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Yuxia Li
''Youxia'' () was a type of ancient Chinese warrior folk hero celebrated in classical Chinese poetry and fictional literature. It literally means "wandering vigilante", but is commonly translated as "knight-errant" or less commonly as "cavalier", "adventurer", "soldier of fortune" or "underworld stalwart". Background Of the two characters of the term, ''yóu'' (遊) literally means to "wander", "travel" or "move around", and ''xiá'' (俠) means someone with power who helps others in need. The term refers to the way these men solely travelled the land using physical force or political influence to right the wrongs done to the common people by the powers that be, often judged by their personal codes of chivalry. ''Youxia'' did not come from any social class in particular. Various historical documents, wuxia novels and folktales describe them as being princes, government officials, poets, musicians, physicians, professional soldiers, merchants, monks and even humble farmers and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vigilante
Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without Right, legal authority. A vigilante (from Spanish, Italian and Portuguese “vigilante”, which means "sentinel" or "watcher") is a person who practices or partakes in vigilantism, or undertakes public safety and retributive justice without commission. Definition According to political scientist Regina Bateson, vigilantism is "the extralegal prevention, investigation, or punishment of offenses." The definition has three components: # Extralegal: Vigilantism is done outside of the law (not necessarily in violation of the law) # Prevention, investigation, or punishment: Vigilantism requires specific actions, not just attitudes or beliefs # Offense: Vigilantism is a response to a perceived crime or violation of an authoritative norm Other scholars have defined "collective vigilantism" as "group violence to punish perceived offenses to a community." History Vigilantism and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shi Nai'an
Shi Nai'an (, ca. 1296–1372) was a Chinese writer from the Yuan and early Ming periods. ''Shuihu zhuan'' (''Water Margin''), one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, is traditionally attributed to him. There are few reliable sources for his biography, much less his literary activity. Biography Little is known about Shi. Traditionally, it was believed that he was a teacher of Luo Guanzhong, the editor or author of ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'', another of the Four Great Classical Novels. The recent Chinese scholar Ge Liangyan writes that little is known about Luo, and about Shi even less. Late Ming and early Qing scholars claimed that Shi lived near the end of the Yuan dynasty and that he was a native of Hangzhou, but they may have been echoing each other or citing the conjectures that they did not endorse. The early 20th century scholar Lu Xun thought that the name "Shi Nai'an" might have been invented by composers of a later edition of the novel. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Li Bai
Li Bai (, 701–762), also pronounced as Li Bo, courtesy name Taibai (), was a Chinese poet, acclaimed from his own time to the present as a brilliant and romantic figure who took traditional poetic forms to new heights. He and his friend Du Fu (712–770) were two of the most prominent figures in the flourishing of Chinese poetry in the Tang dynasty, which is often called the " Golden Age of Chinese Poetry". The expression "Three Wonders" denotes Li Bai's poetry, Pei Min's swordplay, and Zhang Xu's calligraphy. Around 1000 poems attributed to Li are extant. His poems have been collected into the most important Tang dynasty poetry, ''Heyaue yingling ji'', compiled in 753 by Yin Fan. Thirty-four of Li Bai’s poems are included in the anthology ''Three Hundred Tang Poems'', which was first published in the 18th century. Around the same time, translations of his poems began to appear in Europe. The poems were models for celebrating the pleasures of friendship, the depth of nature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gan Ning
Gan Ning () (early 170s - c. 220), courtesy name Xingba, was a Chinese military general serving under the warlord Sun Quan in the late Eastern Han dynasty. Originally a notorious pirate, he gave up the life of a marauder in the late 190s and became a subordinate of Huang Zu, the Administrator of a commandery in present-day east-central Hubei. Disheartened by Huang Zu's indifferent attitude towards him, Gan Ning eventually left Huang and made his way into Wu territory (present-day eastern and southeastern China), where he found his calling and became a military officer under the warlord Sun Quan. Throughout his years of service under Sun Quan until his death, Gan Ning fought in numerous battles for his lord, including the battles of Jiangxia (208), Red Cliffs (208–209), Xiaoyao Ford (214–215) and Ruxu (217). Early life Gan Ning was from Linjiang County (臨江縣), Ba Commandery (巴郡), which is in present-day Zhong County, Chongqing.(甘寧字興霸，巴郡臨江人 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sae Sok O-Gye
