocating classical prose. They laid the foundation of the prose creation in theory and made models of creation practice, innovating the flexible prose style following the natural syllable of language free from stereotyped and conventional patterns. They made outstanding achievements in the field of prose and made great influences on future generations.
Zhao Kuangyin, Emperor Taizu of the Song dynasty, claimed himself as the emperor by launching Chenqiao Mutiny, and founded the Song dynasty in the capital Bianliang (today’s Kaifeng). Bianliang was one of the seven ancient capitals of China. The most prosperous period of Bianliang was in the Northern Song dynasty. As the capital of the Song dynasty for 168 years for nine generations of emperors, it was also named Dongjing and Bianjing. Bianliang City was built in line with a unique planning thought, more than 30 km around, with grand city walls and brilliant culture. The city walls were divided into outside city, inner city and imperial city, designed with three moats. Land and water transportation inside the city was compatible and fluent. The layout of closed Fangli (walled district) system was replaced by open commercial and residential street form, integrating district and market and forming a new city pattern beneficial to the development of city commercial economy. This grand, magnificent and splendid capital was the political, economic, military, scientific, technological and cultural center of China at that time, attracting wealthy merchants and craftsmen from all over the world to provide the development of the capital with abundant human, material and financial resources, and the largest gathering place of wealth and the largest consumer market in China, presenting the grand scene of “Bianjing’s wealth and beauty unparalleled in the world”. The huge picture scroll the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival painted by Zhang Zeduan fully embodies the life scenes of people of all social standings and prosperous atmosphere of Bianliang, the capital of the Northern Song dynasty, at Qingming Festival.
Fan Zhongyan (989–1052), a politician, militarist and litterateur of the Northern Song dynasty, courtesy name as Xiwen, was born in Wuxian, Suzhou (today’s Wuzhong District, Suzhou), whose posthumous title was "Wenzheng", also called "Fan Wenzheng". His father died when he was two years old, and then Fan and his mother migrated around with his stepfather, a small official. He was enrolled as a Jinshi at the age of 26 but repeatedly demoted and not appointed important position for a long time because of his frank remonstrations. In the first year of Qingli period (1041), he served as vice edict official of Shaanxi military commissioner, adopting the strategy of having garrison troops and guarding the border so that Western Xia didn’t dare to invade it. As a proverb passing around the border areas, “the West enemies are shocked by hearing Fan in the military troops”. In the third year of Qingli period, served as assistant administrator, he was sidelined by old guards because he proposed ten political reform programs, so he was appointed the magistrate of Dengzhou, Hangzhou, Qingzhou and some other places. He wrote On Yueyang Tower when he was the magistrate of Dengzhou. The predecessor of Yueyang Tower was a reviewing platform of Lu Su, the military governor of the Wu in the Three Kingdoms period. In the fourth year of Kaiyuan period of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dynasty (716), a tower was built at the site of the reviewing platform, named Yueyang Tower. Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, Lu You and some other famous poets all left well-known poems here. In September, the sixth year of Qingli period (1046), Fan Zhongyan wrote the famous article On Yueyang Tower. The sentence in the article “being the first to show concern and the last to enjoy oneself” was his code of conduct for all his life. He was always persistently pursuing his life ideals and political proposals, who were highly praised by people at that time and future generations.
Wang Anshi (1021–1086), an outstanding politician and reformer in Chinese history, was born in Linchuan, Fuzhou (today’s Dongxiang County, Jiangxi Province) in Northern Song dynasty. Wang Anshi hosted a reform aiming at changing long-standing evil practices of the Northern Song dynasty and making the country rich and its military force efficient. In April of the first year of Xining period (1068), when Emperor Shenzong of the Song dynasty ascended the throne, Wang Anshi, “who had been well-known all over the world for more than thirty years”, was called to the capital for reform and legislation to change the impoverished and enfeebled situation. In February of the second year of Xining period (1069), Wang Anshi established a new organization to guide the reform – Regulation Division of the Three Divisions. The next year, Wang Anshi, who served as Tong Zhongshu Menxia Pingzhangshi which is equivalent to the prime minister, implemented the reform nationwide. During the eight years from the second year to the ninth year of Xining period (1076), focusing on the target of bringing about national prosperity and powerful military forces, he implemented Junshu (a special standardized transport system), Qinmiao (a system of loans to farmers at a low interest rate), farmland water conservancy, official enlistment, market exchange, Fangtianjunshui (a system averaging tax by measuring land), Jiangbing (a military system), Baojia (a neighbourhood administrative system), Baoma (a system of raising horses) and some other new systems. At the same time, he reformed the imperial examination system and implemented reforms to cultivate talents. His reform, to some extent, restricted the exploitation of landlords and wealthy merchants on farmers, and improved the state's financial situation and military power so as to alleviate the poverty and weakness of the Northern Song dynasty. However, the reforms violated the interest of superior officials, royal families, local despots and usurer, so they strongly argued against and suggested the emperor to abolish them. Emperor Shenzong of the Song dynasty was stirred from his resolve and the reform was thoroughly abolished after his death, which was known as Yuanyou Political Transition.
Khitan was a northern nationality in ancient China. In the late Tang dynasty, Yelu Abaoji, the leader of Khitan, unified all tribes and got increasingly powerful. He ascended the throne of Khan in 907 and claimed himself emperor in 916 with the reign title as Shence and the country name as Khitan. In the first year of Datong period of Emperor Taizong (947), it was renamed “Liao”, which means iron in Khitan language. In the first year of Tonghe of Emperor Shengzong (983), it was renamed Great Khitan, and in the second year of Xianyong period of Emperor Daozong (1066), the name Liao was restored again. In 1125, it was conquered by the Jin. According to the interpretation of the Khitan and Jurchen texts, even in the period of the Liao dynasty, it was also named Khitan in Khitan and Jurchen language, remaining the clan name as the state name all the time. After the Liao was conquered, Yelu Dashi moved westward to Chu River Basin in the Central Asia and founded the Western Liao in the capital Husiwoerduo (located in today’s City of Balasagun in Tokmak, Chuy Province, the Republic of Kyrgyzstan) which was conquered by the Mongol Khanate in 1218. After the establishment of the Khitan dynasty, Khitan people learned the Central Plains culture, and integrated it with the prairie traditions to create two different types of characters including big Khitan characters and small Khitan characters by imitating Chinese characters. These two Khitan characters were used together with Chinese characters in the Liao dynasty. After the Liao was conquered and the Jin prospered, Khitan characters were used together with Jurchen and Chinese characters in the territory of the Jin dynasty. In 1191, after Wanyan Jing, Emperor Zhangzong of the Jin dynasty, abolished Khitan characters, they gradually became extinct in the territory of the Jin dynasty, but still remained in the Western Liao in Hezhong region in Central Asia. After the Western Liao was conquered, Khitan characters were no longer used in the world, and became a subject of research today.
Song poem was another literary genre after the Tang poetry, which is directly related to music in its generation, development, creation and circulation. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, music imported from the Western Regions gradually merged with the traditional Han music and then formed Yan Music. Ci of the Tang dynasty was the lyrics matching this new type of music. The tune name of each Ci was called “Cipai”. Although Ci was originated from an early time, it was developed to its peak in the Song dynasty, when a large group of outstanding writers emerged, such as Su Shi, Liu Yong, Qin Guan, Zhou Bangyan, Xin Qiji, Li Qingzhao and Lu You, etc., who made numerous well-known masterpieces in various styles and schools. Quan Song Ci, i.e. Poems of the Song Dynasty, collected nearly 20,000 Song poems by more than 1330 writers and all passed down until now. Representing the highest artistic standard in China’s Ci history, the Song poem was regarded as the “twin wonders” with Tang poem because of its diverse elegant styles, rich emotional connotations and unique artistic charm. Song poem absorbed nutrition from the Book of Songs, the Songs of Chu and Poetry of Han, Wei and Southern Dynasties, providing nutrients for the drama and novel of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Construction Methods was on the specifications of architectural design and construction officially released by the Northern Song dynasty, and also the earliest extant architectural work with the most abundant contents in China. During more than 100 years after the Northern Song dynasty was founded, massive constructions including palaces, government offices, temples and gardens were built in succession, in luxurious and exquisite appearance. The officials responsible for the construction projects took rampant corruption as a common practice, so that the state treasury was not capable to cover so huge expenses. Therefore, it’s urgent to formulate various architectural design criteria and specifications, relevant materials, construction quotas and indexes so as to clarify the rank of housing construction, the art form of buildings and rigorous material limit to prevent corruption and theft. In 1091, the first edition was completed by Jiangzuojian (compilation institution) and issued by the emperor edict, named Yuanyou Methods. It’s hard to prevent various defects in the project because of the lack of material specification. Li Jie, the head of jiangzuojian was ordered to compile again in 1097, and the book was completed in 1100 and published in 1103, named Construction Methods. The book was an important classic on ancient Chinese architecture, containing 34 volumes, 357 chapters and 3555 articles. It’s the collection and summary of the architectural design and construction experiences at that time, making far-reaching influences on the buildings of later generations.
Sima Guang (1019–1086), was a politician, litterateur and historian of the Northern Song dynasty. His former courtesy name was Gongshi and later renamed Junshi. His assumed name was Yufu and Yusou in his late years. He was from Han born in Guangshan County, Henan Province, originally from Sushui Township, Xiaxian, Shaanzhou (today’s Xiaxian, Shanxi), known as Sushui Xiansheng(Master Sushui). Sima Guang served four generations of emperors, namely Renzong, Yingzong, Shenzong and Zhezong, who was honored the title of Taishi (an official position served the emperor), Wen Guogong(Lord Protector), and posthumous title of Wenzheng. Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance, referred to as Comprehensive Mirror, containing 294 volumes, was China's first chronicle compiled by Sima Guang. It took 19 years for him and his assistants including Liu Ban, Liu Shu, Fan Zuyu to complete the book. It described events along the line of time, covering the history over 1362 years of 16 dynasties from the 23rd year of Emperor Weilie of the Zhou (403 BC) to the 6th year of Xiande period of Emperor Shizong of the Later Zhou dynasty (959) when he attacked Huainan. At first, when Sima Guang was enlisted as a scholar of Longtuge (a pavilion filled with scholars) in the second year of Zongping period of Emperor Yingzong (1065), he determined to compile Annals as a reference for the rulers. The next year, he completed 8 volumes of Annals covering the history since the Warring States to the Qin and submitted to Emperor Yingzong of the Song dynasty, who valued it and ordered to found an institution for further compilation and provided financial support and additional personnel. After Song Shenzong ascended the throne, considering that “this book was a mirror for reviewing the history in aid of governance”, he named the book Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance and wrote the preface by himself. The writer provided a reference for the rulers to learn the gains and losses in the history in this book. It occupied an important position among China’s official history books.
Shen Kuo (1031–1095) was a famous scientist of the Northern Song dynasty. His courtesy name was Cunzhong and he was born in Qiantang, Zhejiang (today’s Hangzhou). He was enrolled as a Jinshi in 1063 and promoted to Taishiling(imperial astronomer) soon. He was appointed Tianjian of Tiju Division as a concurrent post, spending most of the time researching astronomy and reforming calendar in Kaifeng. Later he served as Jiaoli (collation officer) of Jixian Academy, reading all the books of the royal library and enriching his knowledge in advantage of this post. In 1088, after he retired and lived in Runzhou (today’s Zhenjiang, Jiangsu), he built the Dream Pool and wrote The Dream Pool Essays by collecting all the experiences of his life. Shen Kuo was so knowledgeable that he made in-depth researches and unique insights in many fields. According to the History of the Song Dynasty: Records of Art, he wrote 155 volumes of 22 kinds, while according to The Dream Pool Essays and bibliographies of the Song dynasty, he wrote another 18 kinds besides these. The Dream Pool Essays was a scientific work in the style of note, totally containing 30 volumes which is divided into 609 articles of 17 categories, covering the fields of astronomy, calendar, meteorology, mathematics, geology, geography, physics, chemistry, medicine, biology, architecture, metallurgy, literature, history, music, art, finance and economy. It’s a masterpiece integrating the great scientific achievements of the previous generations, known as "a coordinate in the history of Chinese science", with a high reputation in the history of world science.
Yue Fei (1103–1142), a famous military strategist, national hero, and anti-Jin general of the Southern Song dynasty. His courtesy name was Pengju, and he was from Han who was born in Xiaodili, Yonghe Township, Tangyin County, Xiangzhou of the Northern Song dynasty (today’s Chenggang Village, Caiyuan Town, Tangying County, Anyang City, Henan Province). Yue Fei joined the army fighting against the Jin at the age of 20, and recovered some of the occupied territory in central China. He anticipated in four northern expeditions, as the youngest general conferred the title of lord in the Northern and Southern Song dynasties and the leader of the Four Generals Rebuilding Song dynasty (Yue Fei, Han Shizhong, Zhang Jun and Liu Guangshi) in the Southern Song dynasty. As an important general of the Southern Song dynasty, he led Yue Troops to fight hundreds of battles against the Jin troops. The invincible troops under the command of Yue Fei caused severe damage to the arrogant Jurchen aristocrats and made indelible contribution to the social stability and economic development of Southern China. On December 29, the 11th year of Shaoxing period (1141), Qin Kuai executed 39-year-old Yue Fei on "unwarranted" charges. In 1162, Emperor Xiaozong of the Song dynasty recovered his official post and conferred posthumous title Wumu for him; and Emperor Ningzong conferred an additional title of Emperor E and changed the posthumous title into Zhongwu. He wrote Yue Fei Anthology. The eternal masterpiece Man Jiang Hong he wrote with the grievances of having his ambition frustrated during the northern expedition is still an excellent work for inspiring the morale even today. He persistently remained the lofty national integrity, and protected half territory of the Southern Song dynasty under extremely hard circumstances, so as to save the social economy and culture of the South China. His loyalty to the country is admired by the Chinese people of all nationalities.
