Florian Ion

PETRESCU

CHINA

USA 2012
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Copyright Title book: China Author book: Florian Ion PETRESCU 2012, Florian Ion PETRESCU petrescuflorian@yahoo.com

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the authors / publisher.

Welcome! A Short Book Description

China (Zhnggu/Zhnghu), officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is the most populous state in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometers (3.7 million square miles). It is the world's second-largest country by land area, and the third- or fourthlargest in total area, depending on the definition of total area. The People's Republic of China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (SARs), Hong
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Kong and Macau. Its capital city is Beijing. The PRC also claims the island of Taiwan, which is controlled by the government of the Republic of China, as its 23rd province, a claim controversial due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the unresolved Chinese Civil War. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, with forest steppes and the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts occupying the arid north and northwest near Mongolia and Central Asia, and subtropical forests being prevalent in the wetter south near Southeast Asia. The terrain of western China is rugged and elevated, with the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separating China from South and Central Asia. The worlds apex, Mt. Everest (8,848 m), lies on the ChinaNepal border, while the world's secondhighest point, K2 (8,611 m), is situated on China's border with Pakistan. The countrys lowest and the worlds thirdlowest point, Lake Ayding (-154 m), is located in the Turpan Depression. The
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Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the thirdand sixth-longest in the world, have their sources in the Tibetan Plateau and continue to the densely populated eastern seaboard. Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometres (9,000 mi) long (the 11thlongest in the world), and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East and South China Seas. The ancient Chinese civilizationone of the world's earliestflourished in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. China's political system was based on hereditary monarchies, known as dynasties, beginning with the semi-mythological Xia of the Yellow River basin (approx. 2000 BC) and ending with the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912. Since 221 BC, when the Qin Dynasty first conquered several states to form a Chinese empire, the country has fractured and been reformed numerous times. The Republic of China (ROC), founded in 1912 after the overthrow of the Qing dynasty, ruled the Chinese
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mainland until 1949. In the 19461949 phase of the Chinese Civil War, the Chinese Communists defeated the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang) on the mainland and established the People's Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949. The Kuomintang relocated the ROC government to Taiwan, establishing its capital in Taipei. The ROC's jurisdiction is now limited to Taiwan and several outlying islands, including Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu. Since 1949, the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (now widely known as "Taiwan") have remained in dispute over the sovereignty of China and the political status of Taiwan, mutually claiming each other's territory and competing for international diplomatic recognition. In 1971, the PRC gained admission to United Nations and took the Chinese seat as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the G-20.
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As of September 2011, all but 23 countries have recognized the PRC as the sole legitimate government of China. Since the introduction of market-based economic reforms in 1978, China has become the world's fastest-growing major economy, and the world's largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. It is the world's secondlargest economy, after the United States, by both nominal GDP and purchasing power parity (PPP). On per capita terms, China ranked 90th by nominal GDP and 91st by GDP (PPP) in 2011, according to the IMF. China is a recognized nuclear weapons state and has the world's largest standing army, with the second-largest defense budget. In 2003, China became the third nation in the world, after the former Soviet Union and the United States, to independently launch a successful manned space mission. China has been characterized as a potential superpower by a number of

academics, military analysts, and public policy and economics analysts. The word "China" is derived from Cin, a Persian name for China popularized in Europe by the account of the 13thcentury explorer Marco Polo. The first recorded use in English dates from 1555. The Persian word is, in turn, derived from the Sanskrit word Cna, which was used as a name for China as early as AD 150. There are various scholarly theories regarding the origin of this word. The traditional theory, proposed in the 17th century by Martino Martini, is that "China" is derived from "Qin", the westernmost of the Chinese kingdoms during the Zhou Dynasty, or from the succeeding Qin Dynasty (221206 BC). The word Cna is used in two Hindu scriptures the Mahbhrata of the 5th century BC and the Laws of Manu of the 2nd century BC to refer to a country located in the Tibetan-Burman borderlands east of India.

In China, common names for the country include Zhnggu (literally "Middle Kingdom") and Zhnghu, although the country's official name has been changed numerous times by successive dynasties and modern governments. The term Zhongguo appeared in various ancient texts, such as the Classic of History of the 6th century BC, and in pre-imperial times it was often used as a cultural concept to distinguish the Huaxia from the barbarians. Sometimes Zhongguo, which can be either singular or plural, referring to the group of states in the central plain.

The Chinese were not unique in regarding their country as "central",

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since other civilizations had the same view.

History of China
Chinese civilization originated in various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the Cradle of Chinese Civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest civilizations. The written history of China can be found as early as the Shang Dynasty (c. 1700 1046 BC), although ancient historical texts such as the Records of the Grand Historian (ca. 100 BC) and Bamboo Annals assert the existence of a Xia Dynasty before the Shang. Oracle bones with ancient Chinese writing have been dated to the late Shang Dynasty around 1200 BC. Much of Chinese culture, literature and philosophy further developed during the Zhou Dynasty (1045256 BC).

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The Zhou Dynasty began to bow to external and internal pressures in the 8th century BC, and the kingdom eventually broke apart into smaller states, beginning in the Spring and Autumn Period and reaching full expression in the Warring States period. This is one of multiple periods of failed statehood in Chinese history (the most recent of which was the Chinese Civil War). In between eras of multiple kingdoms and warlordism, Chinese dynasties (or, more recently, republics) have ruled all of China (minus Xinjiang and Tibet) (and, in some eras, including the present, they have controlled Xinjiang and/or Tibet as well). This practice began with the Qin Dynasty: in 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang united the various warring kingdoms and created the first Chinese empire. Successive dynasties in Chinese history developed bureaucratic systems that enabled the Emperor of China to directly control vast territories.

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The conventional view of Chinese history is that of alternating periods of political unity and disunity, with China occasionally being dominated by Inner Asian peoples, most of whom were in turn assimilated into the Han Chinese population. Cultural and political influences from many parts of Asia, carried by successive waves of immigration, expansion, and cultural assimilation, are part of the modern culture of China.

Paleolithic
What is now China was inhabited by Homo erectus more than a million years ago. Recent study shows that the stone tools found at Xiaochangliang site are magnetostratigraphically dated to 1.36 million years ago. The archaeological site of Xihoudu in Shanxi Province is the earliest recorded use of fire by Homo erectus, which is dated 1.27 million years ago. The excavations at Yuanmou and later Lantian show early habitation. Perhaps the most famous
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specimen of Homo erectus found in China is the so-called Peking Man discovered in 1923-27.

Neolithic
The Neolithic age in China can be traced back to between 12,000 and 10,000 BC. Early evidence for protoChinese millet agriculture is radiocarbon-dated to about 7000 BC. The Peiligang culture of Xinzheng county, Henan was excavated in 1977. With agriculture came increased population, the ability to store and redistribute crops, and the potential to support specialist craftsmen and administrators. In late Neolithic times, the Yellow River valley began to establish itself as a cultural center, where the first villages were founded; the most archaeologically significant of those was found at Banpo, Xi'an. The Yellow River was so named because of loess forming its banks gave a yellowish tint to the water.

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The early history of China is made obscure by the lack of written documents from this period, coupled with the existence of accounts written during later time periods that attempted to describe events that had occurred several centuries previously. In a sense, the problem stems from centuries of introspection on the part of the Chinese people, which has blurred the distinction between fact and fiction in regards to this early history. By 7000 BC, the Chinese were farming millet, giving rise to the Jiahu culture. At Damaidi in Ningxia, 3,172 cliff carvings dating to 6000-5000 BC have been discovered "featuring 8,453 individual characters such as the sun, moon, stars, gods and scenes of hunting or grazing." These pictographs are reputed to be similar to the earliest characters confirmed to be written Chinese. Later Yangshao culture was superseded by the Longshan culture around 2500 BC.

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Ancient era Xia Dynasty (c. 2100 - c. 1600 BC)

The Xia Dynasty of China (from c. 2100 to c. 1600 BC) is the first dynasty to be described in ancient historical records such as Records of the Grand Historian and Bamboo Annals. Although there is disagreement as to whether the dynasty actually existed, there is some archaeological evidence pointing to its possible existence. The historian Sima Qian (145-90 BC), who wrote the Shiji or Records of the Grand Historian, and the so-called Bamboo Annals date the founding of the Xia Dynasty to 4,200 years ago, but this date has not been corroborated. Most archaeologists now connect the Xia to excavations at Erlitou in central Henan province, where a bronze smelter from around 2000 BC was unearthed. Early markings from this period found on pottery and shells are thought to be ancestral to modern Chinese
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characters. With few clear records matching the Shang oracle bones or the Zhou bronze vessel writings, the Xia era remains poorly understood. According to mythology, the dynasty ended around 1600 BC as a consequence of the Battle of Mingtiao.

Shang Dynasty (c. 1700-1046 BC)

Archaeological findings providing evidence for the existence of the Shang Dynasty, c. 16001046 BC, are divided into two sets. The first set, from the earlier Shang period comes from sources at Erligang, Zhengzhou and Shangcheng. The second set, from the later Shang or Yin period at Anyang, in modern-day Henan, which has been confirmed as the last of the Shang's nine capitals (c. 13001046 BC). The findings at Anyang include the earliest written record of Chinese past
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so far discovered, inscriptions of divination records on the bones or shells of animals the so-called "oracle bones", dating from around 1200 BC.

