|
Meng Jiangnü Brings Down The Great Wall
Lady Meng Jiang or Meng Jiang Nü () is a Chinese tale with many variations. Later versions are set in the Qin dynasty, when Lady Meng Jiang's husband was pressed into service by imperial officials and sent as corvee labor to build the Great Wall of China. Lady Meng Jiang heard nothing after his departure, so she set out to bring him winter clothes. Unfortunately, by the time she reached the Great Wall, her husband had already died. Hearing the bad news, she wept so bitterly that a part of the Great Wall collapsed, revealing his bones. The story is now counted as one of China's Four Great Folktales, the others being the Legend of the White Snake (''Baishezhuan''), Butterfly Lovers, and The Cowherd and the Weaving Maid (''Niulang Zhinü''). Chinese folklorists in the early 20th century discovered that the legend existed in many forms and genres and evolved over the last 2,000 years. The section of the Great Wall that was toppled in the legend is the Great Wall of Qi in tod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meng Jiang Nu Song Dynasty Lie Nu Zhuan
Meng may refer to: * Meng (surname) (孟), a Chinese surname * Master of Engineering (MEng or M.Eng.), an academic or professional master's degree in the field of engineering * , "M with hook", letter used in the International Phonetic Alphabet ** Labiodental nasal consonantal sound, the sound transcribed by that letter * Meng (designer), British fashion house * Marketing Executives Network Group, American non-profit professional association * Haku (wrestler), a former wrestler who used "Meng" as his stage name in World Championship Wrestling * Meng (river), in Austria, tributary of the Ill * Meng and Ecker, British underground comic * Mueang, pre-modern Tai polities in southwestern China, mainland Southeast Asia, and parts of India, pronounced "Meng" in Chinese {{disambig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duke Zhuang II Of Qi
Duke Zhuang II of Qi (; died 548 BC) was from 553 to 548 BC ruler of the State of Qi, a major power during the Spring and Autumn period of ancient China. His personal name was Lü Guāng (呂光), ancestral name Jiang ( 姜), and Duke Zhuang was his posthumous title. He was the second of the two Qi rulers called Duke Zhuang. Before ascending the throne he was known as Prince Guang. Accession to the throne Prince Guang was the son of Duke Ling of Qi and his concubine Sheng Ji. In 572 BC Duke Dao of the state of Jin attacked Qi. Duke Ling made peace with Jin by sending Prince Guang to Jin as a hostage. In 563 BC, Guang was made the crown prince of Qi. However, Duke Ling later deposed him and made his half-brother Ya the new crown prince, at the request of his favorite concubine Rong Zi. In the fifth month of 554 BC, Duke Ling died after 28 years of reign, and the powerful minister Cui Zhu installed Guang on the throne instead of the new crown prince Ya. Prince Guang is po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xiang Yu
Xiang Yu (, –202 BC), born Xiang Ji (), was the Hegemon-King (Chinese: 霸王, ''Bà Wáng'') of Western Chu during the Chu–Han Contention period (206–202 BC) of China. A noble of the Chu state, Xiang Yu rebelled against the Qin dynasty and became a prominent warlord. He was granted the title of "Duke of Lu" () by King Huai II of the restoring Chu state in 208 BC. The following year, he led the Chu forces to victory at the Battle of Julu against the Qin armies led by Zhang Han. After the fall of Qin, Xiang Yu was enthroned as the "Hegemon-King of Western Chu" () and ruled a vast area covering modern-day central and eastern China, with Pengcheng as his capital. He engaged Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Han dynasty, in a long struggle for power, known as the Chu–Han Contention, which concluded with his eventual defeat at the Battle of Gaixia and his suicide. Xiang Yu is depicted in the Wu Shuang Pu (, Table of Peerless Heroes) by Jin Guliang. Names and titles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Waley
Arthur David Waley (born Arthur David Schloss, 19 August 188927 June 1966) was an English orientalist and sinologist who achieved both popular and scholarly acclaim for his translations of Chinese and Japanese poetry. Among his honours were the CBE in 1952, the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1953, and he was invested as a Companion of Honour in 1956. Although highly learned, Waley avoided academic posts and most often wrote for a general audience. He chose not to be a specialist but to translate a wide and personal range of classical literature. Starting in the 1910s and continuing steadily almost until his death in 1966, these translations started with poetry, such as ''A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems'' (1918) and ''Japanese Poetry: The Uta'' (1919), then an equally wide range of novels, such as '' The Tale of Genji'' (1925–26), an 11th-century Japanese work, and ''Monkey'', from 16th-century China. Waley also presented and translated Chinese philosophy, wrote biogra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dunhuang Manuscripts
Dunhuang manuscripts refer to a wide variety of religious and secular documents (mostly manuscripts, but also including some woodblock-printed texts) in Chinese and other languages that were discovered at the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, China, during the 20th century. The majority of the surviving texts come from a large cache of documents produced between the late 4th and early 11th centuries which had been sealed in the so-called ' Library Cave' (Cave 17) at some point in the early 11th century. The Library Cave was discovered by a Daoist monk called Wang Yuanlu in 1900, and much of the contents of the cave were subsequently sold to European explorers such as Aurel Stein and Paul Pelliot. In addition to the Library Cave, manuscripts and printed texts have also been discovered in several other caves at the site. Notably, Pelliot retrieved a large number of documents from Caves 464 and 465 in the northern section of the Mogao Caves. These documents mostly date to the Yuan dynasty (12 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bianwen