Song Ci (1186–1249), courtesy name as Huiwen, was born in Jianyang, Fujian. He was born in a medium bureaucratic family in the 13th year of Chunxi period of Emperor Xiaozong of the Southern Song dynasty (1186). Song Ci followed Wu Zhi, Zhu Xi's disciple, as the master in his childhood, so he was greatly influenced by the Neo-Confucianism thought of Zhu Xi. In the Imperial College in his youth, he liked to read Zhuge Liang's works and encouraged himself by “governing the country relying on lofty virtue rather than petty favors”. He was enrolled as Jinshi in the 10th year of Jiading period of Emperor Ningzong of the Song dynasty (1217), who served as the registrar, county magistrate, judge and prefecture magistrate in succession. He served as legal examiner for four times, paying particular emphasis on on-site inspection when judging criminal cases. He compiled 5 volumes of Records of Redressing Mishandled Cases in 1247 by integrating and refining ancient works on autopsy (identification of corpse) and combining them with his own practical experiences, which became an essential reference book indispensable for every legal examiner since the 13th century. Almost all the works of this kind in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties were wrote by revising, remarking and supplementing based on this book. In the 18th century, Records of Redressing Mishandled Cases was translated into French, Dutch, German, Korean, Japanese, English, Russian and some other languages and spread overseas. It’s the earliest systematic forensic monograph existing in China and also the oldest forensic monograph in the world, which was 350 years earlier than similar books in the West. Therefore, Song Ci was called the first forensic scientist in ancient times and "the founder of world's forensic science" by the later generations.
The Neo-Confucianism of Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi, also known as Cheng-Zhu Daoism, was one of the major schools of Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming dynasties and one of the most influential ones among all the Neo-Confucianism schools. It was founded by the brothers Two Cheng (Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi) in the Northern Song dynasty and completed by Zhu Xi in the Southern Song dynasty. Zhu Xi was the greatest representative of this school, so it is also referred to as Zhu Zi’s Philosophy. Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi once learned from Zhou Dunyi, the founding master of Neo-Confucianism in the Northern Song dynasty, and their works were collected in Posthumous Papers of Henan Cheng's by the later generations. They regarded the "principles" or "heavenly principles (justice)" as the highest concept of philosophy, believing that the principle were ubiquitous and eternal, and also equaled to the origin of the world and the highest standard of social life. In the Southern Song dynasty, Zhu Xi inherited and developed their thought, applying the principles to human social history. He believes that the “Three Cardinal Guides and Five Constant Virtues” were all prevailing principles, and advocating “abandoning human desire and holding tight to the principles”. Moreover, all society should consciously comply with the Three Cardinal Guides and Five Constant Virtues – the principles of feudal ethics. Zhu Xi’s theory indicated that Neo-Confucianism was developed into a mature stage. The Neo-Confucianism of Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi began to be accepted and adopted by the ruler class since the late Southern Song dynasty, and formally became the dominant ideology of the state from the Yuan to the Ming and Qing dynasties. It played an active role in terms of promoting people's theoretical thinking, teaching people knowledge and theories, cultivating people's sentiments, maintaining social stability and promoting historical progress. But later its development gradually divorced from the reality, and became useless empty words and doctrines that would restrain people's practice, making negative influences on the development of culture.
Traditional Chinese Xuanhe Painting Academy in the period of Zhao Ji, Emperor Huizong of the late Northern Song dynasty, and Shaoxing Painting Academy in the period of Zhao Gou, Emperor Gaozong of the early Southern Song dynasty, was the heyday of Chinese painting academy. Hanlin Painting Academy was established at the beginning when the Song dynasty was founded, and more than 170 painters of the Song dynasty painting academies were recorded. Emperor Huizong, i.e. Zhao Ji, made some achievements in character and landscape paintings. He was also good at flower and bird painting, and created “Shoujin” script calligraphy by slim yet sturdy strokes. 20 volumes of Xuanhe Paintings included 6396 works. The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival painted by Zhang Zeduan of Xuanhe Painting Academy vividly described the prosperous scene of Bianliang City in the Northern Song dynasty. As for calligraphy, artists of the Song dynasty paid more attention on the “conception”, which changed the traditional style of calligraphy paying more attention on the “standard” since the Tang dynasty and initiated a new style. "Su, Huang, Mi and Cai” were known as the Four Great Calligraphers of the Northern Song dynasty. They presented various styles of charm, namely, nature of Su Shi, magnificence of Huang Tingjian, boldness of Mi Fu and implicitness of Cai Xiang. In addition, other influential calligraphers of the Northern Song dynasty include Cai Jing, Wen Yanbo, Wang Anshi, and Sima Guang, etc. Zhao Gou, Emperor Gaozong of the early Southern Song dynasty, was skillful in calligraphy and good at regular, running and cursive scripts, influencing and dominating the circle of calligraphy in the Southern Song dynasty. Besides, Lu You, Zhang Xiaoxiang and Fan Chengda were all influential calligraphers at that time. the Four Great Calligraphers of the Southern Song dynasty, namely Li Tang, Liu Songnian, Ma Yuan and Xia Gui, created the “academic” style of the Southern Song dynasty, with distinctive characteristics.
The earliest paper money in world was Jiaozi money, in the Northern Song dynasty. In the early Northern Song dynasty, Jiaozi shops emerged doing safekeeping business especially for the merchants carrying immense sums of money emerged in Chengdu, Sichuan when Jiaozi was only a credential for saving and withdrawing money rather than a currency. With the development of commodity economy, Jiaozi was gradually used widely. Many merchants jointly founded Jiaozi shops especially for issuing and exchanging "Jiaozi", and set up sub-shops in other places. The customers of Jiaozi shops kept their credit, withdrawing money whenever they were in the shops; and the genuine signatures were hard to forge with high reputation, so it gradually got the function of credit currency. Later, Jiaozi shops printed Jiaozi in uniform denominations and format, when Jiaozi already became a symbol of currency and real paper money. During 1004 – 1007, Zhang Yong, the magistrate of Yizhou, rectified all the Jiaozi shops and selected 16 wealthy merchants to operate Jiaozi. Eventually, Jiaozi was officially recognized. In 1023, the government of the Northern Song dynasty decided to found Yizhou Jiaozuo Authority. In February of the next year, official Jiaozi was formally issued when state-issued paper money was originated from then on, which is six or seven hundred years earlier than the United States (1692), France (1716) and other Western countries. China is the earliest country that issued paper money in the world, making significant contributions to the history of human civilization.
Yuan Haowen (1190–1257) was a famous poet of Jin and Yuan dynasties. His courtesy name was Yuzhi and assumed name Yishan, so he was known as Yishan Xiansheng. He was born in Xiurong, Taiyuan (today’s Xinzhou, Shanxi). His ancestors were originally the Tuoba family of Xianbei ethnic group, a royal family of the Northern Wei dynasty, and his father Yuan Deming was a celebrity in the late Jin dynasty. He was included by the Division of Extensive Learning and Great Literary Talent and enrolled in the Imperial Academy at the age of 35. He was the leader of the literary circle of the late Jin and early Yuan dynasty, who was honored as "the North Literary Giant" and “Literary Master” with 1361 remaining poems that had substantial contents until now. Some poems vividly reflected social chaos and people’s suffering at that time, which was regarded as “history in poems”; his article were fresh and vigorous following the traditions of the great writers in the Tang and Song dynasties; his Ci was the best in the Jin dynasty, and 377 Ci remaining until now were comparable to those by great writers in the Song dynasty; only 9 Sanqu were handed down but they were quite influential. In the second year of Mongke, Emperor Xianzong of the Yuan dynasty (1252), he went to meet the Mongolian Khanate Kublai Khan in Mobei (south of the desert in Mongolia). In his later years, he was devoted to compiling the history of the Jin dynasty, and wrote one million words, named Unofficial History. In 1257, he died in Huolu (today’s Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province) and was buried in his hometown, Xiashan Village, Jizhou Mountain (today’s Hanyan Village, Xin County). He compiled the Complete Works of Yuanyishan Xiansheng and Zhongshan Anthology, containing a large number of literary works in the Jin dynasty to attach his homesickness.
Wen Tianxiang (1236–1283), a minister, famous poet and national hero of the late Southern Song dynasty, His former surname was Yun Sun, courtesy name as Tianxiang, and later he was renamed Tianxiang after the courtesy name. His assumed name was Wenshan and Fuxiu Daoren(Taoist priest Fuxiu). He learned from his father and studied at the Bailuzhou Academy in his childhood. In the forth year of Baoyou period of Emperor Lizong of the Song dynasty (1256), he took the first place in Jinshi examination. Once he got the information that the Yuan army crossed the river, he immediately led troops from Ganzhou to Lin'an. Seeing Empress Dowager Xie surrendered to the Yuan army, Wen Tianxiang objected to it in vain and was appointed prime minister and senator to negotiate with the Yuan army. He fiercely argued with Bo Yan, the prime minister of the Yuan dynasty, and fulminated the surrendered generals in the Yuan camp, so he was detained escorted northward. He managed to escape in Zhenjiang and fled to Fujian by sea going through too many hardships, and then organized troops to fight against the Yuan again. When the Southern Song dynasty perished, Wen Tianxiang was captured. When he was transferred to a sea ship in Lingding Ocean at the Pearl River estuary, he wrote the famous poem Passing Lingding Ocean – In a century in life, who can escape from death and be remembered since ancient times?Why not act patriotically and loyally, shining the annals of history and illuminating descendant.
It became an eternal masterpiece for the indomitable spirit. On October 1 of the lunar calendar, the 16th year of Zhiyuan period (1279), Wen was escorted to Dadu (today’s Beijing). He remained righteous and unyielding in jail and finally was killed. His poems and proses were all solemn and vigorous, reflecting the strong national integrity and indomitable fighting spirit. Especially the Song of Righteousness he wrote in jail was passed on over hundreds of years.
The invention of porcelain is a great contribution that Chinese has made to the world civilization. Porcelain reached a height in the Song dynasty, giving birth to the Five Famous Chinese Porcelain, namely Jun porcelain, Ru porcelain, Guan porcelain, Ding porcelain and Ge porcelain. The Five Famous Chinese Porcelain presented various characteristics. Jun Kiln porcelain is diverse in types, unique in shape and gorgeous in color, known as the "treasure of the country". The kiln site is Bagua Cave in today’s Yuzhou City, Henan Province. The kiln site of Ru porcelain is in today’s Qingliang Temple, Baofeng County, Henan Province, a part of Ruzhou in the Song dynasty, known for its celadon porcelain, with most objects in imitated shapes of bronze and jade objects. The celadon enamel layer was thin and shiny; and enamel bubble was big and sparse, which was called “as sparse as stars at dawn”. Guan porcelain was divided into north style and south style. During Zhenghe and Xuanhe periods of Emperor Huizong of the Northern Song dynasty (1111-1125), kiln built in Bianjing to burn celadon was called the Northern Song dynasty Guan kiln; in the Southern Song dynasty, whose kiln built at the foot of Phoenix Mountain, Hangzhou, Zhejiang and the new kiln built at Turtle Mountain in the southern suburb of today’s Hangzhou, were both called the Southern Song dynasty Guan kiln. Celadon porcelain burnt by Guan kiln was quite particular in the raw materials and glazed color, by using clay with high iron content and the porcelain body in light black and purple. The site of Ding kiln was located in Jianci Village, Quyang, Hebei. The porcelain body of Ding kiln was thin and fine, mostly glazed in white, mainly decorated with white glaze printing, white glaze engraving and white glaze incised design. The porcelain body of Ge kiln was in black, dark gray, light gray or yellow, all with opacified glaze mostly in darker bluish gray.
Compass, also called Luopan, is one of the four great inventions in ancient China. In the Warring States period, guide tool -- Sinan was made. In the Song dynasty, guide fish was made by means of artificial magnet technology. After improvement for a long time, people rubbed steel needle on natural magnet and made magnetic needle compass. Shen Kuo mentioned in The Dream Pool Essays that he made four tests on the use of compass, namely water float method, thread suspension method, nail method and bowl-lip method. Xu Jing, an emissary to the North Korean in the Northern Song dynasty, recorded in Koryo Map of Xuanhe Travel that the fleet used floating compass at night. With the wide use of compass in navigation, the magnetic needle and the device for identifying directions were assembled into a whole in the Southern Song dynasty, namely compass. The invention and application of compass helped to overcome the difficulty in identifying directions for far-distance voyage, and also promoted the development of the world's navigation career and cultural exchanges. During the Southern Song dynasty, some Arab and Persian merchants often traveled for business by Chinese fishing boats, so they also learned how to make compass. During the end of the 12th century -- the early 13th century, Arab and some European countries began to use compass for navigation, which was more than 100 years later than China. The introduction of compass to Europe provided an important technical premise for the future exploitation of new routes of European.
Gunpowder is one of the four great inventions in China. China is not only the inventor of gunpowder, but also the earlier country manufacturing various types of firearms. Alchemy invented gunpowder more than 1,000 years ago. Gunpowder was used for military purpose in the late Tang dynasty. When Yang Xingmi's troop sieged Yuzhang in 904, his subordinate Zheng Fan's flying fire was the earliest firearm in the world. The name "gunpowder" and its official formula appeared in the Northern Song dynasty for the first time, when gunpowder workshops were established by the government. The early 11th century, "hand gun", "caltrop fireball" and some other gunpowder weapons were invented. The Southern Song dynasty made fire lance shooting bullet in 1259, which was the prototype of shooting-type firearms. The Yuan dynasty made the earliest copper firearm and gunpowder saltpeter was introduced to the countries of Islam. In the 8th and 9th centuries, the Persians called it "Chinese salt" and Arabs called it "Chinese snow". In 1260, when Egypt defeated the Mongolian expedition in the battle of Damascus, they captured craftsmen and seized a large number of firearms so that China's gunpowder and firearm technologies were directly passed to the West in large scale. After gunpowder was introduced to Europe, there was no record about the application of gunpowder and firearms in Western countries until the mid-14th century.