The Shang Dynasty featured 31 kings, from Tang of Shang to King Zhou of Shang. In this period, the Chinese
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worshipped many different gods weather gods and sky gods - and also a supreme god, named Shangdi, who ruled over the other gods. Those who lived during the Shang Dynasty also believed that their ancestors - their parents and grandparents - became like gods when they died, and that their ancestors wanted to be worshipped too, like gods. Each family worshipped its own ancestors. The Records of the Grand Historian states that the Shang Dynasty moved its capital six times. The final (and most important) move to Yin in 1350 BC led to the dynasty's golden age. The term Yin Dynasty has been synonymous with the Shang dynasty in history, although it has lately been used to specifically refer to the latter half of the Shang Dynasty. Chinese historians living in later periods were accustomed to the notion of one dynasty succeeding another, but
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the actual political situation in early China is known to have been much more complicated. Hence, as some scholars of China suggest, the Xia and the Shang can possibly refer to political entities that existed concurrently, just as the early Zhou is known to have existed at the same time as the Shang. Although written records found at Anyang confirm the existence of the Shang dynasty, Western scholars are often hesitant to associate settlements that are contemporaneous with the Anyang settlement with the Shang dynasty. For example, archaeological findings at Sanxingdui suggest a technologically advanced civilization culturally unlike Anyang. The evidence is inconclusive in proving how far the Shang realm extended from Anyang. The leading hypothesis is that Anyang, ruled by the same Shang in the official history, coexisted and traded with
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numerous other culturally diverse settlements in the area that is now referred to as China proper.

Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BC)

The Zhou Dynasty was the longestlasting dynasty in Chinese history, from 1066 BC to approximately 256 BC. By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the Zhou Dynasty began to emerge in the Yellow River valley, overrunning the territory of the Shang. The Zhou appeared to have begun their rule under a semi-feudal system. The Zhou lived west of the Shang, and the Zhou leader had been appointed "Western Protector" by the Shang. The ruler of the Zhou, King Wu, with the assistance of his brother, the Duke of Zhou, as regent, managed to defeat the Shang at the Battle of Muye. The king of Zhou at this time invoked the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to legitimize his rule, a concept that
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would be influential for almost every succeeding dynasty.

Bronze ritual vessel (You), Western Zhou Dynasty

Like Shangdi, Heaven (tian) ruled over all the other gods, and it decided who would rule China. It was believed that a ruler had lost the Mandate of Heaven when natural disasters occurred in great number, and when, more realistically, the sovereign had apparently lost his concern for the people. In response, the royal house would be overthrown, and a new house would
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rule, having been granted the Mandate of Heaven. The Zhou initially moved their capital west to an area near modern Xi'an, on the Wei River, a tributary of the Yellow River, but they would preside over a series of expansions into the Yangtze River valley. This would be the first of many population migrations from north to south in Chinese history.

Spring and Autumn Period (722476 BC)

In the 8th century BC, power became decentralized during the Spring and Autumn Period, named after the influential Spring and Autumn Annals. In this period, local military leaders used by the Zhou began to assert their power and vie for hegemony. The situation was aggravated by the invasion of other peoples from the northwest, such as the Qin, forcing the

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Zhou to move their capital east to Luoyang.

Chinese pu vessel with interlaced dragon design, Spring and Autumn Period

This marks the second major phase of the Zhou dynasty: the Eastern Zhou.
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In each of the hundreds of states that eventually arose, local strongmen held most of the political power and continued their subservience to the Zhou kings in name only. For instance, local leaders started using royal titles for themselves. The Hundred Schools of Thought of Chinese philosophy blossomed during this period, and such influential intellectual movements as Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism and Mohism were founded, partly in response to the changing political world. The Spring and Autumn Period is marked by a falling apart of the central Zhou power. China now consists of hundreds of states, some of them only as large as a village with a fort.

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Chinese dragon
Chinese dragons are legendary creatures in Chinese mythology and folklore, with mythic counterparts among Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Bhutanese, Western and Turkic dragons. In Chinese art, dragons are typically portrayed as long, scaled, serpentine creatures with four legs. In yin and yang terminology, a dragon is yang and complements a yin fenghuang ("Chinese phoenix"). In contrast to European dragons, which are considered evil, Chinese dragons traditionally symbolize potent and auspicious powers, particularly control over water, rainfall, hurricane, and floods. The dragon is also a symbol of power, strength, and good luck. With this, the Emperor of China usually uses the dragon as a symbol of his imperial power. In Chinese daily language, excellent and outstanding people are compared
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to the dragon while incapable people with no achievements are compared with other, disesteemed creatures, such as the worm. A number of Chinese proverbs and idioms feature references to the dragon, for example: "Hoping one's son will become a dragon" (i.e. be as a dragon).

Historically, the dragon was the symbol of the Emperor of China. In the Zhou Dynasty, the 5-clawed dragon was assigned to the Son of Heaven, the 4clawed dragon to the nobles (zhuhou, seigneur), and the 3-clawed dragon to the ministers (daifu). In the Qin Dynasty, the 5-clawed dragon was assigned to represent the Emperor while the 4-clawed and 3-clawed
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dragons were assigned to the commoners. The dragon in the Qing Dynasty appeared on national flags. The dragon is sometimes used in the West as a national emblem of China. However, this usage within both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China on Taiwan as the symbol of nation is not common. Instead, it is generally used as the symbol of culture. In Hong Kong, the dragon is part of the design of Brand Hong Kong, a symbol used to promote Hong Kong as an international brand name. In European-influenced cultures, the dragon has aggressive, warlike connotations and it is conjectured that the Chinese government wishes to avoid using it as a symbol, but most Chinese disagree with this decision. Westerners only sometimes confuse the disposition of the benevolent Chinese dragon with the aggressive Western dragon.
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Sometimes Chinese people use the term "Descendants of the Dragon" as a sign of ethnic identity, as part of a trend started in the 1970s when different Asian nationalities were looking for animal symbols for representations. The wolf was used among the Mongols, the monkey among Tibetans. In Chinese culture today, the dragon is mostly used for decorative purposes. It is a taboo to disfigure a depiction of a dragon; for example, an advertisement campaign commissioned by Nike, which featured the American basketball player LeBron James slaying a dragon (as well as beating up an old Kung Fu master), was immediately banned by the Chinese government after public outcry over disrespect. The origin of the Chinese dragon is not certain. The presence of dragons within Chinese culture dates back several thousands of years with the discovery of a dragon statue dating
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back to the fifth millennium BC from the Yangshao culture in Henan in 1987, and jade badges of rank in coiled form have been excavated from the Hongshan culture circa 4700-2900 BC. The coiled snake or dragon form played an important role in early Chinese culture. The character for "dragon" in the earliest Chinese writing has a similar coiled form, as do later jade dragon amulets from the Shang period. Ancient Chinese referred to unearthed dinosaur bones as dragon bones and documented them as such. For example, Chang Qu in 300 BC documents the discovery of "dragon bones" in Sichuan. The modern Chinese word for dinosaur is konglong (meaning "terrible dragon"), and villagers in central China have long unearthed fossilized "dragon bones" for use in traditional medicines, a practice that continues today.
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The binomial name for a variety of dinosaur discovered in China, Mei long, in Chinese means "sleeping dragon." Fossilized remains of Mei long have been found in China in a sleeping and coiled form, with the dinosaur nestling its snout beneath one of its forelimbs while encircling its tail around its entire body. Some have further suggested that the Chinese dragon form comes from stylized depictions of existing animals, such as snakes, fish, or crocodiles. A view advocated by He Xin is that the early dragon depicted a species of crocodile, specifically, Crocodylus porosus, the saltwater crocodile, which is the largest living reptile, and once ranged into China during ancient times. The crocodile is known to be able to accurately sense changes in air pressure, and be able to sense coming rain.

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This may have been the origin of the dragon's mythical attributes in controlling the weather, especially the rain. The association with the crocodile is also supported by the view in ancient times that large crocodiles are a variety of dragon. For example, in the Story of Zhou Chu, about the life of a Jin Dynasty warrior, he is said to have killed a "dragon" that infested the waters of his home village, which appears to have been a crocodile. Some scholars believe that the Chinese dragon form originated from totems of different tribes in China, as a merger of totems of various tribes consequential to tribal mergers. Legendary figures like Nwa and Fuxi are depicted as having snake bodies. Some scholars have noted that a myth arose that the first legendary Emperor of China, Huangdi (Yellow Emperor) used a snake for his coat of arms. According to the myth, every time he
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conquered another tribe, he incorporated his defeated enemy's emblem into his own, thus explains why the dragon appears to have features of various animals.

From its origins as totems or the stylized depiction of natural creatures, the Chinese dragon evolved to become a mythical animal. The Han Dynasty scholar Wang Fu recorded Chinese myths that long dragons had nine anatomical resemblances.
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The people paint the dragon's shape with a horse's head and a snake's tail. Further, there are expressions as 'three joints' and 'nine resemblances' (of the dragon), to wit: from head to shoulder, from shoulder to breast, from breast to tail. These are the joints; as to the nine resemblances, they are the following: his horns resemble those of a stag, his head that of a camel, his eyes those of a demon, his neck that of a snake, his belly that of a clam (shen), his scales those of a carp, his claws those of an eagle, his soles those of a tiger, his ears those of a cow. Upon his head he has a thing like a broad eminence (a big lump), called [chimu]. If a dragon has no [chimu], he cannot ascend to the sky. Further sources give variant lists of the nine animal resemblances.

