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夷
The Dongyi or Eastern Yi () was a collective term for ancient peoples found in Chinese records. The definition of Dongyi varied across the ages, but in most cases referred to inhabitants of eastern China, then later, the Korean peninsula and Japanese Archipelago. Dongyi refers to different group of people in different periods. As such, the name "Yí" was something of a catch-all and was applied to different groups over time. According to the earliest Chinese record, the ''Zuo Zhuan'', the Shang dynasty was attacked by King Wu of Zhou while attacking the Dongyi and collapsed afterward. Ancient inhabitants of Eastern China Oracle bone inscriptions from the early 11th century BCE refer to campaigns by the late Shang king Di Yi against the ''Rénfāng'' (), a group occupying the area of southern Shandong and Jianghuai (northern Anhui and Jiangsu). Many Chinese archaeologists apply the historical name "Dongyi" to the archaeological Yueshi culture (1900–1500 BCE). Other schol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Four Barbarians
"Four Barbarians" ( zh, c=四夷, p=sìyí) was a generic term used in Ancient China, particularly by subjects of the Shang dynasty, Shang and Zhou dynasty, Zhou dynasties, referring to the various non-Sinitic peoples living outside the borders of the Huaxia civilization, who were pejoratively considered to be savage (pejorative term), savage barbarians by the agrarian society, agrarian Chinese people. Each was named according to a cardinal direction relative to China proper, China ''proper'': * The "Eastern Barbarians" or ''Dongyi'' (), referring to various peoples east of the Zhongyuan, Central Plain, particularly the Tungusic people, Tungusic and Koreans, Koreanic peoples from Northeast Asia; * The "Southern Barbarians" or ''Nanman'' (), referring to the Baiyue people from south of the Yangtze and the Burmic people beyond the Hengduan Mountains; * The "Western Barbarians" or ''Xirong'' (), referring to the highland peoples (especially the Qiang (historical people), Qiang) from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shi (personator)
The ''shi'' () was a ceremonial " personator" who represented a dead relative during ancient Chinese ancestral sacrifices. In a ''shi'' ceremony, the ancestral spirit supposedly would enter the descendant "corpse" personator, who would eat and drink sacrificial offerings and convey messages from the spirit. James Legge, an early translator of the Chinese classics, described ''shi'' personation ceremonies as "grand family reunions where the dead and the living met, eating and drinking together, where the living worshipped the dead, and the dead blessed the living." In modern terms, this ancient Chinese ''shi'' practice would be described as necromancy, mediumship, or spirit possession. Word The word ''shi'' 尸 "corpse; personator; inactive; lay out; manage; spirit tablet" can be discussed in terms of Chinese character evolution, historical phonology, semantics, and English translations. Characters The modern character 尸 for ''shi'' "corpse; personator" is a graphic simplif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xirong
Xirong () or Rong were various people who lived primarily in and around the western extremities of ancient China (in modern Gansu and Qinghai). They were known as early as the Shang dynasty (1765–1122 BCE), as one of the Four Barbarians that frequently (and often violently) interacted with the sinitic Huaxia civilization. They typically resided to the west of Guanzhong Plains from the Zhou dynasty (1046–221 BCE) onwards. They were mentioned in some ancient Chinese texts as perhaps genetically and linguistically related to the people of the Chinese civilization. Etymology The historian Li Feng says that during the Western Zhou period, since the term ''Rong'' "warlike foreigners" was "often used in bronze inscriptions to mean 'warfare', it is likely that when a people was called 'Rong', the Zhou considered them as political and military adversaries rather than as cultural and ethnic 'others'." Paul R. Goldin also proposes that ''Rong'' was a "pseudo-ethnonym" meaning "belli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zhou Dynasty
The Zhou dynasty ( ) was a royal dynasty of China that existed for 789 years from until 256 BC, the longest span of any dynasty in Chinese history. During the Western Zhou period (771 BC), the royal house, surnamed Ji, had military control over territories centered on the Wei River valley and North China Plain. Even as Zhou suzerainty became increasingly ceremonial over the following Eastern Zhou period (771–256 BC), the political system created by the Zhou royal house survived in some form for several additional centuries. A date of 1046 BC for the Zhou's establishment is supported by the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project and David Pankenier, but David Nivison and Edward L. Shaughnessy date the establishment to 1045 BC. The latter Eastern Zhou period is itself roughly subdivided into two parts. During the Spring and Autumn period (), power became increasingly decentralized as the authority of the royal house diminished. The Warring States ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Huaxia
''Huaxia'' is a historical concept representing the Chinese nation, and came from the self-awareness of a common cultural ancestry by ancestral populations of the Han people. Etymology The earliest extant authentic attestation of the ''Huaxia'' concept is in the '' Zuo Zhuan'', a historical narrative and commentary authored before 300 BCE. In Zuo zhuan, Huaxia refers to the central states (中國 '' zhōngguó'') in the Yellow River valley, dwelt by the Huaxia people, ethnically equivalent to Han Chinese in pre-imperial discourses who are said to be the descendants of the Yellow Emperor. According to the Confucian Kong Yingda, ''xià'' ( 'grand') signified the 'greatness' () in the ceremonial etiquettes of the central states, while ''huá'' ( 'flower', 'blossom') was used in reference to the beauty () in the ''hanfu'' clothing that the denizens from those states wore. History Origin The Han-era historian Sima Qian asserts that "Xia" was the name of the state en ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zuo Zhuan
The ''Zuo Zhuan'' ( zh, t=左傳, w=Tso Chuan; ), often translated as ''The Zuo Tradition'' or as ''The Commentary of Zuo'', is an ancient Chinese narrative history traditionally regarded as a commentary on the ancient Chinese chronicle the '' Spring and Autumn Annals''. It comprises 30 chapters covering the period from 722 to 468BC, and focuses mainly on political, diplomatic, and military affairs from that era. For many centuries, the ''Zuo Zhuan'' was the primary text through which educated Chinese learned their ancient history. The ''Zuo Zhuan'' does not simply explain the wording of the ''Spring and Autumn Annals'', but rather expounds upon its historical background with rich and lively accounts of the history and culture of the Spring and Autumn period (771476 BC). The ''Zuo Zhuan'' is the source of more Chinese sayings and idioms than any other classical work, and its concise, flowing style served as a paragon of elegant Classical Chinese. Its tendency toward thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jiangsu