Genghis Khan (1162–1227), His former name was Borjigin Temujin. He was a Mongolian, also an outstanding politician and military strategist who founded the huge Mongol Khanate. After the Yuan dynasty was founded in 1271, his grandchildren Kublai conferred him the emperor of the Yuan dynasty, with the posthumous title of Taizu. He was born in a Mongolia aristocratic family and his father Esugei was the leader of Mongolian Kiyan Tribe. When he was 9 years old, his father died of arrows and the tribe was dispersed. In 1189, he was elected the nobility alliance leader of Mongolia Kiyan Tribe, fighting all around after that and finally unifying all the Mongolian tribes. In the spring of 1206, 45-year-old Temujin held Quriltai Assembly at Onon River (today’s Onon Gol River, Mongolia), and ascended the throne of Mongolian Khan, in the title of Genghis Khan. He launched large-scale military attacks since then. He attacked the Western Xia in the spring of 1209, conquered Yinchuan in 1224, attacked the Jin for twice in 1211 and 1215 and conquered Zhongdu of the Jin (today’s Beijing). The first westward expedition was launched in 1219. Before that, he subjugated Uighur and defeated the West Liao. His territory was extended to Central Asia and Southern Russia in 1220. He attacked the Western Xia once again in 1226, and the Western Xia perished the next year.
Genghis Khan (1162–1227), His former name was Borjigin Temujin. He was a Mongolian, also an outstanding politician and military strategist who founded the huge Mongol Khanate. After the Yuan dynasty was founded in 1271, his grandchildren Kublai conferred him the emperor of the Yuan dynasty, with the posthumous title of Taizu. He was born in a Mongolia aristocratic family and his father Esugei was the leader of Mongolian Kiyan Tribe. When he was 9 years old, his father died of arrows and the tribe was dispersed. In 1189, he was elected the nobility alliance leader of Mongolia Kiyan Tribe, fighting all around after that and finally unifying all the Mongolian tribes. In the spring of 1206, 45-year-old Temujin held Quriltai Assembly at Onon River (today’s Onon Gol River, Mongolia), and ascended the throne of Mongolian Khan, in the title of Genghis Khan. He launched large-scale military attacks since then. He attacked the Western Xia in the spring of 1209, conquered Yinchuan in 1224, attacked the Jin for twice in 1211 and 1215 and conquered Zhongdu of the Jin (today’s Beijing). The first westward expedition was launched in 1219. Before that, he subjugated Uighur and defeated the West Liao. His territory was extended to Central Asia and Southern Russia in 1220. He attacked the Western Xia once again in 1226, and the Western Xia perished the next year.
Kublai (1215–1294), a grandson of Genghis Khan and the fourth son of Emperor Ruizong of the Yuan dynasty, was the founder of the Yuan dynasty with the posthumous title of Shizu. After Mongolian defeated the Jin, they occupied the Central Plains region. After Mongke ascended the throne of Khan, he appointed Kublai to handle military affairs in Han territory in Inner Mongolia. He appointed Han scholars and adopted Han laws to restore and develop the social production order. With the support of some imperial princes, he ascended the throne of Khan in Kaiping in 1260. He renamed the country the Great Yuan in 1271 and settled the capital in the Great Capital (today’s Beijing) the next year. The Great Capital was called Khanbaliq in Mongolian, meaning "the place where Kahn lives"; it was formerly named Yanjing, the secondary capital of the Liao and Jin dynasties. The construction of the Great Capital of Yuan started from 1267 and lasted more than 20 years. The new city was located in the northeast of original old city of Zhongdu in the Jin dynasty. After the construction was completed, it replaced Chang’an, Luoyang, Kaifeng and other ancient capitals to be the national political center. The construction of the Great Capital was in a rectangular plane around the center of Taisui Mountain (today’s Qionghua Island, Beihai) where Kublai stationed and Taiye Pool, a lake nearby, with city walls made up of rammed earth. The streets were designed in tidy horizontal and vertical lines, dividing the city into 50 squares. The Great Capital of Yuan was a famous prosperous city in the East at that time, as well as an exchange center of Chinese and foreign cultures. Marco Polo's travelogue described the prosperity of the Great Capital in details. Merchants, envoys, priests, scientists and some other people from Koryo, Japan, Annam, Persia and Europe all visited the Great Capital, and its construction also depended on the outstanding contributions of craftsmen from Arab, Nepal and some other countries.
Kublai (1215–1294), a grandson of Genghis Khan and the fourth son of Emperor Ruizong of the Yuan dynasty, was the founder of the Yuan dynasty with the posthumous title of Shizu. After Mongolian defeated the Jin, they occupied the Central Plains region. After Mongke ascended the throne of Khan, he appointed Kublai to handle military affairs in Han territory in Inner Mongolia. He appointed Han scholars and adopted Han laws to restore and develop the social production order. With the support of some imperial princes, he ascended the throne of Khan in Kaiping in 1260. He renamed the country the Great Yuan in 1271 and settled the capital in the Great Capital (today’s Beijing) the next year. The Great Capital was called Khanbaliq in Mongolian, meaning "the place where Kahn lives"; it was formerly named Yanjing, the secondary capital of the Liao and Jin dynasties. The construction of the Great Capital of Yuan started from 1267 and lasted more than 20 years. The new city was located in the northeast of original old city of Zhongdu in the Jin dynasty. After the construction was completed, it replaced Chang’an, Luoyang, Kaifeng and other ancient capitals to be the national political center. The construction of the Great Capital was in a rectangular plane around the center of Taisui Mountain (today’s Qionghua Island, Beihai) where Kublai stationed and Taiye Pool, a lake nearby, with city walls made up of rammed earth. The streets were designed in tidy horizontal and vertical lines, dividing the city into 50 squares. The Great Capital of Yuan was a famous prosperous city in the East at that time, as well as an exchange center of Chinese and foreign cultures. Marco Polo's travelogue described the prosperity of the Great Capital in details. Merchants, envoys, priests, scientists and some other people from Koryo, Japan, Annam, Persia and Europe all visited the Great Capital, and its construction also depended on the outstanding contributions of craftsmen from Arab, Nepal and some other countries.
Phags-pa (1235 or 1239–1280) was the fifth ancestor of La Sagya Sect of Tibetan Buddhism and the first royal preceptor of the Yuan dynasty. His former name was Blo-gros-rgyal-mtshan. He was born in Saskia, Tubo (today’s Sakya, Tibet). Phags-Pa was a honorific title meaning “Saint”. In 1251, Phags-Pa served as the abbot of Sakya Monastery and the hierarch of Sakya Sect, as the fifth ancestor of the Sakya Sect.
In 1253, he met Kublai Khan at Liupan Mountain and received much reverence. In 1258, Phags-pa debated with a Taoist leader and refuted the latter in the face of Kublai. In 1260, after Kublai Khan ascended the throne, he conferred Phags-pa the title of Grand Preceptor and granted him a jade seal to make him guide Buddhism all over the world. In 1269, Phags-pa created new Mongolian characters (later referred to as Phags-pa characters) based on Tibetan letters. Kublai ordered to publish them, and upgraded his title to Royal Preceptor and Karmapa. During the periods when Phags-pa served as the Grand Preceptor and royal preceptor, he further consolidated the relationship between Tibet region and the central government, motivated the economic and cultural exchanges between the Han and Tibet, Mongolia and Tibet and promoted the all-round development of politics, economy and culture in Tibetan areas, making important contributions to the stable development of the Yuan dynasty, as well as the unity and cultural exchanges among various ethnic groups.
HuangDaopo (1245–1330), the most famous woman in Chinese textile industry in the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty. She was also called Huang Po and Huang Mu. She was from Han Nationality and was born in Wunijing Town in Songjiang Prefecture (today’s Huajing Townin Shanghai City). She was from a poverty family. In early life, she lived in a Daoist temple in Yazhou (today’s Hainan Island). She learnt using the cotton spinning equipment and weaving the Yazhou quilt from the local Li people. In the Yuanzhen period (1295–1296) of the Yuan Dynasty, she came back to the hometown and began to teach and spread the cotton spinningmethod in WunijingTown in the east of Songjiang Prefecture. The advanced cotton spinning and weaving technology was quickly grasped by people in Wunijing and Songjiang. The cotton spinning was developed to an unprecedented scale. Songjiang Prefecture became the biggest center of the cotton spinning. The cotton cloth from Songjiang was praised as “clothes worn all over China”. Huang Daopo died in 1330. People in Songjiang built a memorial temple for her and offered sacrifices to her yearly. The grave of Huang Daopo in Dongwan village in the north of Huangjing Town in Shanghai County. The grave was rebuilt in 1957 and a stone tablet was erected. In Nanshi Distict of Shanghai City, there was a Xianmian Temple, in which Huang Daopo Buddhist Hall was established. In Yuyuan Garden, there is Bazhi Ting pavilion, which was cloth industry guild in Xianfeng Period in the Qing Dynasty. Huang Daopo was enshrined and worshiped as the earliest ancestor of the cotton cloth industry in it.
Guan Hanqing (c1220–1300), sobriquet Yizhai, Yizhaisou, was a notable playwright in the Yuan Dynasty. He was born in Xie Prefecture (today’s Yuncheng City of Shanxi Province ). It says that the place of his origin was Wuren Village in Qi Prefecture (today’s Anguo County of Hebei Province). It also says that was Dadu (today’s Beijing). He was praised as the top first one of the Four great Yuan dramatists, the others were Ma Zhiyuan, Bai Pu and Zheng Guangzu. The word Yuanqu (Yuan Dynasty songs) was first appeared in the Ming Dynasty, which was a collective name for zaju (poetic drama) and sanqu (lyric verses). Yaunqu was equally famous as Tangshi (Tang Dynasty poetry) and Songci (Song Dynasty ci poetry). Guan Hanqing was skilled in producing the poetic drama and had great achievement in portraying characters, dealing with dramaticconflicts and applying dramatic language. He produced many poetic dramas and lyric verses. According to the historical material, he produced 67 plays and 18 of his plays are extant. Doue Yuan (The Injustice to Dou), Jiu Fengchen (Saving the Dusty-windy),Wangjiang Ting (The Riverside Pavilion), Baiyue Ting (ThePavilion of Moon-Worship) were his representative works. In his living times, the politic was corrupt, the social was turbulent, the class and nationalities contradictions were extremely conspicuous. His plays deeply reflect the social reality. Those are full fill with flavor of that age as well as the high spirit of fighting. He was the founder of the Yuan poetic drama. He was the representation of the peak of the art of Chinese traditional opera.
“Four masters of the Yuan Dynasty” was a collective name of four notable landscape painters in the Yuan Dynasty. They are Huang Gongwang, Wang Meng, Ni Zan and Wu Zhen. Each of them has their own artistic characteristics. They were all living in the regions of Jiangsu and Zhejiang and all good at painting ink landscape and bamboo and rocks. Their paintings were all with typical characteristics of literati painting, were more interested in individual expression and learning than in outward representation and immediate visual appeal. They all lived in the end of the Yuan Dynasty, a turbulent period. They had similar historical experiences and were all influenced by Zhao Mengfu. HuangGongwang was born in Changshu. His name wasoriginally Lu Jian and was changed to Huang Gongwang. He was a Daoist priest of Quanzhen Dao. His religious name was DachiDaoren (a Daoist priest with great idiocy). He was praised as the top first of the “four masters of Yuan Dynasty”. He was taught by his uncle Zhao Mengfu. His representative work FuchunShanjuTu (Painting of Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains )gives a view of the landscape of both shores of Fuchun River.Ni zan was originally named Ting. His courtesy name was originally Taiyu and then Yuanzhen, his art names were Yunlin Jushi, Yunlinzi and Yunlin Sanren. He was born in Wuxi. He was learned and pursued ancient ways. He was skillful in poetry and pictorial art. He painted sparse landscapes with innocent and simple style. Wang Meng, his courtesy name was Shuming and his art names were HuangheShanqiao andXiangguangJushi. He was born in Hu Prefecture(today’s Wuxing City in Zhejiang Province). His landscape painting was directly affected by his grandfather Zhao Mengfu. He modelled himself after Wang Wei, Dong Yuan, Ju Ran,and developed to a new style. Wu Zhen’s courtesy name was Zhonggui and his art name was MeihuaDaoren (a Daoist priest of plum blossom). He also called himself Mei Daoren. He was born in Weitang ofJiaxing in Zhejiang Province. He was skillful in ci poetry and writing art. He painted with firm and steady brush in dark ink tones. “Four Masters of the Yuan Dynasty” had a tremendous influence on the painting art of later ages, especially influenced the painting art school “Nanzong”
The peak of the exchanges between the East and the West in the Yuan Dynasty was Marco Polo’s visiting to China. Marco Polo (1254–1324) was born in a Venetian merchant family. In 1271, he and his father Niccolò and his uncle Maffeo set out from Venice. They travelled along the ancient silk road for three and half years and arrived at Kaiping (Xanadu, in the east of today’s ShuluunHöhKhoshuuin Inner Mongolia) in 1275. He was put in an important position in Khublai’s court and lived in China for 17 years. In 1291, Marco Polo received an order to escort the Mongolian princess Cocachin to Persia for getting married. They put out to sea from Quanzhou, through Constantinople came back to Venice the hometown. After that,he was captured in the war between Venice and the Republic of Genoa. In prison, he dictated a detailed account of his travels to a fellow inmate. That inmate compiled these a book, the travels of Marco Polo. This book in the first time thoroughly introduced Chinese material and spiritual culture to Europeans as a non-fiction work, gave Europeans their first comprehensive look into China as a civilized country with vast territory and abundant resources. Although there are still some scholars wondered if Marco Polo actually went to China, this book as the first travels of European with detailed description of China was translated to various European language. It was so popular and inspired Europeans to go to the East. It made a tremendous influence on the opening of the New Route and discovering of the New World.
The peak of the exchanges between the East and the West in the Yuan Dynasty was Marco Polo’s visiting to China. Marco Polo (1254–1324) was born in a Venetian merchant family. In 1271, he and his father Niccolò and his uncle Maffeo set out from Venice. They travelled along the ancient silk road for three and half years and arrived at Kaiping (Xanadu, in the east of today’s ShuluunHöhKhoshuuin Inner Mongolia) in 1275. He was put in an important position in Khublai’s court and lived in China for 17 years. In 1291, Marco Polo received an order to escort the Mongolian princess Cocachin to Persia for getting married. They put out to sea from Quanzhou, through Constantinople came back to Venice the hometown. After that,he was captured in the war between Venice and the Republic of Genoa. In prison, he dictated a detailed account of his travels to a fellow inmate. That inmate compiled these a book, the travels of Marco Polo. This book in the first time thoroughly introduced Chinese material and spiritual culture to Europeans as a non-fiction work, gave Europeans their first comprehensive look into China as a civilized country with vast territory and abundant resources. Although there are still some scholars wondered if Marco Polo actually went to China, this book as the first travels of European with detailed description of China was translated to various European language. It was so popular and inspired Europeans to go to the East. It made a tremendous influence on the opening of the New Route and discovering of the New World.