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Sinologist Henri Dor lists these characteristics of an authentic dragon: "The horns of a deer. The head of a camel. A demon's eyes. The neck of a snake. A tortoise's viscera. A hawk's claws. The palms of a tiger. A cow's ears. And it hears through its horns, its ears being deprived of all power of hearing." He notes that, "Others state it has a rabbit's eyes, a frog's belly, a carp's scales." The anatomy of other legendary creatures, including the chimera and manticore, is similarly amalgamated from fierce animals. Chinese dragons were considered to be physically concise. Of the 117 scales, 81 are of the yang essence (positive) while 36 are of the yin essence (negative).
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Initially, the dragon was benevolent but the Buddhists introduced the concept of malevolent influence among some dragons. Just as water destroys, they said, so can some dragons destroy via floods, tidal waves and storms. They suggested that some of the worst floods were believed to have been the result of a mortal upsetting a dragon. Many pictures of oriental dragons show a flaming pearl under their chin. The pearl is associated with wealth, good luck, and prosperity. Chinese dragons are occasionally depicted with bat-like wings growing out of the front limbs, but most do not have wings, as their ability to fly (and control rain/water, etc.) are mystical and not seen as a result of their physical attributes. This description accords with the artistic depictions of the dragon down to the present day.
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The dragon has also acquired an almost unlimited range of supernatural powers. It is said to be able to disguise itself as a silkworm, or become as large as our entire universe. It can fly among the clouds or hide in water (according to the Guanzi). It can form clouds, can turn into water, can change color as an ability to blend in with their surroundings, as an effective form of camouflage or glow in the dark (according to the Shuowen Jiezi). In many other countries, folktales speak of the dragon having all the attributes of the other 11 creatures of the zodiac, this includes the whiskers of the rat, the face and horns of an ox, claws and teeth of a tiger, belly of a rabbit, body of a snake, legs of a horse, the beard of a goat, wit (or brain) of a monkey, crest of a rooster, ears of a dog, the snout of a pig. In some circles, it is considered bad luck to depict a dragon facing
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downwards, as it is seen as disrespectful to place a dragon in such manner that it cannot ascend to the sky. Also, depictions of dragons in tattoos are prevail as they are symbols of strength and power, especially criminal organizations where dragons hold a meaning all on their own. As such, it is believed that one must be fierce and strong enough, hence earning the right to wear the dragon on his skin, lest his luck be consumed by the dragon.

Chinese dragons are strongly associated with water in popular belief. They are believed to be the rulers of
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moving bodies of water, such as waterfalls, rivers, or seas. They can show themselves as water spouts (tornado or twister over water). In this capacity as the rulers of water and weather, the dragon is more anthropomorphic in form, often depicted as a humanoid, dressed in a king's costume, but with a dragon head wearing a king's headdress. There are four major Dragon Kings, representing each of the four seas: the East Sea (corresponding to the East China Sea), the South Sea (corresponding to the South China Sea), the West Sea (sometimes seen as the Indian Ocean and beyond), and the North Sea (sometimes seen as Lake Baikal). Because of this association, they are seen as "in charge" of water-related weather phenomenon. In premodern times, many Chinese villages (especially those close to rivers and seas) had temples dedicated to their
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local "dragon king". In times of drought or flooding, it was customary for the local gentry and government officials to lead the community in offering sacrifices and conducting other religious rites to appease the dragon, either to ask for rain or a cessation thereof. The King of Wu-Yue in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period was often known as the "Dragon King" or the "Sea Dragon King" because of his extensive hydro-engineering schemes which "tamed" the sea. According to Chinese legend, both Chinese primogenitors, the earliest Emperors, Yandi and Huangdi, were closely related to 'Long' (Chinese Dragon). At the end of his reign, the first legendary Emperor, Huangdi, was said to have been immortalized into a dragon that resembled his emblem, and ascended to Heaven. The other legendary Emperor, Huangdi's brother, Yandi was born by his mother's
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telepathy with a mythic dragon. Since the Chinese consider Huangdi and Yandi as their ancestors, they sometimes refer to themselves as "the descendants of the dragon". This legend also contributed towards the use of the Chinese dragon as a symbol of imperial power. The dragon, especially yellow or golden dragons with five claws on each foot, was a symbol for the emperor in many Chinese dynasties. The imperial throne was called the Dragon Throne. During the late Qing Dynasty, the dragon was even adopted as the national flag. The dragon is featured in the carvings on the steps of imperial palaces and tombs, such as the Forbidden City in Beijing. In some Chinese legends, an Emperor might be born with a birthmark in the shape of a dragon. For example, one legend tells the tale of a peasant born with a dragon birthmark who eventually overthrows the existing dynasty and
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founds a new one; another legend might tell of the prince in hiding from his enemies who is identified by his dragon birthmark. In contrast, the Empress of China was often identified with the Fenghuang.

Warring States Period (476-221 BC)

After further political consolidation, seven prominent states remained by the end of 5th century BC, and the years in which these few states battled each other are known as the Warring States Period. Though there remained a nominal Zhou king until 256 BC, he was largely a figurehead and held little real power. As neighboring territories of these warring states, including areas of modern Sichuan and Liaoning, were annexed, they were governed under the new local administrative system of commandery and prefecture.
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This system had been in use since the Spring and Autumn Period, and parts can still be seen in the modern system of Sheng & Xian (province and county). The final expansion in this period began during the reign of Ying Zheng, the king of Qin. His unification of the other six powers, and further annexations in the modern regions of Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi in 214 BC, enabled him to proclaim himself the First Emperor (Qin Shi Huang). The Spring and Autumn Period was a period in Chinese history that roughly corresponds to the first half of the Eastern Zhu Dynasty, which is reckoned to have existed from 771 until 476 BC (or, by some authorities, until 403 BC) in the alluvial plain of the Yellow River, the Shandong Peninsula and the river valleys of the Hui and Hn. Its name comes from the Spring and Autumn Annals, a chronicle of the state of L between 722 and 479 BC, which tradition associates with
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Confucius. The period can also be further divided into three sub-periods: Age of regional cultures (Early): 771643, up to the death of Duke Hun of Q Age of encroachments (Middle): 643546, up to the peace conference between Jn and Ch Age of reforms (Late): 546403, up to the partition of Jn During the Spring and Autumn period, China's feudal system of fngjin became largely irrelevant. The Zhu Dynasty kings held nominal power, but only had real control over a small royal demesne centered on their capital Lu y. During the early part of the Zhu Dynasty period, royal relatives and generals had been given control over fiefdoms in an effort to maintain Zhu authority over vast territory, many of these broke up into smaller states when the dynasty weakened.
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The most important feudal princes (known later as the twelve vassals), met during regular conferences where important matters, such as military expeditions against foreign groups or offending nobles, were decided. During these conferences, one vassal leader was sometimes declared hegemon and given leadership over the armies of all Zhu states. As the era unfolded, larger and more powerful states annexed or claimed suzerainty over smaller ones. By the 6th century BC, most small states had disappeared and only a few large and powerful principalities dominated China. Some southern states, such as Ch and W, claimed independence from the Zhu. Wars were undertaken to oppose some of these states (W and Yu).

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Amid the interstate power struggles, internal conflict was also rife: six elite landholding families waged war on each other in Jn; the Chen family was eliminating political enemies in Q; and legitimacy of the rulers was often challenged in civil wars by various royal family members in Qn and Ch. Once all these powerful rulers had firmly established themselves within their respective dominions, the bloodshed focused more fully on interstate conflict in the Warring States Period, which began in 403 BC when the three remaining elite families in Jn Zho, Wi and Hn partitioned the state.

Beginning of the Eastern Zhu Dynasty

After the Zhu capital was sacked by the Marquess of Shn and Qunrng barbarians, the Zhu moved the capital east from the now desolated

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Zngzhu, to Chngzhu, in the Yellow River Valley. The Zhu royalty was then closer to its main supporters, particularly Qn, Jn, and Zhng; the Zhu royal family had much weaker authority and relied on lords from these vassal states for protection, especially during their flight to the eastern capital. In Chngzhu, prince J Yju was crowned by his royal supporters as King Png of Zhu. However, with the Zhu domain greatly reduced to Chngzhu and nearby areas, the court could no longer support six groups of standing troops as it had in the past; Zhu kings had to request help from neighbouring powerful states for protection from raids and for resolution of internal power struggles. The Zhu court would never regain its original authority; instead, it was relegated to being merely a figurehead of the feudal states.

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Though the king de jure retained the Mandate of Heaven, the title held no actual power. With the decline of Zhu power, the Yellow River drainage basin was divided into hundreds of small, autonomous states, most of them consisting of a single city, though a handful of multi-city states, particularly the four that surrounded the others, had power and opportunity to expand outward. A total of 148 states are mentioned in the chronicles for this period, 128 of which were absorbed by the four largest states by the end of the period. While the Zhng rulers initially supported the Zhu royalty, relations soured enough that Duke Zhung of Zhng (757701 BC) raided Zhu territory in 707 BC, defeating King Han's army in battle and injuring the king himself; the display of Zhng's martial strength was effective until

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succession problems after Zhung's death weakened the state.

Imperial era Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC)

Historians often refer to the period from Qin Dynasty to the end of Qing Dynasty as Imperial China. Though the unified reign of the Qin Emperor lasted only 12 years, he managed to subdue great parts of what constitutes the core of the Han Chinese homeland and to unite them
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under a tightly centralized Legalist government seated at Xianyang (close to modern Xi'an). The doctrine of Legalism that guided the Qin emphasized strict adherence to a legal code and the absolute power of the emperor. This philosophy, while effective for expanding the empire in a military fashion, proved unworkable for governing it in peacetime. The Qin Emperor presided over the brutal silencing of political opposition, including the event known as the burning of books and burying of scholars. This would be the impetus behind the later Han synthesis incorporating the more moderate schools of political governance. The Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang. The Qin Dynasty is well known for beginning the Great Wall of China, which was later augmented and enhanced during the Ming Dynasty.

