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Battle Of Banquan
The Battle of Banquan () is a battle in ancient Chinese history as recorded by Sima Qian's ''Records of the Grand Historian''. It was fought by ''Huangdi'', the Yellow Emperor, and ''Yandi'', the Flame Emperor. Background The "Battle of Banquan" may actually only refer to the third of a series of three battles. The Yellow Emperor shortly afterwards fought Chiyou at the Battle of Zhuolu. Both battles were fought not long apart, and on nearby plains, and both involved the Yellow Emperor. Some scholars have concluded that they may have been the same battle. The Battle of Banquan is credited for the formation of the Yanhuang tribe, the precursor of the Huaxia civilization, which is the basis of the Chinese civilization. Not much is known about this battle since it, along with other events of the era, is clouded by mythology. Thus, the historical accuracy of accounts of this battle is disputed. Chinese historiographical tradition places it in the 26th century BC. The Shennong tribe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land, the most of any country in the world, tied with Russia. Covering an area of approximately , it is the world's third largest country by total land area. The country consists of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The national capital is Beijing, and the most populous city and financial center is Shanghai. Modern Chinese trace their origins to a cradle of civilization in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. The semi-legendary Xia dynasty in the 21st century BCE and the well-attested Shang and Zhou dynasties developed a bureaucratic political system to serve hereditary monarchies, or dyna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Totem
A totem (from oj, ᑑᑌᒼ, italics=no or ''doodem'') is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe, such as in the Anishinaabe clan system. While ''the word'' totem itself is an anglicisation of the Ojibwe term (and both the word and beliefs associated with it are part of the Ojibwe language and culture), belief in tutelary spirits and deities is not limited to the Ojibwe people. Similar concepts, under differing names and with variations in beliefs and practices, may be found in a number of cultures worldwide. The term has also been adopted, and at times redefined, by anthropologists and philosophers of different cultures. Contemporary neoshamanic, New Age, and mythopoetic men's movements not otherwise involved in the practice of a traditional, tribal religion have been known to use "totem" terminology for the personal identification with a tutelary spirit or spirit guide. However, this ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guo Pu
Guo Pu (; AD 276–324), courtesy name Jingchun () was a Chinese historian, poet, and writer during the Eastern Jin period, and is best known as one of China's foremost commentators on ancient texts. Guo was a Taoist mystic, geomancer, collector of strange tales, editor of old texts, and erudite commentator. He was the first commentator of the ''Shan Hai Jing'' and so probably, with the noted Han bibliographer Liu Xin, was instrumental in preserving this valuable mythological and religious text. Guo Pu was the well educated son of a governor. He was a natural historian and a prolific writer of the Jin dynasty. He is the author of ''The Book of Burial'', the first-ever and the most authoritative source of feng shui doctrine and the first book to address the concept of feng shui in the history of China, making Guo Pu the first person historically to define feng shui, and therefore, Guo Pu is usually called the father of feng shui in China. Life A native of Wenxi County, in what i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xu Shen
Xu Shen ( CE) was a Chinese calligrapher, philologist, politician, and writer of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-189). He was born in the Zhaoling district of Run'an prefecture (today known as Luohe in Henan Province). During his own lifetime, Xu was recognized as a preeminent scholar of the Five Classics. He was the author of ''Shuowen Jiezi'',''Daijisen'' entry "Xu Shen" (''Kyo Shin'' in Japanese). Shogakukan.'' Kanjigen'' entry "Xu Shen" (''Kyo Shin'' in Japanese). Gakken, 2006. which was the first comprehensive dictionary of Chinese characters, as well as the first to organize entries by radical. This work continues to provide scholars with information on the development and historical usage of Chinese characters. Xu Shen completed his first draft in 100 CE but, waited until 121 CE before having his son present the work to the Emperor An of Han. Life Xu was a student of the scholar-official Jia Kui (30-101). Under Jia, he established himself as a master in his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raccoon Dog
The common raccoon dog (''Nyctereutes procyonoides''), also called the Chinese or Asian raccoon dog, is a small, heavy-set, fox-like canid native to East Asia. Named for its raccoon-like face markings, it is most closely related to foxes. Common raccoon dogs feed on many animals and plant matter, and are unusual among canids (dogs, foxes, and other members of the family Canidae) for climbing trees and for hibernating in cold winters. They are widespread in their native range, and are invasive in Europe where they were introduced for the fur trade. The similar Japanese raccoon dog (''Nyctereutes viverrinus''), native to Japan, is the only other living member of the genus ''Nyctereutes''. Other names for the common raccoon dog include ''mangut'' (its Evenki name), ''neoguri'' (its Korean name) or simply raccoon dog. The raccoon dog is named for the resemblance of its masked face to that of the North American common raccoon (''Procyon lotor''). The closest relatives of the raccoon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shuowen Jiezi