Guo Shoujing(1231–1316), courtesy name Rousi, was an astronomer and hydraulic engineer in the Yuan Dynasty and born in Xingtai of Shunde (today’s Xingtai City in Hebei Province). Guo Shoujing learnt handed down in his family when he was a child. Then he learnt from Liu Bingzhong. By his teens, he obtained a blueprint for a water clock called lianhua-lou (lotus clepsydra) and realized its principles of operation. At 20, he helped dredge the waterways in his hometown and repair a stone bridge submerged for years. In 1262, Guo Shoujing was summoned by Yuan ShizuKhublai and submitted six articles on irrigation and water transport. He was appointed tiju-zhulu-hequ (supervisor of waterways) and promoted to fu-hequ-shi (vice waterways commissioner) in the next year taking charge of Tonghui River project in Dadu. In 1276, Guo Shoujing began to make a new calendar. He constructedalmost 20 astronomical observation devices such as abridged armilla, high table, scaphe, square table and etc. These devices were very creative, more accurate and improved the ability to observe, producing a lasting influence on the astronomy of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. The new calendar Shoushi Li was completed in four years later and published in 1280. People had used this calendar for more than 360 years. It was the best calendar in that time and showed the high level of the astronomy in the Yuan Dynasty. Guo Shoujing was praised as “the Tycho Brahe of China” by Johann Adam Schall von Bell the famous German Jesuit.
The Yuan Dynasty was the golden time of Quanzhou seaport, which was called “the world’s largest seaport in the East” in that time. The Yuan Court put into the effect the trade policy of opening to the outside world. In that time, shibo-si (the bureau of foreign shipping) was established in Quanzhou. In the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, this bureau was managed by the famous maritime merchant Pu Shougeng, who solicited many foreign merchants to Quanzhou for business. The Yuan Court allowed those nongovernmental merchants to trade oversea. It also put into effect the policy of governmental ship trading with governmental capital. The government cooperated with the merchants bringing about a great advance in development of Quanzhou seaport. In the Yuan Dynasty, the porcelain industry was flourishing. The great Italian traveler Marco Polo who came to China in the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty recorded that “there are many porcelain market in this city” in his book. In the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Wang Dayuan went oversea from Quanzhou twice. His book DaoyiZhilue gave a list of the countries and areas trading with Quanzhou, which has over40 countries and areas than the records in ZhufanZhi in the Song Dynasty. DaoyiZhilue also said that the textile exported from Quanzhou were very popular in foreign countries. The Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta who came to Quanzhou in the end of the Yuan Dynasty called Quanzhou “Citong seaport” in his book. He also said that it “could be even called the largest seaport in the world”. In the Yuan Dynasty, the shipbuilding industry was also developed. A four-tier Chinese ship with all equipment could contain 1000 passengers. In the Yuan Dynasty, tea, copper ware and ironware, salt, sugar were also products for export. DaoyiZhilue records that the copper ware and ironware were exported to more than 80 countries and areas. It shows that how prosperous Quanzhou seaport was.
In Yongle Period of the Ming Dynasty, the empire was united and prosperous. From the third year of Yongle Period to the sixth year of XuandePeriod (1405-1433),Zheng He conducted seven sea voyages with a large fleet. These expeditions lasting the longest time, using the most advanced technology, with the grandest scale and the best organization in that time, was a great event in themaritime history of China and the world.Zheng He (1371—1433), a court eunuch, mariner explorer and diplomat in the Ming Dynasty, was also called SanbaoTaijian (Three Treasures Grand Director). He was from the Hui Nationality. His original family name was Ma and was born in Kunyang (today’s Jinning of Kunming) of Yunnan.In 1382, the Ming army invaded and conquered Yunnan. Zheng He was captured and placed in servitude of Zhudi the Prince of Yan in Beiping.Later, he was promoted as the taijian (Grand Director) of neigong-jian (the Directorate of Palace Servants) and conferred the surname Zheng because he had distinguished himself in the Jinnan Campaign. Then he was called Zheng He. In the third year of Yongle Period(1405), Ming Chengzu Zhu Di ordered Zheng He leading a huge fleet to undertake the first maritime expedition. They set sail from the shipbuilder’s yard in Nanjing and put out to the sea from Liujiagang Seaport in Taicang, then went abroad from Wuhumen in Changle inFujian Province. The fleet furthest visited the east coast of Africa. In as long as 28 years, he conducted seven of these voyages, visiting more than 30 countries and areas in Asia and Africa. The political, commercial and cultural relations between China and Southeast Asian and Indian Ocean countries and areas was developed. In 1433, Zheng He died in Guli (Kozhikode) in the west coast of India. His tombwasbuilt by imperial order at the southern slope of Niushoushan (Cattle Head Hill), Nanjing. The voyage of Zheng He was the first large scale maritime expedition of Chinese people. It was a great event in the history of human culture in the beginning of the 15th century.
In 1368, Xu Da captured Dadu of the Yuan Court and renamed it Beiping. In the third year of Hongwu (1381), Prince of Yan Zhu Di, the fourth son of Ming Taizu went to his fief Beiping. Later, Zhu Di launched Jingnan Campaign and successfully overthrew his nephew, after which he was proclaimed Emperor and adopted the era name Yongle, which means “perpetual happiness”. In the first year of Yongle Period(1403), he changed the name of Beiping to Beijing. In 1407, he ordered to build the imperial palace and the city wall in Beijing. In 1410, he launched the battle against the North Yuan Dynasty from Beijing, and built Changling (Long Mausoleum) in Changping near Beijing. In the next year, he dredged Huitong River and open the channel for transport between the North and the South. In 1416, he summoned his subjects and discussed to move the capital. In the next year, he began to thoroughly rebuild the Beijing city. In the eighteenth year of Yongle Period (1420), the palace of Beijing and the Beijing city were both completed. The new Beijing City was 22.5km in circumference. It was a square city with a central axis, which was the unique layout in the world. In the nineteenth year of Yongle (1421) issued an imperial edict for moving the capital. Beijing was the new capital and Nanjing was the secondary capital. In 1423, 1200 envoys from 16 countries: Xiyang-Guli (Kozhikode in the Western Ocean), Hulumosi (Hormuz), Xilan (Sri Lanka), Adan (Aden), Zufa’er (Zufar), Lasa,Bulawa (Brava), Mugudula (Mogadishu),Kezhi (Cochin),Jiayile (Cail),Liushan, Nanboli, Sumendala (Sumatra), Alu (Aru), Manlajia (Malaya) came to court in Beijing. It was a grand occasion. Yongle moved the capital to Beijing. This event based the layout of the Forbidden City in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the modern Beijing City. It was the beginning of the 590 years’ history of Beijing as the political center of China in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Yongle Dadian was the most famous collected materials in encyclopedia form in ancient China, which collected more than seven thousand kinds of ancient books and saved Chinese historical geographical, literary, artistic, philosophical, religious and encyclopedic materials before fourteenth century. Yongledadianwas compiled in Yongle Period in the Ming Dynasty. It was compiled twice. The first time, it was started in the first year of YonglePeriod(1403) and was completed in the next year. In the third year of Yongle Period(1405), it was ordered again that Yao Guangxiao, XieJin and other scholars re-compile it. They chose numerous books. 2169 scholars and courtiers took participate in this work. It took six years (1403—1408) and was completed at last. The original name was WenxianDacheng.YongleDadianhad a much greater scale than all of former leishu encyclopedias. Its was five to six times as much as YiwenLeiju, Taiping Yulan, CefuYuangui which were compiled in the preceding dynasties.Even GujinTushuJicheng, the most large scale leishu in the Qing Dynasty, was less than half of YongleDadian. The contemporary western books were much more inferior to bear comparison. It was 300 years earlier than Encyclopedia compiled by Denis Diderot and Encyclopedia Britannica. It was a treasure of cultural heritages of the world. The table of contents of it comprised 60 rolls, the main body of the book comprised 22937 rolls, in 11095 volumes, and using 370 million Chinese characters. Later, it was almost completely lost, only less than 800 rolls were saved.
Yu Qian (1398—1457), the Ming dynasty military strategist and national hero. Also named Tingyi and nicknamed Jie’an, he was a native of Qiantang (now Hangzhou, Zhejiang province). Yu passed the imperial examination in 1421 and became a censor during the early years of Emperor Xuande, which brought him the fame of incorruptibility. Afterward he was appointed successively as the governor of Shanxi and Henan, where he devoted himself to various measures of reform, such as establishing stabilization storehouses in prefectures and counties, regulating prices of food, giving aid to the poor, and building irrigation works, which made him very popular. In 1449 the Mongol army invaded northern China. Bewitched by the enuch Wang Zhen, the Ming Emperor Yingzong personally led the army to fight the Mongols, and was captured after a terrible defeat. Which the whole country was stupefied by shock and many high officials suggested the government moving to the south, Yu stood firm and helped the new Emperor Jingzong, the younger brother of Yingzong orgaznize the defense of Beijing. Under his leadership, the once demoralized Chinese army successfully frustrated the fiece attack of the Mongols. The capital was saved. First and foremost, the credit went to Yu. Thanks to him also, the Mongols set the former Emperor Yingzong free after years of neogotion. Nevertheless, when the Emperor Yingzong was restored to his throne when Jingzong was at his last gasp, he blamed Yu for his support of Jingzong and executed him with the fabricated accusation of disloyalty. When his property was confiscated, it was found that, although a major figure in the government, he was rather poor, the main collection being of books. After the death of Yingzong, the new emperor who knew very well the unjustness of his father, redressed the grievances done to Yu. Eversince, Yu Qian has been regarded as one of the major heroes in Chinese history. One poem on lime, which was written by Yu in lofty enthusiasm, testifies his personality:
Suffering thousands of striks when being unearthed,
Burned ruthlessly in fire and crushed to powder.
But all overlooked,
Only to make the world pure and clean.
Through the praise of lime, Yu expressed in this poem his fortitude, self-sacrifice, and rectitude.
Located in the southwestern region of China, the Road of Tea and Horse once served as one of the major routes for private international trade channel, with horse as the mode of transport, and as the major arena for economic and cutlural exchanges between various ethnic groups in Southwest China. Connecting Tibet and Sichuan, the Road of Tea and Horse was initiated during the Tang Dynasty, when tea was exchanged for horse, and was prosperous during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. There were two routes of the Road, through Sichuan and Yunan respectively, beginning with Ya’an, the tea producing area in the east, passing through Dajianlu (now Kangding), arriving at Lhasa, sometimes even further to Bhutan, Nepal, India, and as far as the Red Sea. With a total distance of more than 4000 kms, a history of 1300 years and the highest elevation in the world, testifying profoundly accumulated cultural heritage, it was the essential bridge connecting ancient Tibet with the mainland. The Road of Tea and Horse witnesses the thousand-year-old friendship developed between Chinna and other nations in Aisa through tea. It was the corridor of national migration, and especially the expedition of large leaf tea from the Lancang River valley in Yunnan significanlty enhanced economic and cultural exchanges between China and other nations. Buddhism was spread to the east throuhg the Road of Tea and Horse, which was one of the world’s main channel for exchanges between different civilizations. It was famous for multiculturalism, with goods serving as the media of cultural exchange. The site of the Road is especially well preserved in Lashiha, which is close to the ancient city of Lijiang, the Shaxi town of Jianchuan County, Dali Prefecture, Yunanyi of Xiangyun County, and Nakeli of Pu’er city.
Located in the southwestern region of China, the Road of Tea and Horse once served as one of the major routes for private international trade channel, with horse as the mode of transport, and as the major arena for economic and cutlural exchanges between various ethnic groups in Southwest China. Connecting Tibet and Sichuan, the Road of Tea and Horse was initiated during the Tang Dynasty, when tea was exchanged for horse, and was prosperous during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. There were two routes of the Road, through Sichuan and Yunan respectively, beginning with Ya’an, the tea producing area in the east, passing through Dajianlu (now Kangding), arriving at Lhasa, sometimes even further to Bhutan, Nepal, India, and as far as the Red Sea. With a total distance of more than 4000 kms, a history of 1300 years and the highest elevation in the world, testifying profoundly accumulated cultural heritage, it was the essential bridge connecting ancient Tibet with the mainland. The Road of Tea and Horse witnesses the thousand-year-old friendship developed between Chinna and other nations in Aisa through tea. It was the corridor of national migration, and especially the expedition of large leaf tea from the Lancang River valley in Yunnan significanlty enhanced economic and cultural exchanges between China and other nations. Buddhism was spread to the east throuhg the Road of Tea and Horse, which was one of the world’s main channel for exchanges between different civilizations. It was famous for multiculturalism, with goods serving as the media of cultural exchange. The site of the Road is especially well preserved in Lashiha, which is close to the ancient city of Lijiang, the Shaxi town of Jianchuan County, Dali Prefecture, Yunanyi of Xiangyun County, and Nakeli of Pu’er city.
The Ming Dynasty represents an important stage in the history of Chinese painting and calligraphy. In the early Ming court, the Zhejiang School of painting under the leadership of Dai Jin occupied an important position. But later, it was overshadowed by the Wumen School, which was very active in the Suzhou area. Famous painters such as Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming, Tang Yin and Qiu Ying were engaged in artistic activities in Suzhou. Since Suzhou belonged to the ancient Wu state in the pre-Qin period, they were called “four masters from Wu”. Following the Wumen School, the Huating School emerged with Gu Zhengyi and Dong Qichang as the leading painters. With his distinctive and delicate taste of brush and ink, Dong was especially influential and his impact could still be seen in the paintings as late as the middle Qing Dynasty. The style of calligraphy in the Ming Dynasty followed the tradition of the School of Retro of the Song and Yuan dynasties. In the early Ming, represented by Shen Du and Jiang Ligang, the Taige style prevailed in the standard script. Wen Zhengming, Zhu Yunming and Wang Chong emerged as “three masters in Wu”, significantly altered the Taige style and formed their own unique style in the middle Ming. The late Ming saw the rise of Dong Qichang, Xing Dong, Zhang Ruitu and Mi Wanzhong as the four leaing figures in calligarphy. The late Ming Dynasty is an important transitional period in the history of Chinese culture. Individualism permeated every aspect of culture, from philosophy, literature to art. From wildness of Xu Wei to delicacy of Dong Qichang, from steep of Zhang Ruitu to fortitudinous of Wang Duo, we can not only experience emancipations of individual personality, but also witness lone souls admiring their own purity.