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The other major contributions of the Qin include the concept of a centralized government, the unification of the legal code, development of the written language, measurement, and currency of China after the tribulations of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods. Even something as basic as the length of axles for carts had to be made uniform to ensure a viable trading system throughout the empire.

Qin Shi Huang (259 BC 210 BC), personal name Ying Zheng, was king
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of the Chinese State of Qin from 246 BC to 221 BC during the Warring States Period. He became the first emperor of a unified China in 221 BC. He ruled until his death in 210 BC at the age of 49. Calling himself the First Emperor after China's unification, Qin Shi Huang is a pivotal figure in Chinese history, ushering nearly two millennia of imperial rule. After unifying China, he and his chief advisor Li Si passed a series of major economic and political reforms. He undertook gigantic projects, including the first version of the Great Wall of China, the now famous citysized mausoleum guarded by a lifesized Terracotta Army, and a massive national road system, all at the expense of numerous lives. To ensure stability, Qin Shi Huang outlawed and burned many books and buried some scholars alive.

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First unification of China

In 230 BC, King Zheng unleashed the final campaigns of the Warring States Period, setting out to conquer the remaining independent kingdoms, one by one. The first state to fall was Han (sometimes called Hann to distinguish it from the Han of Han dynasty), in 230 BC. Then Qin took advantage of a natural disaster, the 229 BC Zhao state earthquake, to invade and conquer Zhao where Qin Shi Huang had been born. He now avenged his poor treatment as a child hostage there, seeking out and killing his enemies. Qin armies conquered the state of Zhao in 228 BC, the northern country of Yan in 226 BC, the small state of Wei in 225 BC, and the largest state
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and greatest challenge, Chu, in 223 BC. In 222 BC, the last remnants of Yan and the royal family were captured in Liaodong in the northeast. The only independent country left was now state of Qi, in the far east, what is now the Shandong peninsula. Terrified, the young king of Qi sent 300,000 people to defend his western borders. In 221 BC, the Qin armies invaded from the north, captured the king, and annexed Qi. For the first time, all of China was unified under one powerful ruler. In that same year, King Zheng proclaimed himself the "First Emperor", no longer a king in the old sense and now far surpassing the achievements of the old Zhou Dynasty rulers. In the South, military expansion continued during his reign, with various
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regions being annexed to what is now Guangdong province and part of today's Vietnam.

Qin Shi Huang and Li Si unified China economically by standardizing the Chinese units of measurements such as weights and measures, the currency, the length of the axles of
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carts to facilitate transport on the road system. The emperor also developed an extensive network of roads and canals connecting the provinces to improve trade between them. The currency of the different states were also standardized to the Ban liang coin. Perhaps most importantly, the Chinese script was unified. Under Li Si, the seal script of the state of Qin was standardized through removal of variant forms within the Qin script itself. This newly standardized script was then made official throughout all the conquered regions, thus doing away with all the regional scripts to form one language, one communication system for all of China.

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Later in his life, Qin Shi Huang feared death and desperately sought the fabled elixir of life, which would supposedly allow him to live forever. He was obsessed with acquiring immortality and fell prey to many who offered him supposed elixirs. He visited Zhifu Island three times in order to achieve immortality.

After the unification, Qin Shi Huang moved out of Xianyang palace, and began building the gigantic Epang palace south of the Wei river, Epang is the most loved concubine of Qin Shi Huang.

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Other achievements such as the 12 bronze colossi were also made from the melted-down collected weapons.

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Han Dynasty (202 BCAD 220) Western Han

The Han Dynasty (202 BC AD 220) emerged in 206 BC, with its founder Liu Bang proclaimed emperor in 202 BC. It was the first dynasty to embrace the philosophy of Confucianism, which became the ideological underpinning of all regimes until the end of imperial China. Under the Han Dynasty, China made great advances in many areas of the arts and sciences. Emperor Wu consolidated and extended the Chinese empire by pushing back the Xiongnu into the steppes of modern Inner Mongolia, wresting from them the modern areas of Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai. This enabled the first opening of trading connections between China and the West, along the Silk Road. Han Dynasty general Ban Chao expanded his conquests across the
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Pamirs to the shores of the Caspian Sea. The first of several Roman embassies to China is recorded in Chinese sources, coming from the sea route in AD 166, and a second one in AD 284. The Terracotta Army or the "Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses", is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210209 BC and whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife. The figures, dating from 3rd century BC, were discovered in 1974 by some local farmers in Lintong District, Xi'an, Shaanxi province, near the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor (Qn Shhung Ling). The figures vary in height according to their roles, with the tallest being the generals.

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The figures include warriors, chariots and horses.

Current estimates are that in the three pits containing the Terracotta Army there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which are still buried in the pits.

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Other terracotta non-military figures were also found in other pits and they include officials, acrobats, strongmen and musicians.

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Xin Dynasty
Nevertheless, land acquisitions by elite families gradually drained the tax base. In AD 9, the usurper Wang Mang claimed that the Mandate of Heaven called for the end of the Han dynasty and the rise of his own, and founded the short-lived Xin ("New") Dynasty. Wang Mang started an extensive program of land and other economic reforms, including the outlawing of slavery and land nationalization and redistribution. These programs, however, were never supported by the landholding families, because they favored the peasants. The instability brought about chaos and uprisings and loss of territories. This was compounded by mass flooding resulting from silt buildup in the Yellow River which caused it to split into two channels and displace large numbers of farmers. Wang Mang was eventually killed in Weiyang Palace by an enraged peasant mob in 23 CE.
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Eastern Han
Emperor Guangwu reinstated the Han Dynasty with the support of landholding and merchant families at Luoyang, east of Xi'an. This new era would be termed the Eastern Han Dynasty. Han power declined again amidst land acquisitions, invasions, and feuding between consort clans and eunuchs. The Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out in AD 184, ushering in an era of warlords. In the ensuing turmoil, three states tried to gain predominance in the period of the Three Kingdoms. This time period has been greatly romanticized in works such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

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Wei and Jin Period (AD 265 420)

After Cao Cao reunified the north in 208, his son proclaimed the Wei dynasty in 220. Soon, Wei's rivals Shu and Wu proclaimed their independence, leading China into the Three Kingdoms Period. This period was characterized by a gradual decentralization of the state that had existed during the Qin and Han dynasties, and an increase in the power of great families. Although the Three Kingdoms were reunified by the Jin Dynasty in 280, this structure was essentially the same until the Wu Hu uprising.

Wu Hu Period (AD 304439)

Taking advantage of civil war in the Jin Dynasty, the contemporary non-Han Chinese (Wu Hu) ethnic groups controlled much of the country in the early 4th century and provoked large-

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scale Han Chinese migrations to south of the Yangtze River. In 303 the Di people rebelled and later captured Chengdu, establishing the state of Cheng Han. Under Liu Yuan, the Xiongnu rebelled near today's Linfen County and established the state of Han Zhao. Liu Yuan's successor Liu Cong captured and executed the last two Western Jin emperors. Sixteen kingdoms were a plethora of short-lived non-Chinese dynasties that came to rule the whole or parts of north China in the 4th and 5th centuries. Many ethnic groups were involved, including ancestors of the Turks, Mongols, and Tibetans. Most of these nomadic peoples had, to some extent, been "sinicized" long before their ascent to power. In fact, some of them, notably the Qiang and the Xiongnu, had already been allowed to live in the frontier regions within the Great Wall since late Han times.
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Southern and Northern Dynasties (AD 420589)

Signaled by the collapse of East Jin Dynasty in 420, China entered the era of the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The Han people managed to survive the military attacks from the nomadic tribes of the north, such as the Xianbei, and their civilization continued to thrive. In southern China, fierce debates about whether Buddhism should be allowed to exist were held frequently by the royal court and nobles. Finally, near the end of the Southern and Northern Dynasties era, both Buddhist and Taoist followers compromised and became more tolerant of each other. In 589, Sui annexed the last Southern Dynasty, Chen, through military force, and put an end to the era of Southern and Northern Dynasties.
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Sui Dynasty (AD 589618)

The Sui Dynasty, which managed to reunite the country in 589 after nearly four centuries of political fragmentation, played a role more important than its length of existence would suggest. The Sui brought China together again and set up many institutions that were to be adopted by their successors, the Tang. Like the Qin, however, the Sui overused their resources and collapsed. Also similar to the Qin, traditional history has judged the Sui somewhat unfairly, as it has stressed the harshness of the Sui regime and the arrogance of its second emperor, giving little credit for the Dynasty's many positive achievements.

Tang Dynasty (AD 618907)

Tang Dynasty was founded Emperor Gaozu on June 18, 618. by

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It was a golden age of Chinese civilization with significant developments in art, literature, particularly poetry, and technology. Buddhism became the predominant religion for common people. Chang'an (modern Xi'an), the national capital, was the largest city in the world of its time. Since the second emperor Taizong, military campaigns were launched to dissolve threats from nomadic tribes, extend the border, and submit neighboring states into tributary system. Military victories in the Tarim Basin kept the Silk Road open, connecting Chang'an to Central Asia and areas far to the west.

