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Qinhuai Lantern Fair
Qinhuai Lantern Fair, also known as Jinling Lantern Fair, Jinling Lantern Festival, and officially named Lantern Fair on Qinhuai River, is a popular folk custom celebration of the Lantern Festival in the Nanjing area. Modern usage refers to the large-scale fair held yearly at the Confucius Temple of Nanjing between Spring Festival and Lantern Festival. There have been 25 fairs held up to date, and it is one of the most famous celebration of Lantern Festival in China. On the day of Lantern Festival, the fair reaches its climax. An old Nanjing saying, "If you don’t see the New Year lanterns at Confucius Temple, you have not celebrated the new year; if you go to Confucius Temple but don’t buy a lantern, you haven’t celebrated the new year properly." demonstrates the popularity of this fair. On June 2, 2006, the fair was named as one of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of China by the government of People's Republic of China The most recent lantern festival took place on Febru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lanterns In Nanjing Fuzimiao
A lantern is an often portable source of lighting, typically featuring a protective enclosure for the light sourcehistorically usually a candle or a wick in oil, and often a battery-powered light in modern timesto make it easier to carry and hang up, and make it more reliable outdoors or in drafty interiors. Lanterns may also be used for signaling, as torches, or as general light-sources outdoors. Use The lantern enclosure was primarily used to prevent a burning candle or wick being extinguished from wind, rain or other causes. Some antique lanterns have only a metal grid, indicating their function was to protect the candle or wick during transportation and avoid the excess heat from the top to avoid unexpected fires. Another important function was to reduce the risk of fire should a spark leap from the flame or the light be dropped. This was especially important below deck on ships: a fire on a wooden ship was a major catastrophe. Use of unguarded lights was taken so seriou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Calendar
A lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the Moon's phases (synodic months, lunations), in contrast to solar calendars, whose annual cycles are based only directly on the solar year. The most commonly used calendar, the Gregorian calendar, is a solar calendar system that originally evolved out of a lunar calendar system. A purely lunar calendar is also distinguished from a lunisolar calendar, whose lunar months are brought into alignment with the solar year through some process of intercalation. The details of when months begin vary from calendar to calendar, with some using new, full, or crescent moons and others employing detailed calculations. Since each lunation is approximately days, (which gives a mean synodic month as 29.53059 days or 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes and 3 seconds) it is common for the months of a lunar calendar to alternate between 29 and 30 days. Since the period of 12 such lunations, a lunar year, is 354 days, 8 h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imperial Japanese Army
The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor of Japan as supreme commander of the army and the Imperial Japanese Navy. Later an Inspectorate General of Aviation became the third agency with oversight of the army. During wartime or national emergencies, the nominal command functions of the emperor would be centralized in an Imperial General Headquarters (IGHQ), an ad hoc body consisting of the chief and vice chief of the Army General Staff, the Minister of the Army, the chief and vice chief of the Naval General Staff, the Inspector General of Aviation, and the Inspector General of Military Training. History Origins (1868–1871) In the mid-19th century, Japan had no unified national army and the country was made up of feudal domains (''han'') with the Tokugawa shogunate (''bakufu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Republic Of China (1912–1949)
The Republic of China (ROC), between 1912 and 1949, was a sovereign state recognised as the official designation of China when it was based on Mainland China, prior to the Retreat of the government of the Republic of China to Taiwan, relocation of Government of the Republic of China, its central government to Taiwan as a result of the Chinese Civil War. At a Population history of China, population of 541 million in 1949, it was the List of countries and dependencies by population, world's most populous country. Covering , it consisted of 35 provinces of China, provinces, 1 Special administrative regions of China#ROC special administrative regions, special administrative region, 2 regions, 12 special municipality (Republic of China), special municipalities, 14 leagues, and 4 special banners. The China, People's Republic of China (PRC), which rules mainland China today, considers ROC as a country that ceased to exist since 1949; thus, the history of ROC before 1949 is often ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Huizhou (region)
Huizhou () is a historical region in Anhui Province which is known today as the Huangshan City – the southernmost region of the province. In Ming and Qing dynasties, Huizhou was a prefecture corresponding to Huangshan city and Jixi County of modern Xuancheng, plus Wuyuan County in northeastern Jiangxi. Anhui, the name of the province, is a portmanteau word combining the first characters of Anqing and Huizhou. History During the Song dynasty (1211), Huizhou was named from Shezhou () or She Prefecture (), now the name of She County under Huangshan City. The prefecture remained intact for about 800 years with six counties: Shexian County (), Yixian County (), Xiuning (), Qimen (), Jixi (), and Wuyuan (). The region was known for its production of writing utensils. In the late Ming dynasty, the city also became known for publishing texts on a broad range of subjects, such as genealogy, classic literature, and illustrated novels and dramas. The carvers of the printing blocks we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tseng Kuo-fan