The Merchant Group is generally considered to come into being mostly during the mid Ming Dynasty. The ten most famous merchant group in anceint China, including Huizhou, Shanxi Shaanxi, Shandong, Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangyou, Longyou and Ningbo. In late Ming Dynasty, the development of commodity economy, monetization of silver, and the expansion of domestic and international markets, helped create more space for business. Commercial capital wa very active, and cities and towns flourished, where a large number of merchants gathered. Merchants were largely engaged in the trade of grain, silk cotton, salt, tea, porcelain and wood, and pawn, while some devoted themselves to luxury goods. Also, some businessmen began to invest in handicraft industry. More and more people were attracted to business, an important symbol of the rapid development of commodity economy. Social status of merchants rose, and traditional value belittling business was overturned. Trade became more and more comlicated, the number of merchants continued to grow, and competition became increasingly fierce, but the state lagged behind, providing no legal regulation of market.Therefore, merchants used traditional ties of follow villageers and townsmen and of lineages to offer mutual support in business. Thus merchant groups came into being, playing an important role in promoting economic and social development.
Abacus, which could be seen in the famous painting Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival, was invented by Chinese and was also in used during the Northern Song Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, because of the flourishing commodity economy, abacus was widely adopted, eventually replacing the traditional method of counting by rods. The earliest extant book on abacus is Algorithm for Abacus edited by Xu Xinlu from Jian’ou of Fujian in 1573. But the most popular and influential book on abacus in history is A Straightforward and Authoritative Summary of Abacus Algorithm (often abbreviated as An Authoritative Summary of Abacus Algorithm) written by Cheng Dawei (1533—1606) from Xiuning of Huizhou (now Tunxi of Huangshan City) two decades later. Cheng, a Han Chinese, was also named Rusi and nicknamed Binqu. For two decades, he paid numerous visits to masters of abacus algorithm during his trips of business. In 1592 he finally completed this great book of seventeen volumes, providing a detailed introduction to the rules of traditional abacus and a standard manual and perfecting the arithmatic tables, with an additional collection of 595 math conundrums and their solutions. Marking a new era of abacus counting, this book was widely regarded as the comprehensive work of mathematics in the 16th century and the greatest canon on abacus in ancient China. In the late Ming Dynasty, it was translated into Japanese and brought out a revolution in counting in Japan. In the early Qing Dynasty, the book was also introduced into Korea, Southeast Asia and Europe, and was considered as a masterpiece of mathematics from the Orient.
Wang Shouren (1472—1529), a famous thinker, writer and military strategist during the Ming Dynasty, was born in Yuyao, Zhejiang. He was also named Boan, and known as Master Yangming. Wang was not only the most influential scholar in the School of Ming who was proficient in Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, but also was a successful general with great achievement. He was regarded as one of the rare omnipotent Confucianists in Chinese history and therefore was enshrined in the imperial Confucian Temple. His father Wang Hua passed the imperial examination as number one scholar in the seventeen year of the reign of Chenghua (1481). So he moved to Beijing with his father, and also passed the imperial examination at the age of 28. In 1506, because of his criticism of the powerful and corrupt eunuch Liu Jin, he was bastinadoed and exiled to Longchang of Guizhou (now Xiuwen County). In this remote mountainous area of Southwest China, his thought experienced the all-important change, based on his new comprehension of the central idea contained in the Confucious canon Grand Study. Consequently he broke with his former menter, the great Song thinker Zhu Xi, and raised his famous proposition: “nothing material exists outside the mind, and nothing spiritual exists outside the mind.” He argued that the mind dominates the body, and the essence of mind is spirituality. His transformation is known as “the awakening”. His thought of conscience encourages emancipatiof mind and breaks the boundary between the saint and the mortal. As the representative of the School of Mind popular for one and a half centureis, Wang’s influence could be observed across all stratums of Chinese society. His thought was also spread overseas, for example to Japan, and was higly esteemed there.
Since the early Ming Dynasty, Chinese coast from Liaodong to Shandong, and even as south as Guangdong, suffered constant lootings by Japanese pirates. In order to defend civilians from terrible and merciless attacks, the Ming dynasty built 16 fortresses along the coast, and trained militia. These measures were met with some success. However, Japanese pirates once again became a serious problem during the Middle Ming Dynasty, this time collaborated by Chinese pirates to raid repeatedly the coastal area in Fujian and Zhejiang. Qi Jiguang (1528—1588), a Han Chinese and a great military strategist, emerged as a star general and a national hero in the battles with pirates. Qi, a native of Dengzhou of Shandong (now Penglai) was also named Yuanjing, and nicknamed Nantang and Mengzhu. He came from a family of distinguished soldiers, and was initially in charge of the defense of Shangdong against Japanese pirates. In 1555, he was transferred to Zhejiang as the commander of the troops fighting with pirates. Qi personally went to Yiwu to enroll farmers and miners, and trained them in a new method based on his new ideas on military manoeuvre. This renovation and his bravery in the battlefield contributed to repetitive successes. In 1561, Qi was able to grant Japanese pirates humiliating defeats in Longshan, and Taizhou, driving them out of eastern Zhejiang. The following year, the glorious troop under his leadership marched into Fujian, and again won the decisive battle in Xianyou in 1564, this time clearing Fujian of pirates. Afterwards Qi further pursuing enemy to the south, and with collaboration by another wonderful general Yu Dayou, wiped out pirated in Guangdong, eventually eliminating the threats to Chinese coast by Japanese pirates.
The Great Wall, also known as the Wall of Ten Thousands Miles Long, is a military defense project in ancient China. The construction of a vast and magnificent scale is unique in the history of the world. The building of the Great Wall began in 656 BC, as recorded. During the Warring States period, Chu, Qi, Wei, Yan, Zhao, Qin and Zhongshan states were devoted to building massive defensive walls along their borders one after another have been. After Qin Shihuang uniting China, in order to ward off the attacks from nomads from the steppe, he integrated the existing wall systems left by the conquered states and constructed the Great Wall which ran from Lintao to Liaodong, ten thousands miles long. Afterward, the Great Wall was rebuilt during the Eastern Han, the Northern Wei, the Eastern Wei, the Northern Qi, the Northern Zhou, the Sui, the Liao, and the Jin Dynasties, to various degrees. During the more-than- 200-years-long life of the Ming Dynasty, the construction of the Great Wall, also known as the Border Wall then, was almost never interrupted. A joint team from the National Bureau of Cultural Relics and the National Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, first published in April 18, 2009, the Great Wall of the Ming period begins from Mountain Hu along the Yalu River in Liaoning in the east, passes westward through Hebei, Tianjin, Beijing, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai in succession, and finally ends at Pass Jiayu at the eastern foot of Mountain Qilian in Gansu. In total it passes 156 counties belonging to seven provinces, one autonomous region and two municipalities directly under the central government, with a total length of 8851.8 kilometers. The towers on the Great Wall were designed by Qi Jiguang when he was in charge of the army station at Jizhen. The Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty fully embodies the great achievements of ancient Chinese architecture, and testifies wisdom and talents of ancient Chinese people.
The Chinese martial arts are an unique type of martial arts formed gradually in the long history of China. The origins of martial arts were productive labors of Chinese ancestors from remote antiquity. During the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, “martial dance “ emerged as a effective way to train soldiers and raise morale. In the Springs and Autumns period, because of increasingly fierce competition for hegemony, Qi Lord Huangong designed championship contests of wrestling twice a year, in the spring and autumn respectively, in order to get the calibre of people he wanted. Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, wrestling and fencing were quite popular among the people. Even a qualification test of martial arts for candidates of imperial bureaucrats was established in the Tang Dynasty, when, along with the poetry of Li Bai and the calligraphy of Zhang Xu, the fencing of Pei Min was regarded as three unique and consummate skills. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, nongovernmental organizations of martial arts vigorously sprung up, testifying the widespread love of marital arts as a sport. The Ming Dynasty witnessed a great development of martial arts, various schools emerging, with Taijiquan and Baguaquan as the most influential. In the reign of Jiajing, there were 11 schools of boxing, 31 schools of staff, 16 schools of spear, 15 schools of knife, 6 schools of sword, 10 schools of miscellaneous equipment, 5 schools of palladium, and 16 school of martial arts on horse, in the Jiangnan region only. Qi Jiguand, whose troop was famous for martial arts skill, was the author of A New Book for Effective Training and A Record of Training, and Yu Dayou, Tang Shunzhi, He Liangchen and others wrote The Cannon of Sword, A Manual of Martial Arts and other classics of martial arts, which laid a theoretical foundation for the development of martial arts.
Anda Khan (1507—1582), was the leader of the Tumote Tribe in right wing of Mongolia during the Ming Dynasty, whose pasture was centered on Fengzhoutan (now Hohhot, Inner Mongolia). Emerging a war hero worshiped by his tribesmen in the early years of Jiajing, he gradually became more and more powerful, and controlled the whole right wing, forcing his original suzerain fleeing to Liaodong. In 1550 the cavalrymen of Anda reached Beijing, threatening to attack if permission of trade was not granted. The following year, under such a military pressure, the Ming Dynasty established border markets to buy horses from the steppe in Xuanhua, Datong, and other places. But soon afterwards these markets were shut down, and war ensued. In 1570, Bahannaji, a grandson of Anda surrendered to the Ming. Wang Chonggu, the commander of army stationed in Shanxi petitioned the court to treat him kindly and generously. In his favor, Prime Ministers Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng supported the proposal, conferring an imperial title on Bahannaji. Worrying about the life of her grandson, Anda’s wife scolded Anda day and night. Anda himself regretted invading and harassing the Ming, so initiated a peace negotiation with the Ming, asking for the return of his grandson, the conferring of himself as king, and the reopening the border markets. The negotiation ended with a peace settlement next year that canonized Anda as the King of Shunyi, and stipulated the terms of trade. Subsequently the Ming government established 11 border market in Datong, Xuanfu, Yansui, and other places in Ningxia and Gansu. This settlement laid foundation for decades of peace and friendly relationship between the Ming and the Mongolia, effectively promoting the economic and cultural development both of the Ming and the Mongolia. The Qing Dynasty, the successor of the Ming, argued that the benefits of this settlement could even be observed 200 years later.
During the first year of Longqin (1567), adjusting foreign trade policy, the Ming Emperor announced the lifting of the ban on maritime trade and allowed private international trade through sea. The ban was imposed by the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang due to multiple considerations such as political and economic, but mainly military, in order to defend the coastal region against the raids of Japanese pirates during the early years of the Ming Dynasty. Afterward the only oversea trade permitted was that monitored by states, and, when paying the tribute, the legates from other nations often brought with them a large group of businessmen. In the middle Ming period, the significant development of Chinese economy and the surging of silver demand surge called for the inevitable collaboration of private overseas trade, the banning of which severely hindered not only the development of international trade but also the growth of domestic industry and commerce. Therefore, the local officials along the Chinese coast strongly advocated the central government to reopen private maritime trade. Eventually, after the threat of Japanese pirates subsided in the late years of Jiajing, new emperor Longqing approved the proposal of Tu Zemin, the leading censor of Fujian provincial goverment, and allowed private maritime trade, initially restrained to one port in Zhangzhou, Fujian. Although this first step was rather limited and the trade with Japan was still banned, it represented the legitimizing of private overseas trade, which grew into the dominating figure in Ming overseas trade in general during the late Ming. Following the lifting of ban, the Portuguese came and obtained a permit from the Ming government to engage in trade in Macao, representing the legitimizing of foreign capital in Chinese trade. Raw silk, silk, silk knit goods, porcelain, and other goods were in great demand overseas, in exchange for which a great amount of silver flowed into China, playing an important role in the social and economic development of China.
During the first year of Longqin (1567), adjusting foreign trade policy, the Ming Emperor announced the lifting of the ban on maritime trade and allowed private international trade through sea. The ban was imposed by the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang due to multiple considerations such as political and economic, but mainly military, in order to defend the coastal region against the raids of Japanese pirates during the early years of the Ming Dynasty. Afterward the only oversea trade permitted was that monitored by states, and, when paying the tribute, the legates from other nations often brought with them a large group of businessmen. In the middle Ming period, the significant development of Chinese economy and the surging of silver demand surge called for the inevitable collaboration of private overseas trade, the banning of which severely hindered not only the development of international trade but also the growth of domestic industry and commerce. Therefore, the local officials along the Chinese coast strongly advocated the central government to reopen private maritime trade. Eventually, after the threat of Japanese pirates subsided in the late years of Jiajing, new emperor Longqing approved the proposal of Tu Zemin, the leading censor of Fujian provincial goverment, and allowed private maritime trade, initially restrained to one port in Zhangzhou, Fujian. Although this first step was rather limited and the trade with Japan was still banned, it represented the legitimizing of private overseas trade, which grew into the dominating figure in Ming overseas trade in general during the late Ming. Following the lifting of ban, the Portuguese came and obtained a permit from the Ming government to engage in trade in Macao, representing the legitimizing of foreign capital in Chinese trade. Raw silk, silk, silk knit goods, porcelain, and other goods were in great demand overseas, in exchange for which a great amount of silver flowed into China, playing an important role in the social and economic development of China.