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In the south, lucrative maritime trade routes began from port cities like Guangzhou. There was extensive trade with distant foreign countries, and many foreign merchants settled in China, boosting a vibrant cosmopolitan culture. The Tang culture and social systems were admired and adapted by neighboring countries like Japan. Internally, the Grand Canal linked the political heartland in Chang'an to the economic and agricultural centers in the eastern and southern parts of the empire. Underlying the prosperity of the early Tang Dynasty was a strong centralized government with efficient policies. The government was organized as "Three Departments and Six Ministries"
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to separately draft, implement policies.

review

and

These departments were run by royal family members as well as scholar officials who were selected from imperial examinations. These practices, which matured in the Tang Dynasty, were to be inherited by the later dynasties with some modifications. The land policy, the "Equal-field system" claimed all lands as imperially owned, and were granted evenly to people according to the size of the households. The associated military policy, the "Fubing System", conscripted all men in the nation for a fixed period of duties each year in exchange for their land rights.

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These policies stimulated rapid growth of productivity, while boosting the army without much burden on the state treasury. However, lands gradually fell into the hands of private land owners and standing armies were to replace conscription towards the middle period of the dynasty. The dynasty continued to flourish under Empress Wu Zetian, the only empress regnant in Chinese history, and reached the zenith during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong, who oversaw an empire that stretched from the Pacific to the Aral Sea with at least 50 million people. At the zenith of prosperity of the empire, the An Lushan Rebellion was a watershed event that caused massive loss of lives and drastic weakening of the central imperial government.

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Regional military governors, known as Jiedushi, would gain increasingly autonomous status, which eventually led to an era of division in the 10th century, while formerly submissive states would raid the empire. Nevertheless, after the rebellion, the Tang civil society would recover and thrive amidst a weakened imperial authority. From about 860, the Tang Dynasty began to decline due to a series of rebellions within China itself and in the former subject Kingdom of Nanzhao to the south. One warlord, Huang Chao, captured Guangzhou in 879, killing most of the 200,000 inhabitants, including most of the large colony of foreign merchant families there.

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In late 880, Luoyang surrendered to him, and on 5 January 881 he conquered Chang'an. The emperor Xizong fled to Chengdu, and Huang established a new temporary regime which was eventually destroyed by Tang forces. Another time followed. of political chaos

A Chinese Tang Dynasty tricolored glaze porcelain horse (ca. AD 700)

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Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (AD 907960)

The period of political disunity between the Tang and the Song, known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, lasted little more than half a century, from 907 to 960. During this brief era, when China was in all respects a multi-state system, five regimes succeeded one another rapidly in control of the old Imperial heartland in northern China. During this same time, 10 more stable regimes occupied sections of southern and western China, so the period is also referred to as that of the Ten Kingdoms.

Song, Liao, Jin, and Western Xia Dynasties (AD 9601234)

In 960, the Song Dynasty gained power over most of China and established its capital in Kaifeng (later known as Bianjing), starting a period of economic prosperity, while the Khitan Liao Dynasty ruled over Manchuria,
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present-day Mongolia, and parts of Northern China. In 1115, the Jurchen Jin Dynasty emerged to prominence, annihilating the Liao Dynasty in 10 years. Meanwhile, in what are now the northwestern Chinese provinces of Gansu, Shaanxi, and Ningxia, there emerged a Western Xia Dynasty from 1032 to 1227, established by Tangut tribes. The Jin Dynasty took power over northern China and Kaifeng from the Song Dynasty, which moved its capital to Hangzhou. The Southern Song Dynasty also suffered the humiliation of having to acknowledge the Jin Dynasty as formal overlords. In the ensuing years, China was divided between the Song Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty and the Tangut Western Xia. Southern Song experienced a period of great technological development which can be explained in part by the military pressure that it felt from the north.
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This included the use of gunpowder weapons, which played a large role in the Song Dynasty naval victories against the Jin in the Battle of Tangdao and Battle of Caishi on the Yangtze River in 1161. Furthermore, China's first permanent standing navy was assembled and provided an admiral's office at Dinghai in 1132, under the reign of Emperor Renzong of Song. The Song Dynasty is considered by many to be classical China's high point in science and technology, with innovative scholar-officials such as Su Song (10201101) and Shen Kuo (10311095). There was court intrigue between the political rivals of the Reformers and Conservatives, led by the chancellors Wang Anshi and Sima Guang, respectively. By the mid-to-late 13th century the Chinese had adopted the dogma of Neo-Confucian philosophy formulated by Zhu Xi.
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There were enormous literary works compiled during the Song Dynasty, such as the historical work of the Zizhi Tongjian. Culture and the arts flourished, with grandiose artworks such as Along the River During the Qingming Festival and Eighteen Songs of a Nomad Flute, while there were great Buddhist painters such as Lin Tinggui.

Yuan Dynasty (AD 12711368)

The Jurchen-founded Jin Dynasty was defeated by the Mongols, who then proceeded to defeat the Southern Song in a long and bloody war, the first war in which firearms played an important role. During the era after the war, later called the Pax Mongolica, adventurous Westerners such as Marco Polo travelled all the way to China and brought the first reports of its wonders to Europe. In the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols were divided between those who wanted to remain based in the
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steppes and those who wished to adopt the customs of the Chinese. Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, wanting to adopt the customs of China, established the Yuan Dynasty. This was the first dynasty to rule the whole of China from Beijing as the capital. Beijing had been ceded to Liao in AD 938 with the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan Yun. Before that, it had been the capital of the Jin, who did not rule all of China. Before the Mongol invasion, Chinese dynasties reportedly had approximately 120 million inhabitants; after the conquest was completed in 1279, the 1300 census reported roughly 60 million people. While it is tempting to attribute this major decline solely to Mongol ferocity, scholars today have mixed sentiments regarding this subject.

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Scholars such as Frederick W. Mote argue that the wide drop in numbers reflects an administrative failure to record rather than a de facto decrease whilst others such as Timothy Brook argue that the Mongols created a system of enserfment among a huge portion of the Chinese populace causing many to disappear from the census altogether. Other historians like William McNeill and David Morgan argue that the Bubonic Plague was the main factor behind the demographic decline during this period. The 14th century epidemics of plague (Black Death) is estimated to have killed 30% of the population of China.

Ming Dynasty (AD 13681644)

Throughout the Yuan Dynasty, which lasted less than a century, there was relatively strong sentiment among the populace against the Mongol rule. The frequent natural disasters since the 1340s finally led to peasant revolts.
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The Yuan Dynasty was eventually overthrown by the Ming Dynasty in 1368. Urbanization increased as the population grew and as the division of labor grew more complex. Large urban centers, such as Nanjing and Beijing, also contributed to the growth of private industry. In particular, smallscale industries grew up, often specializing in paper, silk, cotton, and porcelain goods. For the most part, however, relatively small urban centers with markets proliferated around the country. Town markets mainly traded food, with some necessary manufactures such as pins or oil. Despite the xenophobia and intellectual introspection characteristic of the increasingly popular new school of neo-Confucianism, China under the early Ming Dynasty was not isolated. Foreign trade and other contacts with
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the outside world, particularly Japan, increased considerably. Chinese merchants explored all of the Indian Ocean, reaching East Africa with the voyages of Zheng He. Zhu Yuanzhang or Hong-wu, the founder of the dynasty, laid the foundations for a state interested less in commerce and more in extracting revenues from the agricultural sector. Perhaps because of the Emperor's background as a peasant, the Ming economic system emphasized agriculture, unlike that of the Song and the Mongolian Dynasties, which relied on traders and merchants for revenue. Neo-feudal landholdings of the Song and Mongol periods were expropriated by the Ming rulers. Land estates were confiscated by the government, fragmented, and rented out. Private slavery was forbidden. Consequently, after the death of Emperor Yong-le, independent peasant
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landholders predominated in Chinese agriculture. These laws might have paved the way to removing the worst of the poverty during the previous regimes. The dynasty had a strong and complex central government that unified and controlled the empire. The emperor's role became more autocratic, although Zhu Yuanzhang necessarily continued to use what he called the "Grand Secretaries" to assist with the immense paperwork of the bureaucracy, including memorials (petitions and recommendations to the throne), imperial edicts in reply, reports of various kinds, and tax records. It was this same bureaucracy that later prevented the Ming government from being able to adapt to changes in society, and eventually led to its decline. Emperor Yong-le strenuously tried to extend China's influence beyond its
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borders by demanding other rulers send ambassadors to China to present tribute. A large navy was built, including fourmasted ships displacing 1,500 tons. A standing army of 1 million troops was created. The Chinese armies conquered Vietnam for around 20 years, while the Chinese fleet sailed the China seas and the Indian Ocean, cruising as far as the east coast of Africa. The Chinese gained eastern Moghulistan. influence in

Several maritime Asian nations sent envoys with tribute for the Chinese emperor. Domestically, the Grand Canal was expanded and proved to be a stimulus to domestic trade. Over 100,000 tons of iron per year were produced. Many books movable type. were printed using

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The imperial palace in Beijing's Forbidden City reached its current splendor. It was also during these centuries that the potential of south China came to be fully exploited. New crops were widely cultivated and industries such as those producing porcelain and textiles flourished. In 1449 Esen Tayisi led an Oirat Mongol invasion of northern China which culminated in the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor at Tumu. In 1542 the Mongol leader Altan Khan began to harass China along the northern border. In 1550 he even reached the suburbs of Beijing. The empire also had to deal with Japanese pirates attacking the southeastern coastline; General Qi Jiguang was instrumental in defeating these pirates. The deadliest earthquake of all times, the Shaanxi earthquake of 1556 that killed approximately 830,000 people,
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occurred during the Jiajing Emperor's reign. During the Ming dynasty the last construction on the Great Wall was undertaken to protect China from foreign invasions. While the Great Wall had been built in earlier times, most of what is seen today was either built or repaired by the Ming. The brick and granite work was enlarged, the watch towers were redesigned, and cannons were placed along its length.

