HOME
*





Guo Songtao
Guo Songtao ( zh, 郭嵩燾, s=郭嵩焘, p=Guō Sōngtāo, w=Kuo Sung-t’ao; 11 April 1818 – 18 July 1891) was a Chinese diplomat and statesman during the Qing dynasty. He was among the first foreign emissaries to be sent abroad by the Qing government, as a result of the Tongzhi Restoration. Early career Guo was born in Xiangyin, Hunan in 1818. As a young man, Guo studied at the Yuelu Academy in Changsha, where he befriended Zeng Guofan. In 1847, Guo was awarded the highest degree in the imperial exams and soon afterwards he became a bachelor in the Hanlin Academy. In 1853, he was called to assist Zeng Guofan in joining the Xiang Army to suppress the Taiping Rebellion in their native province of Hunan. During the suppression of the Taipings Rebellion, Guo distinguished himself as a prominent advocate of the local '' likin'' tax as a means of financing the campaigns. In 1852 his forces recaptured Nanchang, Jiangxi from Taiping forces. He later also assisted Li Hongzhang ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Zeng Jize
Zeng (, ) is a Chinese family name. In Cantonese, it is Tsang; In Wade-Giles, such as those in Taiwan, Tseng or Tzeng; in Malaysia and Singapore, Chen or Cheng; in the Philippines, Chan; in Indonesia, Tjan; in Vietnam, Tăng. The surname Zeng is the 32nd most common surname in Mainland China as of 2019. It is the 16th most common surname in Taiwan. It meant "high" or "add" in ancient Chinese.The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland Zeng is also a German family name with another origin. Zeng was listed 385th on the ''Hundred Family Surnames''. Origin The surname originates from () an ancient state located in present-day Cangshan County (now Lanling County) in Shandong province, which was granted to Qu Lie, son of the emperor Shao Kang in the Xia dynasty. The state was annexed by Ju (located mainly in present-day Shandong province) in 567 BC. The crown prince of the state, Wu, fled to Lu. He later dropped the radical in the character and adopted 曾 as his ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Taiping Rebellion
The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It lasted from 1850 to 1864, although following the fall of Tianjing (now Nanjing) the last rebel army was not wiped out until August 1871. After fighting the bloodiest civil war in world history, with over 20 million dead, the established Qing government won decisively, although at a great price to its fiscal and political structure. The uprising was commanded by Hong Xiuquan, an ethnic Hakka (a Han subgroup) and the self-proclaimed brother of Jesus Christ. Its goals were religious, nationalist, and political in nature; Hong sought the conversion of the Han people to the Taiping's syncretic version of Christianity, to overthrow the Qing dynasty, and a state transformation. Rather than supplanting the ruling class, the Taipings sought to upend the m ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

George Augustus Henry Sala
George Augustus Henry Fairfield Sala (November 1828 – 8 December 1895) was an author and journalist who wrote extensively for the ''Illustrated London News'' as G. A. S. and was most famous for his articles and leaders for ''The Daily Telegraph''. He founded his own periodical, ''Sala's Journal'', and the Sydney Savage Club. The former was unsuccessful but the latter still continues. Life Sala was born on 24 November 1828 in London. His legal father Augustus John James Sala (1789–1829) being the son of an Italian who came to London to arrange ballets at the theatres. His natural father and godfather was Captain Charles "Henry" Fairfield, an acquaintance of his mother, Henrietta Catharina Simon (1789–1860), an actress and teacher of singing. She was the daughter of Catherina Cells, a former slave, and Demerara planter D. P. Simon. His great-grandmother was the Caribbean entrepreneur, Dorothy Thomas. He was at school at Paris from 1839 but his family returned to England ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Walter Goodman (artist)
Walter Goodman (11 May 1838 – 20 August 1912) was an English painter, illustrator and author. He was the son of English portrait painter Julia Salaman (1812–1906) and London linen draper and town councillor, Louis Goodman (1811–1876). In 1846 he enrolled at J. M. Leigh's drawing Academy at 79 Newman Street, where he was the youngest pupil,''The Biograph and Review Volume IV For the Second Six Months of 1880'' 880 E.W.Allen and, in 1851 at the Royal Academy in London. Recent research has unearthed details of more than one hundred works by Goodman. The present whereabouts of most these are unknown, notable exceptions being ''The Printseller's Window'' (c. 1882), acquired by the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester in 1998, portraits of actresses '' Mary Anne Keeley'' (also known as ''Mrs. Keeley at Fourscore'') and '' Fanny Stirling'' (1885), both in the collection of London's Garrick Club, ''A Kitchen Cabinet'' (1882) in a private collection in the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Margary Affair
The Margary Affair ( or 滇案; ''Diān àn'') was a crisis in Sino-British relations, which followed the murder of British official Augustus Raymond Margary in 1875. As part of efforts to explore overland trade routes between British India and China's provinces, junior British diplomat Augustus Raymond Margary was sent from Shanghai through southwest China to Bhamo in Upper Burma, where he was supposed to meet Colonel Horace Browne. It took Margary six months to make the journey through the provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan and he met Brown in Bhamo in late 1874. On the journey back to Shanghai, Margary heard rumors that the return route was not safe and changed the route to Tengyue. However, he did not notify local officials of their arrivals and confronted native people. In a following conflict on 21February 1875, he and his four Chinese personal staff were killed. The incident created a