The Se Sok O-Gye, or just O-Gye, is the moral code of the hwarang formulated by Buddhist monk Won Gwang consisting of five rules: *''Loyalty to the country'' (originally: Fealty to the king) *''Respect and obey one's parents'' (i.e. filial piety In Confucianism, Chinese Buddhism, and Daoist ethics, filial piety (, ''xiào'') (Latin: pietas) is a virtue of respect for one's parents, elders, and ancestors. The Confucian ''Classic of Filial Piety'', thought to be written around the late W ...) *''Show trust among friends'' (i.e. candor and sincerity) *''Never retreat in battle'' *''Kill only with selective reasoning'' ''The code is still used by many Korean martial artists and can be found in gyms around the world. References Korean martial arts Silla Warrior code {{martialart-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knight-errant
A knight-errant (or knight errant) is a figure of medieval chivalric romance literature. The adjective '' errant'' (meaning "wandering, roving") indicates how the knight-errant would wander the land in search of adventures to prove his chivalric virtues, either in knightly duels (''pas d'armes'') or in some other pursuit of courtly love. Description The knight-errant is a character who has broken away from the world of his origin, in order to go off on his own to right wrongs or to test and assert his own chivalric ideals. He is motivated by idealism and goals that are often illusory. In medieval Europe, knight-errantry existed in literature, though fictional works from this time often were presented as non-fiction. The template of the knight-errant were the heroes of the Round Table of the Arthurian cycle such as Gawain, Lancelot, and Percival. The quest ''par excellence'' in pursuit of which these knights wandered the lands is that of the Holy Grail, such as in ''Perceval, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fianna
''Fianna'' ( , ; singular ''Fian''; gd, Fèinne ) were small warrior-hunter bands in Gaelic Ireland during the Iron Age and early Middle Ages. A ''fian'' was made up of freeborn young males, often aristocrats, "who had left fosterage but had not yet inherited the property needed to settle down as full landowning members of the ''túath''". For most of the year they lived in the wild, hunting, raiding other communities and lands, training, and fighting as mercenaries. Scholars believe the ''fian'' was a rite of passage into manhood, and have linked ''fianna'' with similar young warrior bands in other early European cultures They are featured in a body of Irish legends known as the 'Fianna Cycle' or 'Fenian Cycle', which focuses on the adventures and heroic deeds of the ''fian'' leader Fionn mac Cumhaill and his band. In later tales, the ''fianna'' are more often depicted as household troops of the High Kings. The ''Fianna Éireann'', an Irish nationalist youth organisation f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Futuwwa
Futuwwa (Arabic: فتوة, "young-manliness" or "chivalry") was a conception of moral behavior around which myriad institutions of Medieval confraternity developed. With characteristics similar to chivalry and virtue, these communal associations of Arab men gained significant influence as stable social units that exerted religious, military, and political influence in much of the Islamic world. History and development Origins In its most literal sense, Futuwwa described the quality of being young. It was not until the eighth century C.E. that the word came to represent something like a moral code.Goshgarian, Rachel. "Beyond the social and the spiritual: Redefining the urban confraternities of late medieval Anatolia." PhD diss., Harvard University, 2008. Proquest (AAT 3295918). The evolution of the word, from adjective to moral framework, was driven by a melding of and Islamicization of Persian and Arab traditions. The spread of Islam was accompanied by the spread of a definition of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bogatyr
A bogatyr ( rus, богатырь, p=bəɡɐˈtɨrʲ, a=Ru-богатырь.ogg) or vityaz ( rus, витязь, p=ˈvʲitʲɪsʲ) is a stock character in medieval East Slavic legends, akin to a Western European knight-errant. Bogatyrs appear mainly in Rus' epic poems— ''bylinas''. Historically, they came into existence during the reign of Vladimir the Great (Grand Prince of Kiev from 980 to 1015) as part of his elite warriors (''druzhina''), akin to Knights of the Round Table. Tradition describes bogatyrs as warriors of immense strength, courage and bravery, rarely using magic while fighting enemies in order to maintain the "loosely based on historical fact" aspect of bylinas. They are characterized as having resounding voices, with patriotic and religious pursuits, defending Rus' from foreign enemies (especially nomadic Turkic steppe-peoples or Finno-Ugric tribes in the period prior to the Mongol invasions) and their religion. In modern Russian, the word ''bogatyr'' labels a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iamb (poetry)
An iamb () or iambus is a metrical foot used in various types of poetry. Originally the term referred to one of the feet of the quantitative meter of classical Greek prosody: a short syllable followed by a long syllable (as in () "beautiful (f.)"). This terminology was adopted in the description of accentual-syllabic verse in English, where it refers to a foot comprising an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (as in ''abóve''). Thus a Latin word like , because of its short-long rhythm, is considered by Latin scholars to be an iamb, but because it has a stress on the first syllable, in modern linguistics it is considered to be a trochee. Etymology R. S. P. Beekes has suggested that the grc, ἴαμβος ''iambos'' has a Pre-Greek origin. An old hypothesis is that the word is borrowed from Phrygian or Pelasgian, and literally means "Einschritt", i. e., "one-step", compare ''dithyramb'' and ''thriambus'', but H. S. Versnel rejects this etymology and sugg ... [...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] |