Qing Dynasty (AD 16441911)

The Qing Dynasty (16441911) was the last imperial dynasty in China. Founded by the Manchus, it was the second non-Han Chinese dynasty. The Manchus were formerly known as Jurchen residing in the northeastern part of the Ming territory outside the Great Wall.
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They emerged as the major threat to the late Ming Dynasty after Nurhaci united all Jurchen tribes and established an independent state. However, the Ming Dynasty would be overthrown by Li Zicheng's peasants rebel, with Beijing captured in 1644 and the last Ming Emperor Chongzhen committed suicide. The Manchu then allied with the Ming Dynasty general Wu Sangui and seized Beijing, which was made the capital of the Qing dynasty, and proceeded to subdue the remaining Ming's resistance in the south. The decades of Manchu conquest caused enormous loss of lives and the economic scale of China shrank drastically. Nevertheless, the Manchus adopted the Confucian norms of traditional Chinese government in their rule and was considered a Chinese dynasty. The Manchus enforced a 'queue order' forcing the Han Chinese to adopt the
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Manchu queue hairstyle and Manchustyle clothing. The traditional Han clothing, or Hanfu, was also replaced by Manchu-style clothing Qipao (bannermen dress and Tangzhuang). Emperor Kangxi ordered the creation of the most complete dictionary of Chinese characters ever put together at the time. The Qing dynasty set up the "Eight Banners" system that provided the basic framework for the Qing military organization. The bannermen were prohibited from participating in trade and manual labour unless they petitioned to be removed from banner status.

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They were considered a form of nobility and were given preferential treatment in terms of annual pensions, land and allotments of cloth.

Territory of Qing China in 1765

In the 19th century, the empire was internally stagnated and externally threatened by imperialism. The defeat in the First Opium War (1840) by the British Empire led to the Treaty of Nanjing (1842), under which
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Hong Kong was ceded and opium import was legitimized. Subsequent military defeats and unequal treaties with other imperial powers would continue even after the fall of the Qing Dynasty. Internally, the Taiping Rebellion (1851 1864), a quasi-Christian religious movement led by the "Heavenly King" Hong Xiuquan, would raid roughly a third of Chinese territory for over a decade until they were finally crushed in the Third Battle of Nanking in 1864. Arguably one of the largest warfares in the 19th century in terms of troops involvement, there were massive lost of lives, with a death toll of about 20 millions. A string of rebellions would follow, which included Punti-Hakka Clan Wars, Nien Rebellion, Muslim Rebellion, Panthay Rebellion and the Boxer Rebellion. All rebellions were eventually put down at enormous cost and casualties, the weakened central imperial authority
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would gradually give rise to regional warlordism. Eventually, China would descend into civil war immediately after the 1911 revolution that overthrew the Qing's imperial rule.

In response to the calamities within the empire and threats from imperialism, the Self-Strengthening Movement was an institutional reform to modernize the empire with prime emphasis to strengthen the military. However, the reform was undermined by the corruption of officials, cynicism, and quarrels of the imperial family. As a result, the "Beiyang Navy" were soundly defeated in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895). Guangxu Emperor and the reformists then launched a more comprehensive reform effort, the Hundred Day's Reform (1898), but it was shortly overturned by the conservatives under Empress Dowager Cixi in a military coup.

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At the turn of the 20th century, a conservative anti-imperialist movement, the Boxer Rebellion violently revolted against foreign suppression over vast areas in Northern China. The Empress Dowager, probably seeking to ensure her continual grip on power, sided with the Boxers as they advanced on Beijing. In response, a relief expedition of the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China to rescue the besieged foreign missions. Consisting of British, Japanese, Russian, Italian, German, French, US and Austrian troops, the alliance defeated the Boxers and demanded further concessions from the Qing government.

Empress Dowager Cixi

Empress Dowager Cixi1 (29 November 1835 15 November 1908), of the Manchu Yehenara clan, was a powerful and charismatic woman who
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unofficially but effectively controlled the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China for 47 years from 1861 to her death in 1908. Selected by the Xianfeng Emperor as an imperial concubine in her adolescence, she gave birth to his son, who became the Tongzhi Emperor upon Xianfeng's death. Cixi ousted a group of regents appointed by the late emperor and assumed regency over her young son with the Empress Dowager Ci'an. Cixi then consolidated control over the dynasty when, at the death of the Tongzhi Emperor, contrary to the rules of succession, she installed her nephew as the Guangxu Emperor in 1875. Although she refused to adopt Western models of government, she nonetheless supported the technological and military SelfStrengthening Movement.
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Cixi rejected the Hundred Days' Reforms of 1898 as impractical and detrimental to dynastic power and placed the Guangxu Emperor under house arrest for supporting reformers. After the Boxer Rebellion and the invasion of Allied armies, external and internal pressures led Cixi to effect institutional changes of just the sort she had resisted and appoint reformminded officials. The dynasty collapsed a few years after her death. Although she was known at the time as "Old Buddha," historians and popular culture in China and abroad portrayed her as the villain responsible for the disintegration of the dynasty.

However, some have argued that her opponents among the reformers succeeded in making her a scapegoat for problems beyond her control, that she stepped in to prevent disorder, that she was no more ruthless than other rulers, and that she was even an
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effective if reluctant reformer in the last years of her life.

Regency: 11 November 1861 15 November 1908 (47 years, 4 days)

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Hundred Days' Reform After taking power, the Guangxu Emperor was more reform-minded than the conservative-leaning Empress Dowager Cixi. After a humiliating defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894, during which China's Beiyang Navy was crushed by the Japanese forces, the Qing government faced numerous unprecedented challenges internally and abroad, with its very existence at stake. Under the influence of reformers Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, Guangxu believed that by learning from constitutional monarchies like Japan and Germany, China would become more powerful politically and economically. In June 1898, the Guangxu Emperor began the Hundred Days' Reform (aimed at a series of sweeping changes politically, legally, and socially. For a brief time, after the supposed retirement of the Empress Dowager Cixi, the Guangxu Emperor
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issued edicts for a massive number of far-reaching modernizing reforms. The reforms, however, were too sudden for a China still under significant neo-Confucian influence, and displeased Cixi as it served as a serious check on her power. Some government and military officials warned Cixi that the ming-shih (reformation bureau) had been geared toward conspiracy. Allegations of treason against the Emperor, as well as suspected Japanese influence within the reform movement, including a suspicious visit from the Japanese Prime Minister, led Empress Dowager Cixi to resume the role of regent and once again take control of the country. In another coup d'etat carried out by General Ronglu's personnel on 21 September 1898, the Guangxu Emperor was taken to Ocean Terrace, a small palace on an island in the middle of Zhongnanhai linked to the rest of the Forbidden City with only a
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controlled causeway. Empress Dowager Cixi would follow with an edict dictating the Guangxu Emperor's total disgrace and "not being fit to be Emperor". The Guangxu Emperor's reign had effectively come to an end. A crisis followed in the Qing court on the issue of abdication. However, bowing to increasing western pressure and general civil discontent over the issue, Cixi did not forcibly remove Guangxu from the throne, although she attempted crowning Punji, a boy of fourteen who was from a close branch of the Imperial family, as the crown prince. The Guangxu era nominally continued until 1908, but the Emperor lost all honours, respect, power, and privileges, including his freedom of movement. Most of his supporters, including his former tutor Weng Tonghe, and the man he had recommended, Kang Youwei, were exiled, while six prominent reformers led by Tan Sitong were executed in public by Empress Dowager Cixi. Kang continued to work for a more
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progressive Qing Empire while in exile, remaining loyal to the Guangxu Emperor and hoping eventually to restore him to power. His efforts would prove to be in vain. The Boxer Uprising and Late Qing Reforms In 1900, the Boxer Uprising broke out in northern China. Perhaps fearing further foreign intervention, Cixi threw in her support to these anti-foreign bands, making an official announcement of her support for the movement and a formal declaration of war on the European powers. The Manchu General Ronglu deliberately sabotaged the performance of the Imperial army during the rebellion. Dong Fuxiang's Muslim troops were able and eager to destroy the foreign military forces in the legations, but Ronglu stopped them from doing so.