The production of blue and white porcelain began in the Tang Dynasty, matured in the late Yuan Dynasty, and witnessed the heyday during the Ming Dynasty. Tang porcelain with blue pattern from Gongxian of Henan is generally regarded as the origin of blue and white porcelain. The most famous of the late Yuan Dynasty blue and white porcelain are products of the imperial Fuliang kilns of Jingdezhen, which were especially designed for international exchanges of the court. During the years of Yongle and Xuande of the Ming Dynasty, oversea voyages under the leadership of Zhenghe lasted nearly 30 years, passing through many regions of Islamic faith and bring back cobalt that helped Jingdezhen kilns produce extremely refined blue and white porcelain never seen before. Due to the influence of West Asian golden, silver and copper vessels, many new types of porcelain designs with strong Islamic taste emerged, such as octagonal candlestick and vault-of-Heaven vase. In the years of Chenghua, when imported cobalt was exhausted, the development of domestic mines of cobalt helped nongovernmental production of blue and white porcelain to flourish, and gradually has blue and white porcelain occupied the dominant position in Chinese porcelain production. The late Ming Dynasty witnessed the great development of commodity economy, and western merchants were allowed to engage in trade in Macao by the Ming Dynasty. As one of the representative of Chinese material culture, blue and white porcelain spread to Asia, Africa, Europe and America.
Zhang Juzheng (1525—1582), also named Shuda and nicknamed Taiyue, the most famous Ming Dynasty statesman, was a native of Jiangling, Hubei. Zhang entered the cabinet during the reign of Ming Emperor Mouzong and served as prime minister for 10 consecutive years during the years of Wanli. In order to save the Ming dynasty from social crisis and to solve all kinds of problems left by 200 years of its development, he presided a full-scale reform involving politics, economy, military and other aspects of social life. Zhang created a new method of official assessment to eliminate corruption and to supervise the strict execution of imperial orders by officials at all levels. He also carried out a new project of recording land all over the country, and initiated a new tax system called one payment only, which was a hallmark in the history of ancient tax system and significantly improved the financial situation of the Ming regime. In his last years, to improve, imperial treasury contained grain reserves of more than 13 million dan (a unit of measure that is roughly equal to 30kgs), which could support the whole population for five to six years. Moreover, Zhang Juzheng selected capable generals such as Qi Jiguang and Li Chengliang, who, as commanders in Jimen and Liaodong respectively, successfully turned the military situation around for the better. As the prime minister, Zhang presided the negotiation with Mongolian Anda Khan that brought the lasting peace, and admitted Tibet to the Ming tribute system. Under his leadership, the Yellow River and Huai River were harnessed, and the Grand Canal was put into better use, playing a positive role in economic development and improvement of lives of common people. Regretfully, since the reform touched vested interested of aristocracy, bureaucrats and landlords, it was terminated after the death of Zhang Juzheng.
The Korean War of Wanli, also known as “the Aid to Korea” in Chinese documents, “Japanese Invasion in the Year of Renchen” in Korea and “the War of Bunroku-Keicho” by Japanese. During the years of Wanli of the Ming Dynasty, Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified Japan by force. At the twentieth year of Wanli (1592), Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched the Korean war, planning to first occupy Korea and then take it as a springboard to attack China. Japanese troops that landed in Busan swiftly occupied Seoul, Kaesong and Pyongyang in merely two months. they. The King of Korea Li Yan appealed for Chinese aid. In the first month of the following year, the Ming commander Li Rusong ordered troops to advance into Korea, and fighting shoulder to shoulder with Korean army, Li recovered Pyongyang and Kaesong. But the recapture of Korean capital Seoul was frustrated. Nevertheless, because of successive defeats and lack of rations, Japanese abandoned Seoul and retreated to Busan. Then the truce was executed for peace negotiation. When negotiation failed, the Ming Dynasty again sent troops to help Korea fight Japanese. The war lasted seven years. After the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Sino-Korean joint force eventually expelled Japanese out of Korea. In the naval battle of Luliang at 1598, cutting off the retreat line of the enemy, the Sino-Korean joint force launched a fatal blow to the invading Japanese and won the decisive victory. Chinese veteran general Deng Zilong and Korean navy commander Li Shunchen, both bravely dashing ahead regardless of their own safety, gave up their lives heroically in the battle. The Korean War of Wanli laid the foundation for the coming 200 years of peace in Korea.
Zhu Zaiyu (1536—1611), the Ming Dynasty musician, ephemeris scientist, and mathematician, was called the Sage of Music. He was a descendant of Ming founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang at the eighth generation, and that of Emperor Renzong at the sixth generation. Prince of Zheng, his father, was a literati highly achieved in writing, calligraphy, and music, from whom Zaiyu received an excellent education since childhood. Encyclopedia of Music, a total of 47 volumes and more than one million characters, is a masterpiece on music, dance, and ephemeris, composed by 15 treatises such as A New Theory of Music, A New Theory of Ephemeris, A New Theory of Mathematics, The Essence of Music and others. In The Essence of Music, the first to use the geometric series temperament system to elaborate this new theory, Zhu solved the Huang-chung problem in musical theory that puzzled musicians for long, providing the mathematical foundation for modern keyboard instruments. The theory of twelve-tone equal temperament has been widely used in keyboard instruments all over the world, including the piano, therefore Zhu Zaiyu is known as “the father of the piano theory”.
Xu Guangqi (1562—1633), a great Ming scientist, agronomist, politician, and military strategist whose Christian name was Paul, was a native of Shanghai County of Songjiang Prefecture. Xu passed the imperial examination of official candidates at the thirty-second year of Wanli, and once served in the cabinet as the Minister of Rites. One of the pioneers of cultural exchanges between China and the west, he was an expert of astronomy, ephemeris and firearms. Encyclopedia of Agronomy edited by Xu is a masterpiece of 60 volumes and more than 700 thousand characters. A work both extensively citing ancient classics and contemporary literature on agronomy and providing his own distinctive insights, it is consisted of 12 treatises: farm capital, land system, agriculture, water conservancy, farming instruments, arboriculture, sericulture, sericulture at large, planting, adoption, manufacturing, and famine relief. In main the Encyclopedia covers two subjects: agronomy theory and application. Xu proposed to promote agriculture in the north by reclamation and development of water conservancy, agued that more attention should be paid to preventive against famine, and through scientific experiments, defeated the long presiding school of vernacular theory in ancient Chinese agronomy and facilitated the development of agricultural technology. He also further improved dry farming techniques in the south, promoted the plantation of sweet potato, and found out patterns of locust disasters and accordingly providing effective ways of locust control.
Xu Xiake (1587—1641), the Ming Dynasty geographer, traveler and explorer, was a native of Jiangyin (now Jiangsu province). Due to the influence of his father, as a child Xu liked reading books on history, geography, travel and adventure. He began to travel at the age of 22. Before the death at the age of 56, his footprints had been left all over China, including Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, Shandong, Hebei, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan, 16 provinces in total. Travels of Xu Xiake was the fascinating record of his 30 years of travel and adventure. Through personal visits, Xu figured out that the Jinsha River is indeed the origin of the Yangtze River, refuting the wrong but popular and long cherished idea that the origin of the Yangtze River is located in Min Mountain as recorded in Yu Gong that was generally considered as an authoritative classic. Xu also identified the origins and waterways of many other rivers such as the Left River, the Right River, the Daying River and the Lancang River, correcting many confusing mistakes in The Imperial Geographical Records. He was the world’s earliest geographer who systematically studied the landform of limestone, while the first European investigation was done in 1774 and the earliest European systematic classification was achieved in 1858, both lagging more than one hundred years behind.
Song Yingxing (1587—1666), a great scientist in late Ming, was a native of Fengxin (now Jiangxi). Song passed the provincial examination of official candidates in 1615, and was appointed as the supervisor of education of Fenyi, Jiangxi in 1643, during the term of which he wrote Heavenly Creations, which is not only China’s first encyclopedia type of science and technology in general but also one of the masterpieces on science and technology in the world history. The title comes from two phrases in The Book of History and The Book of Changes: “human creates on behalf of the Heaven” and “to learn the rules of creations and to benefit”. The whole book is divided into 3 volumes, 18 chapters in total. The first volume records the cultivation and processing of grain, bean and hemp, the technology of spinning, weaving and dyeing of silk and cotton, and the manufacturing of salt and sugar. The second volume discusses the making of brick and ceramics, the construction of vehicles and vessels, metal casting, the mining and firing of coal, lime, sulfur and alum, the extraction of oil, the making of paper and others. The last volume records the mining and smelting of metal mineral, weapon manufacturing, the production of pigment, and the distilling of liquid, as well as the mining and processing of jade. In sum, laden with precious historical and scientific values, Heavenly Creations provides detailed descriptions of classification, places of origin, production technology and process equipments of various crops and industrial raw materials, and insightful discussions of production organization, with the help of 123 illustrations. This masterpiece was highly influential not only in China but also abroad. It was translated into Japanese, French, English, German, Italian, Russian and other languages, spreading to Japan, Korea and European countries.
Tang Xianzu (1550—1616), the Ming Dynasty dramatist and writer, was a native of Linchuang (now south of Fuzhou, Jiangxi). In the years of Jiajing and Longqing, Wei Liangfu wonderfully reformed the style of Kunshan singing, and Liang Chenyu was met with unprecedented success in his performance of the legendary drama Washing Gauze with the new Kunshan style. The following years of Wanli witnessed the rise of many great dramatists and dramas, therefore was considered the second golden age in the history of Chinese drama, the first being the Yuan Dynasty. Tang Xianzu was the most outstanding dramatist of this period. He was born in a literary family, and already showed talent at the age of 12. Tang passed the imperial examination of official candidacy at the age of 34, but soon retired from politics because of his averseness to corruption and engaged himself entirely in drama and poetry. His dramas pursued romanticism and sincerity, of which Peony Pavilion (also called The Resurrection), Purple Hairpin, Dream of Nanke and Handan are generally known as Four Dreams in Linchuan, or Four Dreams in Yuming Hall. A love story of Du Liniang and Liu Mengmz, Peony Pavilion is Tang’s most well known masterpiece fully demonstrating his idea of individuality liberation and romanticism. In the history of drama, Tang Xianzu is often referred to as the oriental Shakespeare.
The general name of famous novels written in the period of Ming and Qing dynasty. They are San Guo Yan Yi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms), Shui Hu Zhuan (Water Margin), Xi You Ji (Journey to the West), Hong Lou Meng (A Dream of Red Mansions). In the narrative of Chinese literature history, the form of novel has begun to be as important as the form Tang and Song poetry, Yuan opera since the period of Ming dynasty. At the turning of Yuan and Ming Dynasty, the novel creation comes into a new era, San Guo Yan Yi and Shui Hu Zhuan were written during this important period. The writer of San Guo Yan Yiis Luo Guanzhong (1330—1400), whose original name was Ben, andart name is Huhai Sanren. Shui Hu Zhuan was written by Shi Nai’an (1296—1371), whose name is Er, alternate name is Zhaorui, Yanduan, courtesy nameZi’an, art nameNai’an. The flourish of novel creation was promoted by the development of publishing at the end of Ming dynasty. Xi You Ji was finished during the period of the reign of JiaJing. The writerWu Cheng’en (1504—1582), whose courtesy name is Ruzhong, art name is Sheyang Shanren. Of the Four Chinese Literature Classics, Hong Lou Meng was the only onefinished during period of the Qing Dynasty. The writer of Hong Lou Meng Cao Xueqin (1715—1763), whose name is Zhan, gracious name is Mengruan, art name is Qinxi, Qinpu. He grown up from child in a glorious time of the romantic land of Qin and Huai, and then suffered a hard life of the world after comedown of his family. He moved to the western suburbs of Beijing at his old age, and finished the first 80 volumes of Hong Loumeng. The 40 volumes remainedwere finished by Gao’e. The Four Chinese Literature Classics are the representation of the highest level of Chinese classic novel art.
Li Zicheng (1606—1645), the leader of peasant uprising in the late year of Ming Dynasty, who was once named Hongji, was from Mizhi of Shanxi province, then worked as a military courier in Yinchuan. At the 2nd year of the reign of the Emperor Congzhen, Li Zicheng joined the uprising against Ming Dynasty, became a “Dashing general” of the army of Gao Yingxiang who was called “Dashing King”. After the death of Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng was elected as the “Dashing King”. In 1643, Li Zicheng claimed himself as the King of Xinshun in the city of Xiangyang, and occupied Xi’an at the same year. In the first lunar month of 1644, Li established a regime named Great Shun, whose era name was Yongchang. At the 19th day of the 3rd lunar month of the same year, He caputured the city of Beijing. The Emperor Chongzhen of Ming dynasty hanged himself in the Mei Hill (Jing Hill today), signifying the end of the Ming Dynasty. In the afternoon of the same day, dressed in a white felt hat and the coat with horsehoof-shaped cuff, Li Zicheng rode into the city of Beijing through the Desheng gate on the black dragon horse, and dwelt in Forbidden City. He summoned old folk for asking the suffering of the people, and severely punished malfeasant of Ming Dynasty. At the beginning of the occupation of Beijing, the army of Dashun could keep the city’s social order, shops were opening as usual. But at the 27th day of the 3rd month, the army of Dashun began to tortured and rob the officers of Ming court who were compelled to hand in filthy lucre and salaries. In the army of Dashun, generals became conceit and extravagance, the soldiers began to plunder in the city of Beijing where began to be full of awful atmosphere. Soon, Wu Sangui, who was the general of Ming court guarding the Shanhai Pass, surrendered to the court of Qing Dynasty and let Qing forces into the Pass to attack the forces of Dashun. In the 4th lunar month, Li Zicheng lead the main forces to make a battle with Qing forces, and then he was defeated by thecombined forces of eight banner army of Qing and Wu Sangui’s army. At the 29th day of the month, Li Zicheng proclaimed emperor, and at the next day, he fled from Beijing, signifying the fail of the Dashun regime.