Jiangsu is a coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province in East China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its capital in Nanjing. Jiangsu is the List of Chinese administrative divisions by area, third smallest, but the List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, fifth most populous, with a population of 84.75 million, and the List of Chinese administrative divisions by population density, most densely populated of the 22 provinces of the People's Republic of China. Jiangsu has the highest GDP per capita and second-highest GDP of Chinese provinces, after Guangdong. Jiangsu borders Shandong in the north, Anhui to the west, and Zhejiang and Shanghai to the south. Jiangsu has a coastline of over along the Yellow Sea, and the Yangtze flows through the southern part of the province. Since the Sui dynasty, Sui and Tang dynasty, Tang dynasties, Jiangsu has been a national economic and commercial center ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Kingdom (China)
The names of China include the many contemporary and historical designations given in various languages for the East Asian country known as in Standard Chinese, a form based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The English name "China" was borrowed from Portuguese during the 16th century, and its direct cognates became common in the subsequent centuries in the West. It is believed to be a borrowing from Middle Persian, and some have traced it further back to the Sanskrit word () for the nation. It is also thought that the ultimate source of the name China is the Chinese word , the name of the Qin dynasty that ultimately unified China after existing as a state within the Zhou dynasty for many centuries prior. However, there are alternative suggestions for the etymology of this word. Chinese names for China, aside from , include , , and . While official notions of Chinese nationality do not make any particular reference to ethnicity, common names for the largest ethnic group i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yi People
The Yi or Nuosu people (Nuosu language, Nuosu: , ; see also #Names and subgroups, § Names and subgroups) are an ethnic group in South China, southern China. Numbering nine million people, they are the seventh largest of the 55 Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority groups recognized by the Government of China, Chinese government. They live primarily in rural areas of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Guangxi, usually in mountainous regions. The Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture is home to the largest population of Yi people within China, with two million Yi people in the region. In neighbouring Vietnam, , there are 4,827 Lô Lô people (a subgroup of the Yi) living in the Hà Giang Province, Hà Giang, Cao Bằng Province, Cao Bằng, and Lào Cai Province, Lào Cai provinces, in the country's north. The Yi speak various Loloish languages, closely related to Burmese language, Burmese. The prestige variety is Nuosu language, Nuosu, which is written in the Yi script. Locatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King Wu Of Zhou
King Wu of Zhou (; died ), personal name Ji Fa, was the founding king of the Chinese Zhou dynasty. The chronology of his reign is disputed but is generally thought to have begun around 1046 BCE and ended with his death three years later. King Wu was the second son of Ji Chang (posthumously King Wen) and Tai Si. In most accounts, his older brother Bo Yikao was said to have predeceased his father, typically at the hands of King Zhou of Shang, the last king of the Shang dynasty; in the '' Book of Rites'', however, it is assumed that his inheritance represented an older tradition among the Zhou of passing over the eldest son. (Fa's grandfather Jili had likewise inherited Zhou despite two older brothers.) Upon his succession, Fa worked with his father-in-law Jiang Ziya to accomplish an unfinished task: overthrowing the Shang dynasty. During the ninth year of his reign, Fa marched down the Yellow River to the Mengjin ford and met with more than 800 dukes. He constructed an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radical (Chinese Character)
A radical (), or indexing component, is a visually prominent component of a Chinese character under which the character is traditionally listed in a Chinese dictionary. The radical for a character is typically a semantic component, but it can also be another structural component or an artificially extracted portion of the character. In some cases, the original semantic or phonological connection has become obscure, owing to changes in the meaning or pronunciation of the character over time. The use of the English term ''radical'' is based on an analogy between the structure of Chinese characters and the inflection of words in European languages. Radicals are also sometimes called ''classifiers'', but this name is more commonly applied to the grammatical measure words in Chinese. History In the earliest Chinese dictionaries, such as the '' Erya'' (3rd centuryBC), characters were grouped together in broad semantic categories. Because the vast majority of characters are pho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oracle Bones
Oracle bones are pieces of ox scapula and turtle plastron which were used in pyromancya form of divinationduring the Late Shang period () in ancient China. '' Scapulimancy'' is the specific term if ox scapulae were used for the divination, ''plastromancy'' if turtle plastrons were used. A recent count estimated that there were about 13,000 bones with a total of a little over 130,000 inscriptions in collections in China and some fourteen other countries. Diviners would submit questions to deities regarding weather, crop planting, the fortunes of members of the royal family, military endeavors, and similar topics. These questions were carved onto the bone or shell in oracle bone script using a sharp tool. Intense heat was then applied with a metal rod until the bone or shell cracked due to thermal expansion. The diviner would then interpret the pattern of cracks and write the prognostication upon the piece as well. Pyromancy with bones continued in China into the Zhou dynasty, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