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The Manchu prince Zaiyi was xenophobic and was friends with Dong Fuxiang. Zaiyi wanted artillery for Dong Fuxiang's troops to destroy the legations. Ronglu blocked the transfer of artillery to Zaiyi and Dong, preventing them from destroying the legations. When artillery was finally supplied to the Imperial Army and Boxers, it was only done so in limited amounts; Ronglu deliberately held back the rest of them. The Chinese forces defeated the Allied Western invasion force at the Battle of Langfang and scored numerous small victories around Tianjin, such as the Battle of Beicang. Due to the fact that moderates at the Qing court tried to appease the foreigners by moving the Muslim Kansu Braves out of their way, the Allied army was able to march into Beijing and seize the capital. During the war, Cixi displayed concern about China's situation and foreign aggression, saying, "Perhaps their
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magic is not to be relied upon; but can we not rely on the hearts and minds of the people? Today China is extremely weak. We have only the people's hearts and minds to depend upon. If we cast them aside and lose the people's hearts, what can we use to sustain the country?" The Chinese people were almost unanimous in their support for the Boxers due to the Western Allied invasion. When Cixi received an ultimatum demanding that China surrender total control over all its military and financial affairs to foreigners, she defiantly stated before the entire Grand Council, "Now they [the Powers] have started the aggression, and the extinction of our nation is imminent. If we just fold our arms and yield to them, I would have no face to see our ancestors after death. If we must perish, why not fight to the death?" It was at this point that Cixi began to
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blockade the legations with the Peking Field Force armies, which began the siege. Cixi stated that "I have always been of the opinion, that the allied armies had been permitted to escape too easily in 1860. Only a united effort was then necessary to have given China the victory. Today, at last, the opportunity for revenge has come", and said that millions of Chinese would join the cause of fighting the foreigners since the Manchus had provided "great benefits" on China. During the Battle of Peking, the Entire Chinese Imperial Court, including the Empress Dowager and Emperor Guangxu, safely escaped from Beijing and evacuated to Xi'an in Shaanxi province, deep behind protective mountain passes that the foreigners could not penetrate. The foreigners were unable to pursue, and in any case had no orders to do so, so they
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decided to take no action. The Kansu Braves protected the Imperial Court from the foreigners, since Xi'an was deep in Chinese Muslim territory. Several foreigners commented that the Chinese shrewdly outsmarted the foreign forces, and succeeded in making the foreigners look foolish by escaping from their grasp into regions where they could not be attacked. The Qing dynasty was by no means defeated when the Allies took control of Beijing. As a result, the Allies had to temper their demands in a message sent to Xi'an to get the Dowager Empress to come to an agreement with them. Among the concessions was a guarantee that China would not have to give up any land at all. Many of the Dowager Empress's advisers in the Imperial Court insisted that the war be carried on against the foreigners, arguing that China could defeat the foreigners. In their view, it was disloyal and traitorous people within China who allowed Beijing and Tianjin to be captured by the Allies, and the interior of China was impenetrable. They recommended that Dong Fuxiang be
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given responsibility to continue the war effort. The Dowager was practical, however, and decided that the terms were generous enough for her to acquiesce and stop the war, at least after she was assured of her continued reign when the war was concluded. The Western powers needed a government strong enough to suppress further anti-foreign movements, but too weak to act on its own; they supported the continuation of the Qing, rather than allowing it to be overthrown. Cixi turned once more to Li Hongzhang to negotiate. Li agreed to sign the Boxer Protocol, which stipulated the presence of an international military force in Beijing and the payment of 67 million (almost $333 million) in war reparations. The United States used its share of the war indemnity to fund the creation of China's prestigious Tsinghua University. The Emperor and the Empress Dowager did not return to the capital from Xi'an until January 1902.

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Upon their return, the Empress Dowager made a remarkable reversal in her political attitude, wooing the powers she had attempted to destroy and supporting the policies she had suppressed. First she invited the wives of the diplomatic corps for an afternoon tea in the Forbidden City, had her portrait painted in oils, and promoted the very reformist officials who had resisted her orders in 1900, principally Yuan Shikai. High officials were dispatched to Japan and Europe to gather facts and draw up plans for sweeping administrative reforms in law, education, government structure, and social policy, many of which were modeled on the reforms of the Meiji Restoration. The abolition of the examination system in 1905 was only the most visible of these sweeping reforms. Ironically, Cixi sponsored the implementation of a reform program more radical than the one proposed by the reformers she had beheaded in 1898.

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In 1903, a strategy emerged to use photographic portraiture to rehabilitate her public image. Cixi allowed a young aristocratic photographer named Xunling to take elaborately staged shots of her and her court, designed to convey imperial authority, aesthetic refinement, and religious piety. As the only photographic series taken of Cixithe supreme leader of China for more than forty-five yearsit represents a unique convergence of Qing court pictorial traditions, modern photographic techniques, and Western standards of artistic portraiture. The rare glass plates have been blown up into full-size images, included in the exhibition "The Empress Dowager" at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Empress Dowager Cixi died in the Hall of Graceful Bird at the Middle Sea of Zhongnanhai on 15 November 1908, after having installed Puyi as the new Emperor of the Qing Dynasty on November 14. Her death came only a
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day after the death of the Guangxu Emperor. On 4 November 2008, forensic tests were reported that the death of the Emperor was caused by acute arsenic poisoning. China Daily quoted a historian, Dai Yi, who speculated that Cixi may have known of her imminent death and may have worried that Guangxu would continue his reforms after her death. CNN has recently reported that the level of arsenic in his remains were 2,000 times higher than that of ordinary people. Empress Dowager Cixi was interred amidst the Eastern Qing Tombs, 125 km (78 mi) east of Beijing, in the Dong Dingling, along with Empress Dowager Ci'an. More precisely, Empress Dowager Ci'an lies in the Pu Xiang Yu Ding Dong Ling (literally: the "Tomb East of the Ding Ling Tomb in the Broad Valley of Good Omen"), while Empress Dowager Cixi built herself the much larger Pu Tuo Yu Ding Dong Ling
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(literally: the "Tomb East of the Ding Ling Tomb in the Potala Valley"). The Dingling tomb (literally: the "Tomb of quietude") is the tomb of the Xianfeng Emperor, the spouse of Empress Dowager Ci'an and Empress Dowager Cixi, which is located indeed west of the Ding Dong Ling. The Putuo Valley owes its name to Mount Putuo, one of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China. Empress Dowager Cixi, unsatisfied with her tomb, ordered its destruction and reconstruction in 1895. The new tomb was a lavish grandiose complex of temples, gates, and pavilions, covered with gold leaf, and with gold and gilded-bronze ornaments hanging from the beams and the eaves. In July 1928, Empress Dowager Cixi's tomb was occupied by warlord and Kuomintang general Sun Dianying and his army who methodically stripped the complex of its precious ornaments, then dynamited the entrance to the burial chamber, opened Empress Dowager Cixi's coffin, threw her corpse
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(said to have been found intact) on the floor, and stole all the jewels contained in the coffin, as well as the massive pearl that had been placed in Empress Dowager Cixi's mouth to protect her corpse from decomposing (in accordance with Chinese tradition). Urban legend states that the large pearl on Empress Dowager Cixi's crown was offered by Sun Dianying to Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek and ended up as an ornament on the gala shoes of Chiang's wife, Soong May-ling, but this is unconfirmed. After 1949, the complex of Empress Dowager Cixi's tomb was restored by the People's Republic of China, and it is still today one of the most impressive imperial tombs of China.

Modern era Republic of China

Frustrated by the Qing court's resistance to reform and by China's
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weakness, young officials, military officers, and students began to advocate the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and the creation of a republic. They were inspired by the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yat-sen. When Sun Yat-sen was asked by one of the leading revolutionary generals to what he ascribed the success, he said, "To Christianity more than to any other single cause. Along with its ideals of religious freedom, and along with these it inculcates everywhere a doctrine of universal love and peace. These ideals appeal to the Chinese; they largely caused the Revolution, and they largely determined its peaceful character." Slavery in China was abolished in 1910. A revolutionary military uprising, the Wuchang Uprising, began on October 10, 1911 in Wuhan. The provisional
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government of the Republic of China was formed in Nanjing on March 12, 1912 with Sun Yat-sen as President, but Sun was forced to turn power over to Yuan Shikai, who commanded the New Army and was Prime Minister under the Qing government, as part of the agreement to let the last Qing monarch abdicate (a decision Sun would later regret). Over the next few years, Yuan proceeded to abolish the national and provincial assemblies, and declared himself emperor in late 1915. Yuan's imperial ambitions were fiercely opposed by his subordinates; faced with the prospect of rebellion, he abdicated in March 1916, and died in June of that year. His death left a power vacuum in China; the republican government was all but shattered. This ushered in the warlord era, during which much of the country was ruled by shifting coalitions of competing provincial military leaders. In 1919, the May Fourth Movement began as a response to the terms imposed on China by the Treaty of
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Versailles ending World War I, but quickly became a protest movement about the domestic situation in China. The discrediting of liberal Western philosophy amongst Chinese intellectuals was followed by the adoption of more radical lines of thought. This in turn planted the seeds for the irreconcilable conflict between the left and right in China that would dominate Chinese history for the rest of the century. In the 1920s, Sun Yat-Sen established a revolutionary base in south China, and set out to unite the fragmented nation. With Soviet assistance, he entered into an alliance with the fledgling Communist Party of China. After Sun's death from cancer in 1925, one of his protgs, Chiang Kai-shek, seized control of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party or KMT) and succeeded in bringing most of south and central China under its rule in a military campaign known as the Northern Expedition. Having defeated the warlords in south and central China
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by military force, Chiang was able to secure the nominal allegiance of the warlords in the North. In 1927, Chiang turned on the CPC and relentlessly chased the CPC armies and its leaders from their bases in southern and eastern China. In 1934, driven from their mountain bases such as the Chinese Soviet Republic, the CPC forces embarked on the Long March across China's most desolate terrain to the northwest, where they established a guerrilla base at Yan'an in Shaanxi Province. During the Long March, the communists reorganized under a new leader, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung). The bitter struggle between the KMT and the CPC continued, openly or clandestinely, through the 14-year long Japanese occupation (19311945) of various parts of the country. The two Chinese parties nominally formed a united front to oppose the Japanese in 1937, during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), which became a part of World War II. Following the defeat of
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Japan in 1945, the war between the KMT and the CPC resumed, after failed attempts at reconciliation and a negotiated settlement. By 1949, the CPC had established control over most of the country. (see Chinese Civil War) At the end of WWII in 1945 as part of the overall Japanese surrender, Japanese troops in Taiwan surrendered to Republic of China troops giving Chiang Kai-shek effective control of Taiwan. When Chiang was defeated by CPC forces in mainland China in 1949, he retreated to Taiwan with his government and his most disciplined troops, along with most of the KMT leadership and a large number of their supporters. Major combat in the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949 with the Communist Party of China in control of mainland China, and the Kuomintang (KMT) retreating to Taiwan, Republic of China (ROC), reducing the ROC territory to only Taiwan and surrounding islands.
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On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China. "Communist China" and "Red China" were two common names for the PRC.