At the turn of Ming-Qing dynasties, the development of the Neo-Confucian theory stepped into the period of self criticism. The three well-known ideologists Huang Zongxi, Gu Yanwu and Wang Fuzhi are the representative of social progressive ideological trend at the second half of the 17th century. Huang Zongxi (1610-1695), courtesy nameis Taichong, art names are Lizhou and Nanlei, known as the “Mater of Lizhou”, born in Yuyao, Zhejiang province. Huang Zongxi’s father was a luminary of Donglin Party, and framed to die by Wei Zhongxian. Huang studied under Liu Zongzhou as his father’s last wish. When the troops of Qing moved south, he failed to resist the forces of Qing and lived in seclusion, concentrated on academical writing, even refused to the requisition of the court of Qing repeatedly. Huang Zongxi wrote books such as Ming Ru Xue An (the Academical Profiles of the Scholars of Ming and Qing) and Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu (Waiting for the Dawn). He argued against absolute monarchy and historically summarized the development of the Neo-Confucian theories. Gu Yanwu (1613—1682), formal name Jiang, courtesy name Ningren, known as the “Master of Tinglin”, born in Kunshan of Jiangsu. When Wang was young, he joints in the corporation of Fushe. When the troops of Qing moved south, after the failure of the resistance, Gu Yanwu visited the Ming tomb for 10 times and toured around the region of Huabei. His major works are Ri Zhi Lu(Daily Understanding) and Tian Xia Jun Guo Li Bing Shu (Merits and Drawbacks of All the Provinces and Counties in China). Jing Shi Zhi Yong (reality and applying) as His main doctrines initiated a new scholarship of down-to-earth. Wang Fuzzhi (1619—1692), courtesy name Ernong, art name Jiangzhai, born in Hengyang of Hunan province. After fall of Ming Dynasty, he failed to resist the Qing court, hided in the hills of Shichuan of Hengyang to concentrate on academical writing, thus known as the “Mater of Chuanshan”. The works of Wang Fuzhi were collected and published in the name of Chuan Shan Yi Shu (the Collection of the Master Chuanshan’s works ). Wang Fuzhi’s study went beyond the limitations of the Neo-Confucism at many aspects such as Metaphysics, Ethics, Epistemology and theory of knowledge and practice, thus made an effective influence on modern people’s thinking forms.
Shi Kefa (1601—1645), a Chinese politician and military strategistat the end of Ming Dynasty, style name Xianzhi and Daolin. He was born in Xiangfu of Henan province and claimed ancestry from Daxing County, Shuntian. In the first year of the reign of Chongzhen emperor, Shi obtained a jinshi degree. After Li Zicheng occupation of Beijing in 1644, Ma Shiying and the others hailed the Prince Fu the emperor in Nanjing, Shi Kefa was appointed as the minister of the Board of Rites and the Grand Secretary of the Eastern Secretarist and later as the minister of the Board of War in charge of the defense of Yangzhou against Qing forces. The Qing regent Dorgon wrote to Shi Kefa, asking for his surrender, Shi Kefa’s response, titled Reply to Dorgon’s letter, was noted for its neither servile nor overbearing tone, and was circulated among later generations. When the Qing forces moved south and reached near Yangzhou, Shi Kefa went to Bai Yang river for arraying defenses, then retreated to Yangzhou continuing to resist the Qing invaders. Knowing of the inevitable fall of the city to Qing forces, Shi Kefa decided to kill himself for his country. Yu Prince Dodo of Qing dynasty let the surrendered general Li Yuchun to write five times one day to persuade Shi Kefa to surrender. Shi Kefa burnt Li’s letters directly without seal off. After the fall of city, Shi Kefa attempted suicide by slitting his throat but failed, and was taken by guards from the gate tower, soon the Qing army moved near. Shi Kefa then shouted “I’m Military Inspector Shi. Quickly kill me!” and was captured as a prisoner-of-war.Dodo tried to take the case of Hong Chengshou to persuade Shi Kefa to surrender.Shi Kefa replied, “I fall together with the city. My decision will not change. Even if I’m torn to pieces, my feelings will be as sweet as maltose. But do not harm the thousands of lives in Yangzhou!”Shi Kefa was then executed. Shi Kefa’s fallower buried his headdress and garments at Plum Blossom Ridge outside the Tianning Gate of Yangzhou.The Southern Ming emperor Longwu granted him a posthumous name as “Zhongjing” (loyal and peaceful).the Qing dynasty’s Qianlong Emperor granted Shi Kefa another posthumous name, “Zhongzheng” (loyal and upright). His descendants collected his works and compiled them into a book titled Shi Zhong Zheng Gong Wenji (Lord Shi Zhongzheng’s Collections).
At the forth year (1624) of the reign of Tianqi of Ming Dynasty, the Dutch colonialists occupied Taiwan. Zheng Chenggong, the famous national hero at the turning of Ming and Qing dynasties, primitively name Fusong and Sen, art name Damu, was born in the village of Shijing, the county of Nan’an, Fujian province. His father, Zheng Zhilong, was a famous leader of groups of Chinese merchant and pirate in the late Ming dynasty, then surrendered to the government of Ming Dynasty. After while, Zheng Zhilong was granted the duke of Jian’an as a reward of pacifying the southeast ocean. He organized the immigration to Taiwan, and actively developed the islands of Taiwan. In 1645, Zheng Chenggong met the Longwu emperor of southern Ming. The Longwu Emperor granted Zheng a new personal name, Chenggong (success), and the title of Guoxingye (Lord of the Imperial Surname). From now on, he was known as honorific “Guoxingye” in the world. In the next year, Zheng Zhilong surrendered Qing Dynasty, but Zheng Chenggong rose up to resist Qing forces. In 1661, Zheng Chenggong led his troops send off by ship from Jinmen, after several day’s replenishment in Penghu, directly moved to Taiwan. The Dutch invaders’ troops focused on two fortress of Taiwan(Dongping of Taiwan today) and Chiqian(Tai Nan today). The fleet of Zheng troops sailed into the island sea of Luermen, and the main troops landed at Heliao labor, attacked the fortress of Chikan from the side, cutting off its contact with the fortress of Taiwan. In the battle, Zheng’s troops sank the Dutch battleship “Heketuo”, and routed the reinforcements from the fortress of Taiwan. The Dutch army in the Chikan were forced to surrender to Zheng’s army. Zheng Chenggong continued to build wall around Taiwan to siege the fortress. After about 8 months’ siege, the troops of Zheng Chenggong lanched the final storm attack. The Dutch Governor of invaders signed on the protocol, signifying Zheng Chenggong’s recapture of Taiwan from the Dutch occupation of 38 years.
The suppression of the rebellion of three Feudatories was a military affair of putting down the rebellion of three Chinese feudatories in tearly Qing Dynasty. The “three Feudatories” were Wu Sangui, Geng Jingzhong and Shang Kexi, who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty in the end of Ming Dynasty. Their troops became important forces to help Qing court to enter into the Shanhai Pass and united a whole country. During the reign of Shunzhi, the Qing emperor ordered Shang Kexi who was granted “Pingnan Prince” (South Pacifying Prince) to take in charge of Guangdong province; Wu Sangui who was granted “Pingxi Prince” (West Pacifying Prince) take in charge of Yunnan province; Geng Jimao (the son of Geng Zhongming) who was granted “Jingnan Prince” (South Pacifying Prince) take in charge of Fujian province. The three feudatories expanded their military powers with the long-time control of fiefdoms. The “Pingxi Prince” Wu Sangui took high power as a reward of his great merit to Qing Dynasty, controlling the frontier region, sometimes didn’t obeyed the order of the court of Qing Dynasty. The Kangxi Emperor decided to reduce the three-lord’s power after his coming into power. After the order of reducing the feudatory promulgated, the three feudatories instigated the rebellion successively. At the 11th month of the 12th year of the reign of Kangxi(1673), Wu Sangui declared his regime “Zhou” and himself the “All-Supreme-Military Generalissimo”, marking the next year as the first year of his era, and then appointed civil and military officials. Geng Jingzhong (the son of Geng Jimao), Shang Zhixin(the son of Shang Kexi) rose up to follow Wu’s rebellion. The rebels rose up everywhere in provinces of Yungui, Chuanhu, Minzhe,Liangguang and Shangan. The Kangxi Emperor relayed on the Green-flag Army to suppress the rebellion. In battles against the rebels, Han and Manchu troops were organized into joint forces to fight together. The Kangxi Emperor disintegrated the alliance of the enemies by the strategies of suppression and accommodation with exerting both favor and pressure on the rebels. In the 15th year of the reign of Kangxi, Geng Jingzhong and Shang Zhixin surrendered, Wu Sangui was in isolation. Then, Wu Sangui declared himself emperor in Hengzhou (Hengyang of Hunan today), soon after that, died of illness. In the 10th month of the 20th year of the reign of Kangxi (1681), rebellion of Yunnan was pacified. It signified the end of the 8 years’ suppression of rebellion that reduced the separatist forces and safeguarded national unification.
The Thirteen Factories of Canton set up on Guangzhou was principal and sole legal firms dealing with trade Western sates and China in Qing dynasty, it is another name of firms of foreign goods. The Qing people called it thirteen firms of foreign merchandise directly. In the 24th year of the reign of Kangxi (1685), the emperor repealed the ban on maritime trade, this policy enhanced Chinese overseas trade. In the next year, the governor of Liangguang Wu Xingzuo and custom supervisor of Yue Sea Customs Minister Yier’getu decided together to classified the civil commodity taxes and customs duties into stallage tax and exchange tax, the later was levied both on the goods from abroad and the ones that would be sold by sea by Yue Sea Customs Minister. The institution of the Factories of Canton was thus created. The thirteen firms primitively were some kind of broker-house, then became the Guangdong governmental designated intermediary trade firms who imported foreign goods and exported native goods. As the official designated merchants of international trade in Qing Dynasty, the thirteen Factories business and authority were expanded to withholding the taxes of foreign ships for customs, the usual management of foreign merchants and undertaking foreign affair receptions assigned by the government. The institution of official designated firms in charge of international trade taxes was an important part of the strict policies of foreign trade management of Qing Dynasty who proposed to prevent the free communication between Chinese and foreigners. The Thirteen Factories, the epitome of “One Treaty Port” in Qing Dynasty, witnessed the development of international trade of Guangzhou. After the Opium War, the institution of Chinese official designated firms were abolished according to theTreaty of Nanjing, as the result, the Thirteen Factories declined.
The battle of Yaksa is Chinese counterattack in self-defence against the Russian invaders in the 1680s. In the 1640s, Russian invaders began to invade the region of Heilong River, occupied some places such as Yaksa (eastern Mohe, and the northern shore of Heilong River today) and Nibuchu(Nieerqinsike)wherever they went to burn, kill and loot. The troops of Qing delivered an ultimatum to persuade Russian invaders to surrender. But the persuasion was refused by the general of Russian army Tolbuzin. Qing troops attacked the Russian fortress for nearly a whole night, Tolbuzin was forced to surrender. Qing dynasty allowed him back to Nibuchu, then burned down the fortress of Yaksa, and came back. At the same year, Tolbuzin broke the contract with Qing army, led the army to occupied the city of Yaksa again. The next year, the Kangxi Emperor ordered the General of Heilongjiang Sabusu to lead army to recapture Yaksa. In the battle, Tolbuzin died of serious injuries, the Russian army was sieged by Qing army for more than 5 months, their ammunition and food supplies were exhausted. So, Russian and Chinese can make the Treaty of Nibuchu which is the first equal treaty between the two countries, and also signifies the victory of the battle of Yaksa. The treaty clearly stipulated the eastern border line between China and Russia, and legally cleared that the regions of Heilong River and Ussuri River were all Chinese territories. But in 1858, the Russian occupied Yaksa again according to the Treaty of Aigun.
Mulan Autumn Hunt was a institution of royal hunting of Qing Dynasty. “Mulan“ originally was Manchu, means hunt deer. Since the 41th year of the reign of Kangxi(1702), the court built many palaces along the road from Beijing to Mulan paddock. The famous palace was Rehe Summer Palace, known as Chengde Mountain Resort. The Summer Palace was built originally in 1703 and took 89 years during the periods of Kangxi, The Yongzheng and Qianlong emperors to complete. The emperors of Qing Dynasty often spent summer times in Mountain Resort to escape the summer heat in Beijing. So the Summer Palace became an important place where the Qing emperors deal with government affairs and met Mongolian and Tibetan leaders of Polity and Religious groups. The Mountain Resort witnessed many important affairs in the history of Qing Dynasty. The“Eight Outer Temples”were built in the Vajrayana Buddhist styles of Tibet, Xinjiang and Mongolia. The Puren Temple and Pushan Temple were built by the Mongolian princes to celebrate the 60th birthday of the Kangxi Emperor. Puning Temple was built to memory two important affairs, one was the suppression of the military rebellion of Gerdan who was the leader of Zhungaer tribe of Erlute Mongolians, and the other was granting the highest nobles of four Erlute Mongolian tribes prince titles. Anyuan Temple was built in order to facilitate the worship of 2000 peoples of Dashendawa (达什达瓦部) tribe who moved from Xinjiang to Rehe. The Putuozongcheng (Potaraka Doctrine) Temple was built in the style of the Potala Palace in Lasa to celebrate the 60th birthday of Qianlong emperor and the 80th birthday of empress dowager. The Putuozongcheng Temple was also the place where Qianlong emperor met the Torgut Mongolian leader Ubashi who led people to return by marching for thousand miles, and the residence of Dalai Lama when he met the emperor in Chengde. Xumifu Temple, built to celebrate the 70th birthday of Qianlong emperor, has been as the palace of the political and religious leader of Tsang, Panchen lama VI when he came to Chengde to celebrate Qianlong emperor’s birthday.
The Beijing’s ancient astronomical observatory was originally known as Si Tian Tai (Administration of Heavenly Observatory) that was built during the period of Yuan Dynasty. In the early Ming Dynasty, it was destroyed by the war, the remains of astronomical instruments were carried to Nanjing for preservation. In the 7th year of the reign of Zhengtong (1442), the court of Ming Dynasty reconstructed Beijing astronomical observatory. The new observatory rebuilt from the northeast turret of the wall of Dadu city of the Yuan Dynasty, was a brick building in the style of high platform. After finished, the observatory was named Guan Xing Tai “the platform for observing stars”. Large copper astronomical instruments such as an armillary sphere, an abridged armilla, a celestial globe were located on the platform of the observatory. Under the observatory were a cluster of buildings such as Ziwei Hall, Clepsydra room, Sundial Shadow Hall and other auxiliary structures with some instruments such as gnomon and clepsydra. During the period of the reign of Chongzhen, Xu Guangqi and Li Tianjing et al. successively created some astronomical instruments such asJixia Dayi, poised armillary sphere, horizontal sundial, solar clock, telescope and sand clock. During the period of the Qing Dynasty, the observatory was renamed Guan Xiang Tai “the platform for astronomical observation”. During the reigns of Kangxi and Qianlong, under the guiding of foreign missionaries and by using Western technology, Beijing observatory manufactured 8 astronomical instruments such as a stellar globe, an equatorial armillary sphere, an ecliptic armillary sphere, an azimuthal instrument, a quadrant, a sextant, an elaborate equatorial armillary sphere, an altazimuth. The manufacture of these instruments all adopted European astronomical measure standards and the design of relative structure, except that their shape, ornaments and craft was in Chinese traditional style. Since the early reign of Zhengtong of Ming Dynasty to the year of 1929, the Beijing ancient astronomical observatory was working for 500 years, that is the longest time for keeping continuous observation of the ancient astronomical observatories remained in the world. The Beijing ancient astronomical observatory has the unique status in culture exchange between east and west.