''Shuowen Jiezi'' () is an ancient Chinese dictionary from the Han dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary (the '' Erya'' predates it), it was the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them, as well as the first to use the principle of organization by sections with shared components called radicals (''bùshǒu'' 部首, lit. "section headers"). Circumstances of compilation Xu Shen, a Han Dynasty scholar of the Five Classics, compiled the ''Shuowen Jiezi''. He finished editing it in 100 CE, but due to an unfavorable imperial attitude towards scholarship, he waited until 121 CE before having his son Xǔ Chōng present it to Emperor An of Han along with a memorial. In analyzing the structure of characters and defining the words represented by them, Xu Shen strove to disambiguate the meaning of the pre-Han Classics, so as to render their usage by government unquestioned and bring about order, and in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erya
The ''Erya'' or ''Erh-ya'' is the first surviving Chinese dictionary. Bernhard Karlgren (1931:49) concluded that "the major part of its glosses must reasonably date from the 3rd century BC." Title Chinese scholars interpret the first title character ''ěr'' (; "you, your; adverbial suffix") as a phonetic loan character for the homophonous ''ěr'' (; "near; close; approach"), and believe the second ''yǎ'' (; "proper; correct; refined; elegant") refers to words or language.''Shiming (Explanations of Names)'"Explaining the Classics" versio [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liaodong
The Liaodong Peninsula (also Liaotung Peninsula, ) is a peninsula in southern Liaoning province in Northeast China, and makes up the southwestern coastal half of the Liaodong region. It is located between the mouths of the Daliao River (the historical lower section of the Liao River) in the west and the Yalu River in the east, and encompasses the territories of the whole sub-provincial city of Dalian and parts of prefectural cities of Yingkou, Anshan and Dandong. The word "Liaodong" literally means "Liao region's east", referring initially to the Warring States period Yan commandery of Liaodong, which encompassed an area from modern Liaoning-Jilin border in the north to the Chongchon River on the Korean Peninsula in the south, and from just east of the Qian Mountains to a now-disappeared large wetland between the western banks of middle Liao River and the base of Yiwulü Mountain, historically known as the "Liao Mire" (遼澤, ''Liáo zé'') roughly in between the modern Xi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xu Ke (author)
Xu Ke (; 1869–1928) was a Chinese author. He wrote an "unofficial" history of the Qing Dynasty, ', published in 48 volumes in 1917. Author and University of California, Irvine, UC Irvine professor Yong Chen said the book "provides an encyclopedic coverage of life during the Qing Dynasty." References 1869 births 1928 deaths Qing dynasty historians Republic of China historians Writers from Hangzhou Historians from Zhejiang 20th-century Chinese historians {{China-historian-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sino-Tibetan Languages
Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. Other Sino-Tibetan languages with large numbers of speakers include Burmese (33 million) and the Tibetic languages (6 million). Other languages of the family are spoken in the Himalayas, the Southeast Asian Massif, and the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Most of these have small speech communities in remote mountain areas, and as such are poorly documented. Several low-level subgroups have been securely reconstructed, but reconstruction of a proto-language for the family as a whole is still at an early stage, so the higher-level structure of Sino-Tibetan remains unclear. Although the family is traditionally presented as divided into Sinitic (i.e. Chinese) and Tibeto-Burman branches, a common origin of the non-Sinitic languages has n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eurasian Lynx
The Eurasian lynx (''Lynx lynx'') is a medium-sized wild cat widely distributed from Northern, Central and Eastern Europe to Central Asia and Siberia, the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas. It inhabits temperate and boreal forests up to an elevation of . Despite its wide distribution, it is threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching and depletion of prey. Taxonomy ''Felis lynx'' was the scientific name used in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus in his work '' Systema Naturae''. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the following Eurasian lynx subspecies were proposed: The following were also proposed, but are not considered valid taxa: *Altai lynx (''L. l. wardi'') *Baikal lynx (''L. l. kozlovi'') *Amur lynx (''L. l. stroganovi'') *Sardinian lynx (''L. l. sardiniae'') Characteristics The Eurasian lynx has a relatively short, reddish or brown coat that is marked with black spots; their number and pattern are highly variable. The underparts, neck and chin are whitish. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Chinese
Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BC, in the late Shang dynasty. Chinese bronze inscriptions, Bronze inscriptions became plentiful during the following Zhou dynasty. The latter part of the Zhou period saw a flowering of literature, including Four Books and Five Classics, classical works such as the ''Analects'', the ''Mencius (book), Mencius'', and the ''Zuo zhuan''. These works served as models for Literary Chinese (or Classical Chinese), which remained the written standard until the early twentieth century, thus preserving the vocabulary and grammar of late Old Chinese. Old Chinese was written with several early forms of Chinese characters, including Oracle bone script, Oracle Bone, Chinese bronze inscriptions, Bronze, and Seal scripts. Throughout ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