''Bianwen'' () refers to a literary form that is believed to be some of the earliest examples of vernacular and prosimetric narratives in Chinese literature. These texts date back to the Tang Dynasty (618–907) and Five Dynasties (907–960) periods, and were first discovered among a cache of manuscripts at Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China in the early twentieth century. The form originated in the popularization of Buddhist doctrine through storytelling and pictorial representation and was closely related to oral and visual performance. The stories were then preserved in written form, and the ways in which they were told influenced secular storytelling. Therefore, historical and contemporary stories were also found in the Dunhuang ''bianwen'' manuscripts. Popular stories include ''Mulian Rescues His Mother'', which originated in India but was made into a Chinese legend by the ''bianwen'' adaptations. By the Song dynasty, however, the form had largely died out. Their anonymous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qin Shi Huang
Qin Shi Huang (, ; 259–210 BC) was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of a unified China. Rather than maintain the title of "king" ( ''wáng'') borne by the previous Shang and Zhou rulers, he ruled as the First Emperor () of the Qin dynasty from 221 to 210 BC. His self-invented title "emperor" ( ') would continue to be borne by Chinese rulers for the next two millennia. Historically, he was often portrayed as a tyrannical ruler and strict Legalist, in part from the Han dynasty's scathing assessments of him. Since the mid 20th-century, scholars have begun to question this evaluation, inciting considerable discussion on the actual nature of his policies and reforms. Regardless, according to sinologist Michael Loewe "few would contest the view that the achievements of his reign have exercised a paramount influence on the whole of China's subsequent history, marking the start of an epoch that closed in 1911". Born in the Zhao state capital Handan, as Ying ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qin Shi Huangdi
Qin Shi Huang (, ; 259–210 BC) was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of a unified China. Rather than maintain the title of "king" ( ''wáng'') borne by the previous Shang and Zhou rulers, he ruled as the First Emperor () of the Qin dynasty from 221 to 210 BC. His self-invented title "emperor" ( ') would continue to be borne by Chinese rulers for the next two millennia. Historically, he was often portrayed as a tyrannical ruler and strict Legalist, in part from the Han dynasty's scathing assessments of him. Since the mid 20th-century, scholars have begun to question this evaluation, inciting considerable discussion on the actual nature of his policies and reforms. Regardless, according to sinologist Michael Loewe "few would contest the view that the achievements of his reign have exercised a paramount influence on the whole of China's subsequent history, marking the start of an epoch that closed in 1911". Born in the Zhao state capital Handan, as Ying ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tang Poetry
Tang poetry () refers to poetry written in or around the time of or in the characteristic style of China's Tang dynasty, (June 18, 618 – June 4, 907, including the 690–705 reign of Wu Zetian) and/or follows a certain style, often considered as the Golden Age of Chinese poetry. The ''Quan Tangshi'' includes over 48,900 poems written by over 2,200 authors. During the Tang dynasty, poetry continued to be an important part of social life at all levels of society. Scholars were required to master poetry for the civil service exams, but the art was theoretically available to everyone. This led to a large record of poetry and poets, a partial record of which survives today. The two most famous poets of the period were Li Bai and Du Fu. Through the ''Three Hundred Tang Poems'', Tang poetry has remain familiar to educated Chinese in modern times. Periodization The periodization scheme employed in this article is the one detailed by the Ming dynasty scholar Gao Bing (1350–1423) in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Waldron
Arthur Waldron (born December 13, 1948) is an American historian. Since 1997, Waldron has been the Lauder Professor of International Relations in the department of history at the University of Pennsylvania. He works chiefly on Asia, China in particular, often with a focus on the origins and development of nationalism, and the study of war and violence in general. Early life Waldron was born in Boston on December 13, 1948. Waldron studied at the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut and Winchester College in England. He attended Harvard College from which he graduated summa cum laude in 1971, receiving the Sophia Freund Prize, given to the student ranked academically highest in his class. In 1981 he received a Ph.D. in history, also from Harvard. Career Waldron is a founder and vice president of the International Assessment and Strategy Center in Washington, D.C. He is a former director of Asian studies with the American Enterprise Institute, a director of the American Association ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tang Dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. Historians generally regard the Tang as a high point in Chinese civilization, and a Golden age (metaphor), golden age of cosmopolitan culture. Tang territory, acquired through the military campaigns of its early rulers, rivaled that of the Han dynasty. The House of Li, Lǐ family () founded the dynasty, seizing power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire and inaugurating a period of progress and stability in the first half of the dynasty's rule. The dynasty was formally interrupted during 690–705 when Empress Wu Zetian seized the throne, proclaiming the Zhou dynasty (690–705), Wu Zhou dynasty and becoming the only legitimate Chinese empress regnant. The devast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biographies Of Exemplary Women
The ''Biographies of Exemplary Women'' () is a book compiled by the Han dynasty scholar Liu Xiang c. 18 BCE. It includes 125 biographical accounts of exemplary women in ancient China, taken from early Chinese histories including '' Chunqiu'', '' Zuozhuan'', and the ''Records of the Grand Historian''. The book served as a standard Confucianist textbook for the moral education of women in traditional China for two millennia. Description The idealized biographies are divided into eight scrolls, including the eighth addendum from an unknown editor, as shown below. This book follows the ''lièzhuàn'' (列傳 "arrayed biographies") biographical format established by the Chinese historian Sima Qian. The word ''liènǚ'' (列女 "famous women in history") is sometimes understood as ''liènǚ'' (烈女 "women martyrs"), which Neo-Confucianists used to mean a "woman who commits suicide after her husband's death rather than remarry; woman who dies defending her honor." The online C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