Zeng Guofan, Marquis Yiyong (; 26 November 1811 – 12 March 1872), birth name Zeng Zicheng, courtesy name Bohan, was a Chinese statesman and military general of the late Qing dynasty. He is best known for raising and organizing the Xiang Army to aid the Qing military in suppressing the Taiping Rebellion and restoring the stability of the Qing Empire. Along with other prominent figures such as Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang of his time, Zeng set the scene for the Tongzhi Restoration, an attempt to arrest the decline of the Qing dynasty. Zeng was known for his strategic perception, administrative skill and noble personality on Confucian practice, but also for his ruthlessness in repressing rebellions. Early life Born Zeng Zicheng in Xiangxiang, Hunan Province in 1811, Zeng was the grandson of Zeng Yuping, a farmer with social and political ambitions. He was also a descendant of the philosopher Zengzi, a student of Confucius. He studied in Yuelu Academy in Changsha Prefec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xiang Army
150px, Zeng Guofan, the leader of the Xiang Army The Xiang Army or Hunan Army () was a standing army organized by Zeng Guofan from existing regional and village militia forces called '' tuanlian'' to contain the Taiping Rebellion in Qing China (1850 to 1864). The name is taken from the Hunan region where the Army was raised. The Army was financed through local nobles and gentry, as opposed to through the centralized Manchu-led Qing dynasty. The army was mostly disbanded by Zeng after the re-capture of the Taiping capital at Nanking. Although it was raised specifically to address problems in Hunan, the Army formed the core of the new Qing military establishment, and as such, forever weakened the Manchu influence within the military (eight banners). This devolution of centralized command is commonly pointed to as a major reason for the eventual downfall of the Qing and the emergence of regional warlordism in China during the first half of the twentieth century. The Xiang Army wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dream Of The Red Chamber
''Dream of the Red Chamber'' (''Honglou Meng'') or ''The Story of the Stone'' (''Shitou Ji'') is a novel composed by Cao Xueqin in the middle of the 18th century. One of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, it is known for its psychological scope, and its observation of the worldview, aesthetics, life-styles, and social relations of 18th-century China. The intricate strands of its plot depict the rise and decline of a family much like Cao’s own and, by extension, of the dynasty itself. Cao depicts the power of the father over the family, but the novel is intended to be a memorial to the women he knew in his youth: friends, relatives and servants. At a more profound level, the author explores religious and philosophical questions, and the writing style includes echoes of the plays and novels of the late Ming, as well as poetry from earlier periods. Cao apparently began composing it in the 1740s and worked on it until his death in 1763 or 1764. Copies of hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qing Dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaking ethnic group who unified other Jurchen tribes to form a new "Manchu" ethnic identity. The dynasty was officially proclaimed in 1636 in Manchuria (modern-day Northeast China and Outer Manchuria). It seized control of Beijing in 1644, then later expanded its rule over the whole of China proper and Taiwan, and finally expanded into Inner Asia. The dynasty lasted until 1912 when it was overthrown in the Xinhai Revolution. In orthodox Chinese historiography, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The multiethnic Qing dynasty lasted for almost three centuries and assembled the territorial base for modern China. It was the largest imperial dynasty in the history of China and in 1790 the f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
China Proper
China proper, Inner China, or the Eighteen Provinces is a term used by some Western writers in reference to the "core" regions of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty of China. This term is used to express a distinction between the "core" regions populated by the dominant Han population and the "frontier" regions of China, sometimes known as "Outer China". There is no fixed extent for China proper, as many administrative, cultural, and linguistic shifts have occurred in Chinese history. One definition refers to the original area of Chinese civilization, the Central Plain (in the North China Plain); another to the Eighteen Provinces of the Qing dynasty. There is no direct translation for "China proper" in the Chinese language due to differences in terminology used by the Qing to refer to the regions. The expression is controversial among scholars, particularly in China, due to issues pertaining to territorial integrity. Outer China usually includes the geographical regions of Dzungar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manchu People
The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) and Qing (1636–1912) dynasties of China were established and ruled by the Manchus, who are descended from the Jurchen people who earlier established the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) in northern China. Manchus form the largest branch of the Tungusic peoples and are distributed throughout China, forming the fourth largest ethnic group in the country. They can be found in 31 Chinese provincial regions. Among them, Liaoning has the largest population and Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Inner Mongolia and Beijing have over 100,000 Manchu residents. About half of the population live in Liaoning and one-fifth in Hebei. There are a number of Manchu autonomous counties in China, such as Xinbin, Xiuyan, Qinglong, Fengning, Yitong, Qingyuan, Weichang, Kua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hongwu Emperor
The Hongwu Emperor (21 October 1328 – 24 June 1398), personal name Zhu Yuanzhang (), courtesy name Guorui (), was the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty of China, reigning from 1368 to 1398. As famine, plagues and peasant revolts increased across China proper in the 14th century, Zhu Yuanzhang rose to command the Red Turban forces that conquered China proper, ending the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty and forcing the remnant Yuan court (known as Northern Yuan in historiography) to retreat to the Mongolian Plateau. Zhu claimed the Mandate of Heaven and established the Ming dynasty at the beginning of 1368 and occupied the Yuan capital, Khanbaliq (present-day Beijing), with his army that same year. Trusting only his family, he made his many sons feudal princes along the northern marches and the Yangtze valley.Chan Hok-lam.Legitimating Usurpation: Historical Revisions under the Ming Yongle Emperor (r. 14021424)". ''The Legitimation of New Orders: Case Studies in World History ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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