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Dongfang Shuo
Dongfang Shuo (, c. 160 BCE – c. 93 BCE) was a Han Dynasty scholar-official, '' fangshi'' ("master of esoterica"), author, and court jester to Emperor Wu (r. 141 – 87 BCE). In Chinese mythology, Dongfang is considered a Daoist ''xian'' ("transcendent; immortal") and the spirit of Venus who incarnated as a series of ancient ministers including Laozi. Dongfang Shuo is depicted in the Wu Shuang Pu (無雙譜, Table of Peerless Heroes) by Jin Guliang. Names Dongfang Shuo's original Chinese surname was Zhang (張 meaning "stretch; spread"), which was later changed to an uncommon compound surname Dongfang (東方 "eastern direction; the east", cf. The East Is Red). His Chinese given name was Shuo (朔 "new moon") and his courtesy name was Manqian (曼倩 "graceful handsome"). Owing to his eccentric and humorous behavior at the Han court in Chang'an, Dongfang's nickname was Huaji (滑稽 "Buffoon") and he proclaimed himself the first ''chaoyin'' (朝隱 "recluse at court", ...
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Pingyuan Commandery
Pingyuan Commandery ( zh, 平原郡) was a historical commandery of China, existing from Han dynasty to Tang dynasty. It was centered around present-day northwestern Shandong province. The commandery was carved out of the Jibei Kingdom during Emperor Jing of Han's reign. Pingyuan administered 19 counties and marquessates in late Western Han, including Pingyuan (平原), Ge (鬲), Gaotang (高唐), Chongqiu (重丘), Pingchang (平昌), Yu (羽), Ban (般), Leling (樂陵), Zhu'e (祝阿), Yuan (瑗), Eyang (阿陽), Luoyin (漯陰), Li (朸), Fuping (富平), Ande (安德), Heyang (合陽), Louxu (樓虛), Longpou (龍哣), and An (安). In Eastern Han, Pingyuan twice became a kingdom or principality. It was granted to Liu Sheng (劉勝), brother of Emperor He in 106, and to Liu Shuo (劉碩), brother of Emperor Huan in 148.'' Book of Later Han'', Chapter 7. The kingdom was abolished in 206 and Pingyuan was administered as a commandery again. Pingyuan consisted of 9 counties ...
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Zhang (surname)
Zhang () is the third most common surname in China and Taiwan (commonly spelled as "Chang" in Taiwan), and it is one of the most common surnames in the world. Zhang is the pinyin romanization of the very common Chinese surname written in simplified characters and in traditional characters. It is spoken in the first tone: ''Zhāng''. It is a surname that exists in many languages and cultures, corresponding to the surname 'Archer' in English for example. In the Wade-Giles system of romanization, it is romanized as "Chang", which is commonly used in Taiwan; "Cheung" is commonly used in Hong Kong as romanization. It is also the pinyin romanization of the less-common surnames (''Zhāng''), which is the 40th name on the '' Hundred Family Surnames'' poem. There is the even-less common (''Zhǎng''). was listed 24th in the famous Song-era '' Hundred Family Surnames'', contained in the verse 何呂施張 (He Lü Shi Zhang). Today, it is one of the most common surnames in the worl ...
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Chi (unit)
The chi (Tongyong Pinyin chih) is a traditional Chinese unit of length. Although it is often translated as the "", its length was originally derived from the distance measured by a human hand, from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the forefinger, and is similar to the ancient span. It first appeared during China's Shang dynasty approximately 3,000 years ago and has since been adopted by other East Asian cultures such as Japan (''shaku''), Korea (''ja/cheok''), and Vietnam (''thước''). Its present value is standardized at around , although the exact standards vary among the mainland of the People's Republic of China, its special administrative region of Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In its ancient and modern forms, the chi is divided into 10 smaller units known as cun (the "Chinese inch"). 10 chi are equal to 1 zhàng. Modern values In the People's Republic of China, ''chi'' has been defined since 1984 as exactly 1/3 of a metre, i.e., . However, in the Hong Kong SAR the co ...
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Disciples Of Confucius
According to Sima Qian, Confucius said: "The disciples who received my instructions, and could themselves comprehend them, were seventy-seven individuals. They were all scholars of extraordinary ability." It was traditionally believed that Confucius had three thousand students, but that only 72 mastered what he taught. The following is a list of students who have been identified as Confucius's followers. Very little is known of most of Confucius's students, but some of them are mentioned in the '' Analects of Confucius''. Many of their biographies are recorded in the Sima Qian's '' Shiji''. The Six Arts were practiced by the 72 disciples. Disciples Yan Hui (Ziyuan) Yan Hui (顏回) was a native of the Lu. His courtesy name was Ziyuan (子淵). He was Confucius's favorite student, and was younger than Confucius by 30 years. He became Confucius's disciple when he was very young. "After I got Hui," Confucius once said, "the disciples came closer to me." Confucius once traveled to ...
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Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese characters, Chinese form, to learners already familiar with the Latin alphabet. The system includes four diacritics denoting tone (linguistics), tones, but pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written in the Latin script, and is also used in certain computer Chinese input methods for computers, input methods to enter Chinese characters. The word ' () literally means "Han Chinese, Han spoken language, language" (i.e. Chinese language), while ' () means "spelled sounds". The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by a group of Chinese linguists including Zhou Youguang and was based on earlier forms of Romanization of Chinese, romanizations of Chinese. It was published by the Chinese G ...