diplomatic crisis and gave British authorities an excuse to put pressure on the Q ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its Metropolitan France, metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea; overseas territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Due to its several coastal territories, France has the largest exclusive economic zone in the world. France borders Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Andorra, and Spain in continental Europe, as well as the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Netherlands, Suriname, and Brazil in the Americas via its overseas territories in French Guiana and Saint Martin (island), ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is , with an estimated 2020 population of more than 67 million people. The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 170 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Minister (diplomacy)
Diplomatic rank is a system of professional and social rank used in the world of diplomacy and international relations. A diplomat's rank determines many ceremonial details, such as the order of precedence at official processions, table seatings at state dinners, the person to whom diplomatic credentials should be presented, and the title by which the diplomat should be addressed. International diplomacy Ranks The current system of diplomatic ranks was established by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961). There are three top ranks, two of which remain in use: * '' Ambassador''. An ambassador is a head of mission who is accredited to the receiving country's head of state. They head a diplomatic mission known as an embassy, headquartered in a chancery usually in the receiving state's capital. ** A papal nuncio is considered to have ambassadorial rank, and presides over a nunciature. ** Commonwealth countries send a high commissioner who presides over a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Self-Strengthening Movement
The Self-Strengthening Movement, also known as the Westernization or Western Affairs Movement (–1895), was a period of radical institutional reforms initiated in China during the late Qing dynasty following the military disasters of the Opium Wars. The British and French Old Summer Palace#Destruction, burning of the Old Summer Palace in 1860 as Taiping Rebellion, Taiping rebel armies marched north, forced the imperial court to acknowledge the crisis. Prince Gong was made regent, Grand Council (Qing dynasty), Grand Councilor, and head of the newly formed Zongli Yamen (a ''de facto'' foreign affairs ministry). Local Han Chinese officials such as Zeng Guofan established private westernized militias in prosecuting the war against the rebels. Zeng and his armies eventually defeated the rebels and prosecuted efforts to import Western military technology and to translate Western scientific knowledge. They established successful arsenals, schools, and munitions factories. In the 1870s ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Anhui
Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River and the Huai River, bordering Jiangsu to the east, Zhejiang to the southeast, Jiangxi to the south, Hubei to the southwest, Henan to the northwest, and Shandong for a short section in the north. With a population of 63.65 million, Anhui is the 8th most populous province in China. It is the 22nd largest Chinese province based on area, and the 12th most densely-populated region of all 34 Chinese provincial regions. Anhui's population is mostly composed of Han Chinese. Languages spoken within the province include Jianghuai Mandarin, Wu, Hui, Gan and small portion of Zhongyuan Mandarin Chinese. The name "Anhui" derives from the names of two cities: Anqing and Huizhou (now Huangshan City). The abbreviation for Anhui is "" after the histori ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Huai Army
The Huai Army (), named for the Huai River, was a military force allied with the Qing dynasty raised to contain the Taiping Rebellion in 1862. It was also called the Anhui Army because it was based in Anhui province. It helped to restore the stability of the Qing dynasty. Unlike the traditional Green Standard Army or Eight Banners forces of the Qing, the Huai Army was largely a militia army, based on personal rather than institutional loyalties. It was armed with a mixture of traditional and modern weapons. Li Hongzhang, a commander in the Xiang Army, created the Huai Army in October 1861. It succeeded Zeng Guofan’s Xiang Army. The Huai Army itself was succeeded by the New Army and the Beiyang Army, which were created in the late 19th century. Founding Before recovering Anqing in late 1861, Zeng Guofan ordered his student Li Hongzhang to bring some of the Xiang Army back to Anhui, Li's homeland, for military service and to organize an independent force under Li Hongzhang's comma ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Li Hongzhang
Li Hongzhang, Marquess Suyi ( zh, t=李鴻章; also Li Hung-chang; 15 February 1823 – 7 November 1901) was a Chinese politician, general and diplomat of the late Qing dynasty. He quelled several major rebellions and served in important positions in the Qing imperial court, including the Viceroy of Zhili, Huguang and Liangguang. Although he was best known in the West for his generally pro-modern stance and importance as a negotiator, Li antagonised the British with his support of Russia as a foil against Japanese expansionism in Manchuria and fell from favour with the Chinese after their defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War. His image in China remains controversial, with criticism on one hand for political and military defeats and praise on the other for his success against the Taiping Rebellion, his diplomatic skills defending Chinese interests in the era of unequal treaties, and his role pioneering China's industrial and military modernisation. He was presented the Ro ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]