The Torghut are one of the four major subgroups of the Four Oirats of Mongolian. About in the 16th century, the Oirats alliance divided into four tribe groups: the Khoshuts, the Dzungars, the Dörbets and the Torghuts, most of them dwelt in the regions of the Yili valley, the Eerqisi river, Tarbagatai and Urumchi. Afterwards, the Dzungar forces rose up and bullied other tribes. The majority of the Torghuts , about more than 200 thousands people, moved west to the Volga River downstream in the first year of the reign of Chongzhen of Ming Dynasty, established an independent nomads kaghanate. After westward migration, the khan of Torghuts attended the meeting of leaders of Oirat and Khalkha Mongolians and sent envoys to tribute to the emperor of Qing Dynasty who had sent mission to visit the Torghuts. Under the tsar Peter I, the Russian began to extended hegemony over adjacent areas. In the war with Turkey of 1769, the Russian conscripting men over the age of 16 as solider from the Torghuts caused the resistance of Torghuts whose Ubashi khan burnt off his palace to symbolize his determination to come back to mother country. During the years from 1770 to 1771, Torghuts had marched long distance for more than 8 months, suffered hunger and illness without supply, even bloody battles with the Russian troops who pursued and attacked them. At last, the Torghuts came back east, accomplished their wish, but more than half of the Torghuts died in the march. The Ubashi khan departed from Yili to Chengde to meet the Qianlong emperor who expressly ordered to establish a stone monument for the return of Torghuts before the temple of the Potaraka Doctrine that was built by copying the form of Potala Palace in Tibet.
Since the 16th year (1751) to the 49th year (1784) of the reign of Qianlong, the Qianlong Emperor went on inspection tours to southern China for six times. when the emperor tours south, there was a blockbuster scene. On the tour, The Qianlong Emperor was accompanied by more than 2500 people who were the emperor’s Queen and concubines, nobles and officers, the guards in the title of Janggin, soldiers and servicemen. The government requisitioned 5000-6000 horses, more than 400 gharries and countless forced labors for the emperor’s travel on land. If the emperor chose to go on the waterway, he used more than 1000 boats with flags fluttering. There were five exquisitely made royal boats whose name were Anfu Lu and Xiangfeng Ting. Along the route from Beijing to Hangzhou, the court of Qing built 30 palaces for the tour of Qianlong Emperor. In every tour, the Qianlong Emperor held military parades in Hangzhou and Nanjing. All local officers for 15km around where the emperor passed by must come to meet the emperor in court dress. During the six tours, the Qianlong Emperor inspected the Yellow River flood control project for five times and the seawall in Zhejiang for four times. The project of seawall protected the prosperous waterside villages of Southern Yangtze from the damage of the tide. The Qianlong Emperor always took the painters on the tour, let the painters to draw the favoured beautiful scenes of Southern Yangtze, and then constructed these scenes in the Winter Palace of Beijing and Chengde Mountain Resort. “Southern China tour of Qianlong scroll painting” by Xu Yang,12volumes in all, depicted several scenes of the Southern tour of Qianlong Emperor, such as learning folk custom, inspecting the officers and pacifying the people, inspecting the River flood control project, the parades and sacrifice ancestors ’tombs, these scenes showed viewers the social situations of four classes and splendid landscapes of China, such as the scenes of the Yellow River, the Huai River, the Yangze River, the Grand Canal and the West Lake, carrying the historical memory of “Flourishing Period of Kangxi and Qianlong”.
Si Ku Quan Shu edited by order of the Qianlong Emperor was the largest collection of books in ancient China. The collection has a total of 769 million characters, and classified the books in it into four parts including Confucian classics, history records, philosophy and literature writings, and miscellaneous works. The editing work of Si Ku Quan Shu began in the 37the year (1772) of the reign of Qianlong, and the first edition was finished in the 46th year (1781) of the reign of Qianlong. In the 52nd year of the reign of the Qianlong, complete editing, transcribing and revision works were finished at last. The collection includes more than 3500 varieties of books in 79 thousand volumes. The court of Qing kept 6 copies of the whole work in seven national pavilions known as “the seven pavilions of South and North” including the northern four pavilions and the Southern three pavilions. The northern pavilions were all built in the style of Tianyi pavilion in Ningbo of Ming Dynasty, included Wenjin pavilion in Chengcde Mountain Resort, the Wenyuan pavilion in Yuanming Palace, the Wenyuan pavilion behind the Wenhua Hall in the Forbidden City, the Wensu pavilion in Shenyang Mukden Palace, which all located in royal palaces were known as “the four pavilions in imperial palace ”. In the 7th lunar month of the 47th year of the reign of Qianlong, the emperor especially ordered the office of Four Categories to scribe three copies of the collection for the preservationin the southern pavilions including Wenzong pavilion in Zhenjiang, Wenhui pavilion in Yangzhou, Wenlan pavilion in Hangzhou. The copies in Wenyuan pavilion, Wenzong pavilion and Wenhui pavilion were all gone, only the ones in Wenyuan pavilion, Wenjin pavilion, Wensu pavilion and Wenlan pavilion (in the form of transcript )preserved.
The Chinese Peking opera is one of the most influential Chinese operas, known as “the quintessence of Chinese culture” and “national opera”, has a great reputation both in China and abroad. The Chinese Peking opera original formation and development began from the Hui Troupes entering capital. The Hui Troupe was a kind of opera group that were mainly consisted of the actors from Anhui province, and also could play two-man comic show, the opera of Kunqu, the opera of Bangzi, the opera of Luoluo. At the beginning, the Hui Troupes were popular in the provinces of Wan, Gan, Jiang and Zhe, especially in the city of Yangzhou. The Four Great Hui Troupes, being active in in Beijing during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor of Qing Dynasty, was a total name of four troupes of Sanqing, Sixi, Hechun and Chuntai. The Sanqing group of Hui Troupes who had Gao Langting as the chief actor was seconded from Yangzhou to Beijing for celebrating the birthday of Qianlong in 1790. It could be seen as the beginning of the Hui Troupes entering capital. After that, the Hui Troupes such as Sixi, Qixiu, Micui, Hechun and Chuntai came into Beijing. During the activities of performances, the six groups recombined into Sanqing, Sixi, Chuntai and Hechun four big groups of Hui Troupes, and became the most influential in the playdom of Beijing. The four great groups of Hui Troupes had their own strengths and performed varies repertoire, Their performances were very popular among the audiences of Beijing. The four great Hui Troupes entering Beijing marks the beginning of the 200-year history of Peking opera. The Hui Troupes absorbed and blended other styles and performances, practiced a new opera tune---Pihuang. After arriving at Beijing, they created a great opera---Peking opera on the basis of absorbing other art elements of other operas.
Jangar, The Mongolian heroical epic. The Jangar, spreading orally among folks for a long time. Through refined and enriched by peoples of generations, especially by the folk bards named Jangarchi who recited the epic, the Jangar has formed a large epic included 60 kinds of telling found in the world and about 100thousand lines. The epic of Jangar is consisted of the preface and about tens of chapters. The preface generalizes the theme of the whole epic, tells readers the original life of Jangar and the process of Bumva creation; and other chapters have their own central figures whose stories could be seen as independent one.
King Gesar, The long heroical epic of Tibetan. King Gesar is widely popular in the Tibetan culture regions such as Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan of China, and also is spread abroad such as some regions of Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan. In the Tibetan legend, The King Gesar, born in 1038, died in 1119, the incarnation of the God’s son Tuibagawa, rewarded virtue and punished vice, expanded Buddhist doctrines and cultures during his whole military life. King Gesar is the longest heroical epic so far, and is the representation of Tibetans’ collective wisdom of generations for centuries.
Manass, The heroical epic of the Kirgizs with magnificent structure, including rich culture contents, is consisted of 8 chapters: Manass, Semetei, Seitek, Kenenim, Seyit, Asylbacha-Bekbacha, Sombilek and Chigitey, contenting about over 200 thousand lines in all. The epic depicts the stories of heroes of 8 generations in Manass family. Xinjiang of China, Kyrgyzstan in central Asia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan have been being the important circulation areas of the epic for thousands of years.
The four well-known Chinese traditional festivals are Spring Festival, Qingming Festival (Pure Brightness Festival), Duanwu Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival. Spring Festival is the Chinese lunar New Year. Traditionally, Spring Festival begins from the 8th day of the twelfth lunar month when sacrifices are held or from the 23rd or 24th of the lunar month when the sacrifices are held in honor of the Kitchen God, and ends on the 15th day of the first lunar month. New Year’s Eve and the first day of the first lunar month are the climax of the festival. Spring Festival originated in sacrifices to gods and ancestors at the turn of old and new years during the period of Yin Shang. During the Spring Festival, Chinese people stick red couplets, set off firecrackers, make dumplings and sacrifices to ancestors, pray to God for the coming of a harvest year. Qingming Festival, around the 5th day of the 4th lunar month, is the day for sacrifice to ancestors and tomb-sweeping. Qingming is originally one of the twenty four solar terms, the main activity was enjoying springtime greenery, later absorbed the custom of Cold Food Festival that originated in the Spring and Autumn period when the Duke Wen of Jin commemorated Jie Zitui who had cut a piece of muscle from his own leg and served it to his master. Duanwu Festival occurs on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, also known as Duanyang Festival and May Festival. It was said, after Quyuan drown himself in the Milou River, the people were afraid that Quyuan’s body was eaten by fish, they threw rice dumplings into the river, and then there was the custom of eating Zongzi (glutinous rice dumpling), the original collective rowing to save Quyuan gradually became the dragon boat races. Mid Autumn Festival occurs on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month. The term Zhongqiu (Mid Autumn) appeared in the ancient book Zhou Li (Rites of Zhou) for first time. August is the second month of autumn and called Mid-Autumn in ancient times. The moon is full on the Mid Autumn day, symbolizing reunion, it is the time for every family to enjoy moon cakes. As a Festival, Mid Autumn day originated from the activities of sacrifices to the moon and welcoming winter months in ancient times. Mid Autumn Festival had an original culture form during the period of Western Han, the custom of watching moon was formed in the time of Jin Dyansty, and Zhongqiu became its formally name during the period of Norhtern Song.
The Yellow River is the second longest river in China, and the fifth largest river in the world, named for the ochre-yellow colour of the muddy water in river. He(the River) was used to call specifically the Yellow River in ancient China. The name of Huanghe (the Yellow River) originally appeared in Han Shu (the History of Han). The Yellow River originates in the basin at the north of Bayan Har Mountains of Qingzang Plateau in Qinghai province. The watershed of the Yellow River covers a big geographic area stretching from the Bayan Har Mountains in the west as far east as the Bohai Sea, its north border reaches to the Yin Mountains and the south border reaches to the Qinling Mountains. The Yellow River likes a lion with backbone arch, heads to jump from the Qingzang Plateau over the mountains in two provinces of Qing and Gan; crosses the Hetao Plain of Ningxia and Inner-Mongolia; runs through the deep valleys of high mountains in Jin and Shan; rushes out of Longmen and flows eastward at the foot of the Huashan Mountain that is known as the “Western Master of mountains”, then passes through the Huabei Plain and runs to the Bohai Sea coast. The Yellow River’s flow path that shaped like the Chinese character Ji passed through Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner-Mongolia, Shanxi, Shan’xi, Henan and Shandong of nine provinces. TheYellow River is the cradle of Chinese nationalities. As early as 800 thousand years ago, the watershed of the Yellow River has the human activity. The settled agriculture emerged in the watershed of the Yellow River in Neolithic times.About 3500 years ago, the Shang Dynasty was one of three great centers of civilization in the world. Since the period of Xia dynasty to the period of North Song, the watershed of the Yellow River was being the political, economic and culture center of China. In Chinese history, the Yellow River and the regions of its watershed is one of the most important birthplaces of Chinese nationality.
The Changjiang River is the longest river in both China and Asia, and the third-longest in the world. The river originates from Geladandong Mountain in the Dangla Mountain Range of the Qingzang Plateau, flows through eleven provinces (including municipalities) of Qinghai, Sichuan Tibet, Yunnan, Chongqing, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu and Shanghai, and lastly disgorges into the East Sea near the Chongming island of Shanghai. The Changjiang River has some major branches such as the Yalong River, the Min River, the Jialing River, the Tuo River, the Wu River, the Xiang River, the Han River, the Gan River, the Qingyi River, the Huangpu River whose watershed cover some regions in several provinces of Gansu, Guizhou, Shan’xi, Guangxi, Henan, Zhejiang, Guangdong. The regions where the Changjiang River flow are huge granaries of China, their grain production accounts for about half of the country, especially the rice production reaches 70% of the total production of the country. Many big cities with a population of 1 million or more such as Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chongqing and Chengdu are all located in the watershed of the Changjiang River. In ancient texts of China, the character “Jiang” was especially referred to the Changjiang River. The Changjiang River flow from the Qingzang Plateau, rolling on non-stop for thousands of miles across a whole China, gives birth to the Chinese civilization.
Creation of Heaven and Earth by Pangu、Invention of Eight Trigrams by Fuxi、Goddess Nüwa repairs the sky、Shennong Tastes a Hundred Grasses、Invention of Characters by Cang Ji、The bird Jingwei trying to fill the sea、Kuafu Running After the Sun、The Story of Cowboy and the Weaving Maid、Foolish Old Man Removing the Mountain、Chang’er Flies to the Moon