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Ling County
Lingcheng District, formerly Ling County or Lingxian, is a district of the city of Dezhou Dezhou () is a prefecture-level city in northwestern Shandong province, People's Republic of China. It borders the provincial capital of Jinan to the southeast, Liaocheng to the southwest, Binzhou to the northeast, and the province of Hebei t ..., Shandong province, China. On 29 October 2014, the State Council approved the conversion of the former Ling County to Lingcheng District. Administrative divisions As 2012, this District is divided to 2 subdistricts, 10 towns and 1 townships. ;Subdistricts *Ande Subdistrict () *Linji Subdistrict () ;Towns ;Townships *Yuji Township () Climate References External links County-level divisions of Shandong {{Shandong-geo-stub ...
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Book Of Han
The ''Book of Han'' or ''History of the Former Han'' (Qián Hàn Shū,《前汉书》) is a history of China finished in 111AD, covering the Western, or Former Han dynasty from the first emperor in 206 BCE to the fall of Wang Mang in 23 CE. It is also called the ''Book of Former Han''. The work was composed by Ban Gu (32–92 CE), an Eastern Han court official, with the help of his sister Ban Zhao, continuing the work of their father, Ban Biao. They modeled their work on the '' Records of the Grand Historian'', a cross-dynastic general history, but theirs was the first in this annals-biography form to cover a single dynasty. It is the best source, sometimes the only one, for many topics such as literature in this period. A second work, the ''Book of the Later Han'' covers the Eastern Han period from 25 to 220, and was composed in the fifth century by Fan Ye (398–445). Contents This history developed from a continuation of Sima Qian's '' Records of the Grand Historian' ...
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Records Of The Grand Historian
''Records of the Grand Historian'', also known by its Chinese name ''Shiji'', is a monumental history of China that is the first of China's 24 dynastic histories. The ''Records'' was written in the early 1st century by the ancient Chinese historian Sima Qian, whose father Sima Tan had begun it several decades earlier. The work covers a 2,500-year period from the age of the legendary Yellow Emperor to the reign of Emperor Wu of Han in the author's own time, and describes the world as it was known to the Chinese of the Western Han dynasty. The ''Records'' has been called a "foundational text in Chinese civilization". After Confucius and the First Emperor of Qin, "Sima Qian was one of the creators of Imperial China, not least because by providing definitive biographies, he virtually created the two earlier figures." The ''Records'' set the model for all subsequent dynastic histories of China. In contrast to Western historical works, the ''Records'' do not treat history as " ...
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Twenty-Four Histories
The ''Twenty-Four Histories'' (), also known as the ''Orthodox Histories'' (), are the Chinese official dynastic histories covering from the earliest dynasty in 3000 BC to the Ming dynasty in the 17th century. The Han dynasty official Sima Qian established many of the conventions of the genre, but the form was not fixed until much later. Starting with the Tang dynasty, each dynasty established an official office to write the history of its predecessor using official court records, partly in order to establish its own link to the earliest times. As fixed and edited in the Qing dynasty, the whole set contains 3,213 volumes and about 40 million words. It is considered one of the most important sources on Chinese history and culture. The title "Twenty-Four Histories" dates from 1775, which was the 40th year in the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. This was when the last volume, the '' History of Ming'', was reworked and a complete set of the histories was produced. Collection Inher ...
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Nickname
A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place or thing. Commonly used to express affection, a form of endearment, and sometimes amusement, it can also be used to express defamation of character. As a concept, it is distinct from both pseudonym and stage name, and also from a title (for example, City of Fountains), although there may be overlap in these concepts. Etymology The compound word ''ekename'', literally meaning "additional name", was attested as early as 1303. This word was derived from the Old English phrase ''eac'' "also", related to ''eacian'' "to increase". By the 15th century, the misdivision of the syllables of the phrase "an ekename" led to its rephrasing as "a nekename". Though the spelling has changed, the pronunciation and meaning of the word have remained relatively stable ever since. Conventions in various languages English nicknames are generally represented in quotes between the bearer's first and last names (e.g., '' ...
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Chang'an
Chang'an (; ) is the traditional name of Xi'an. The site had been settled since Neolithic times, during which the Yangshao culture was established in Banpo, in the city's suburbs. Furthermore, in the northern vicinity of modern Xi'an, Qin Shi Huang of the Qin dynasty, China's first emperor, held his imperial court, and constructed his massive mausoleum guarded by the Terracotta Army. From its capital at Xianyang, the Qin dynasty ruled a larger area than either of the preceding dynasties. The imperial city of Chang'an during the Han dynasty was located northwest of today's Xi'an. During the Tang dynasty, the area that came to be known as Chang'an included the area inside the Ming Xi'an fortification, plus some small areas to its east and west, and a substantial part of its southern suburbs. Thus, Tang Chang'an was eight times the size of the Ming Xi'an, which was reconstructed upon the site of the former imperial quarters of the Sui and Tang city. During its heyday, Chang' ...
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Courtesy Name
A courtesy name (), also known as a style name, is a name bestowed upon one at adulthood in addition to one's given name. This practice is a tradition in the East Asian cultural sphere, including China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.Ulrich TheobaldNames of Persons and Titles of Rulers/ref> A courtesy name is not to be confused with an art name, another frequently mentioned term for an alternative name in East Asia, which is closer to the concept of a pen name or a pseudonym. Usage A courtesy name is a name traditionally given to Chinese men at the age of 20 ''sui'', marking their coming of age. It was sometimes given to women, usually upon marriage. The practice is no longer common in modern Chinese society. According to the '' Book of Rites'', after a man reached adulthood, it was disrespectful for others of the same generation to address him by his given name. Thus, the given name was reserved for oneself and one's elders, whereas the courtesy name would be used by adults ...
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