Chairman Mao Zedong proclaiming the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949.

The economic and social plan known as the Great Leap Forward resulted in an estimated 45 million deaths. In 1966, Mao and his allies launched the Cultural Revolution, which would last until Mao's death a decade later. The Cultural Revolution, motivated by power struggles within the Party and a

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fear of the Soviet Union, led to a major upheaval in Chinese society. In 1972, at the peak of the Sino-Soviet split, Mao and Zhou Enlai met Richard Nixon in Beijing to establish relations with the United States. In the same year, the PRC was admitted to the United Nations in place of the Republic of China for China's membership of the United Nations, and permanent membership of the Security Council. After Mao's death in 1976 and the arrest of the Gang of Four, blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping quickly wrested power from Mao's anointed successor Hua Guofeng. Although he never became the head of the party or state himself, Deng was in fact the Paramount Leader of China at that time, his influence within the Party led the country to significant economic reforms. The Communist Party subsequently loosened governmental control over
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citizens' personal lives and the communes were disbanded with many peasants receiving multiple land leases, which greatly increased incentives and agricultural production. This turn of events marked China's transition from a planned economy to a mixed economy with an increasingly open market environment, a system termed by some "market socialism", and officially by the Communist Party of China "Socialism with Chinese characteristics". The PRC adopted its current constitution on 4 December 1982. In 1989, the death of pro-reform official Hu Yaobang helped to spark the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, during which students and others campaigned for several months, speaking out against corruption and in favour of greater political reform, including democratic rights and freedom of speech. However, they were eventually put down on 4 June when PLA troops and vehicles entered and forcibly cleared
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the square, resulting in numerous casualties. This event was widely reported and brought worldwide condemnation and sanctions against the government. The "Tank Man" incident in particular became famous. CPC General Secretary, President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji, both former mayors of Shanghai, led post-Tiananmen PRC in the 1990s. Under Jiang and Zhu's ten years of administration, the PRC's economic performance pulled an estimated 150 million peasants out of poverty and sustained an average annual gross domestic product growth rate of 11.2%. The country formally joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Although the PRC needs economic growth to spur its development, the government has begun to worry that rapid economic growth has negatively

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impacted the country's resources and environment. Another concern is that certain sectors of society are not sufficiently benefiting from the PRC's economic development; one example of this is the wide gap between urban and rural areas. As a result, under current CPC General Secretary, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, the PRC has initiated policies to address these issues of equitable distribution of resources, but the outcome remains to be seen. More than 40 million farmers have been displaced from their land, usually for economic development, contributing to the 87,000 demonstrations and riots across China in 2005. For much of the PRC's population, living standards have seen extremely large improvements, and freedom continues to expand, but political controls remain tight and rural areas poor.
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Clockwise from top: A view of the Pudong skyline; Yuyuan Garden, China Pavilion along with the Expo Axis, neon signs on Nanjing Road, and The Bund

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A composite satellite image showing the topography of China.

Political geography
The People's Republic of China is the second-largest country in the world by land area after Russia and is either the third- or fourth-largest by total area, after Russia, Canada and, depending on the definition of total area, the United States. China's total area is generally stated as being approximately 9,600,000 km2 (3,700,000 sq mi).

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Longsheng Rice Terrace in Guangxi.

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Specific area figures range from 9,572,900 km2 (3,696,100 sq mi) according to the Encyclopdia
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Britannica, 9,596,961 km2 (3,705,407 sq mi) according to the UN Demographic Yearbook, to 9,596,961 km2 (3,705,407 sq mi) according to the CIA World Factbook, and 9,640,011 km2 (3,722,029 sq mi) including Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract, which are controlled by China and claimed by India. None of these figures include the 1,000 square kilometres (386.1 sq mi) of territory ceded to China by Tajikistan following the ratification of a Sino-Tajik border agreement in January 2011. According to the Encyclopdia Britannica, the total area of the United States, at 9,522,055 km2 (3,676,486 sq mi), is slightly smaller than that of China. Meanwhile, the CIA World Factbook states that China's total area was greater than that of the United States until the coastal waters of the Great
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Lakes was added to the United States' total area in 1996. China has the longest combined land border in the world, measuring 22,117 km (13,743 mi) from the mouth of the Yalu River to the Gulf of Tonkin. China borders 14 nations, more than any other country except Russia, which also borders 14. China extends across much of East Asia, bordering Vietnam, Laos, and Burma in Southeast Asia; India, Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan in South Asia; Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in Central Asia; a small section of Russian Altai and Mongolia in Inner Asia; and the Russian Far East and North Korea in Northeast Asia. Additionally, China shares maritime boundaries with South Korea, Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines. The PRC and the Republic of China (Taiwan) make mutual claims over
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each other's territority and the frontier between areas under their respective control is closest near the islands of Kinmen and Matsu, off the Fujian coast, but otherwise run through the Taiwan Strait. The PRC and ROC assert identical claims over the entirety of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, and the southern-most extent of these claims reach Zengmu Ansha (James Shoal), which would form a maritime frontier with Malaysia.

The Li River in Guangxi.

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Boat cruises transport visitors from Guilin to Yangshuo County

Guilin is a prefecture-level city in the northeast of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of far southern China, sitting on the west bank of the Li River.

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Its name means "forest of Sweet Osmanthus", owing to the large number of fragrant Sweet Osmanthus trees located in the city. The city has long been renowned for its unique scenery.

Lijiang River connects Guilin and Yangshuo County

Longsheng Rice Terrace (Ping An)

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Da Zhai

Guilin Li River 1

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Guilin Scenery

Guilin landscapes

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Pagodas in Guilin

Songs and Performances in Guilin

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Seven Star Park

The Guilin Street

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Pagodas in Fir Lake in downtown Guilin 136

Elephant Trunk Hill, the symbol of Guilin

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View of Moon Hill

Yangshuo inspiration for Doom

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The territory of China lies between latitudes 18 and 54 N, and longitudes 73 and 135 E. The country's vast size gives it a wide variety of landscapes. In the east, along the shores of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, there are extensive and densely populated alluvial plains, while on the edges of the Inner Mongolian plateau in the north, broad grasslands are visible. Southern China is dominated by hill country and low mountain ranges, while the central-east hosts the deltas of China's two major rivers, the Yellow River and the Yangtze River. Other major rivers include the Xi, Mekong, Brahmaputra and Amur. To the west, major mountain ranges, most notably the Himalayas, and high plateaus feature among the more arid landscapes of the north, such as the Taklamakan and the Gobi Desert.

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Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, in Tibet.

China's highest point, Mt. Everest (8848m), lies on the Sino-Nepalese border.

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The country's lowest point is the dried lake bed of Ayding Lake (-154m) in the Turpan Depression. A major environmental issue in China is the continued expansion of its deserts, particularly the Gobi Desert, which is currently the world's fifthlargest desert. Although barrier tree lines planted since the 1970s have reduced the frequency of sandstorms, prolonged drought and poor agricultural practices have resulted in dust storms plaguing northern China each spring, which then spread to other parts of East Asia, including Korea and Japan. According to China's environmental watchdog, Sepa, China is losing a million acres (4,000 km) per year to desertification.

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Water quality, erosion, and pollution control have become important issues in China's relations with other countries. Melting glaciers in the Himalayas could potentially lead to water shortages for hundreds of millions of people. China's climate is mainly dominated by dry seasons and wet monsoons, which lead to a pronounced temperature differences between winter and summer. In the winter, northern winds coming from high-latitude areas are cold and dry; in summer, southern winds from coastal areas at lower latitudes are warm and moist. The climate in China differs from region to region because of the country's extensive and complex topography.

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The South China Sea coast at Hainan

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The Reed Flute Cave, also known as the Palace of Natural Arts, is a natural limestone cave situated in the northwest of Guilin City, China. It is said that locals gave this name from the reeds growing outside it, as they were used for making flutes. With a length of 240 meters, the cave is like a magic fairyland of stalagmites, stalactites, stone curtains, stone pillars with unique shapes and colors.

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Visiting Fingals Cave. Even though the cave has a large arched entrance, it is impossible for boats to get in. Visiting is possible from April to September, when sightseeing cruises are being organized. It is also possible to land anywhere on the island (tip for the professional sailors only) on your own and then walk to the cave and explore the cave on foot.

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The Lake Lugu

Daocheng

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Xinjiang

Kuerdening Valley

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Lake Shanghai

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The Pearl Shoal Falls

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Lake Wuhua Hai 166

Lake Jian Zhuhai

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Lake Long

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Panda Bears at home

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Yangshan Deep-water Port

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The Port of Shanghai, located in the vicinity of Shanghai, comprises a deepsea port and a river port. In 2010, Shanghai port overtook Singapore port to become the world's busiest container port. Shanghai's port handled 29.05 million TEUs, whereas Singapore port was a half million TEU's behind. During the Ming Dynasty, what is now the city of Shanghai was a part of Jiangsu Province (with a small part in Zhejiang Province). While Shanghai had become a county seat in the Yuan

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Dynasty, it remained a relatively small town. Its location at the mouth of the Yangtze led to its development as coastal trade developed during the Qing Dynasty, especially the Qianlong era. Gradually, the port of Shanghai surpassed the port of Ningbo and the port of Guangzhou to became the largest port of China at the time. In 1842, Shanghai became a treaty port, thus developing into an international commercial city. By the early 20th century, it was the largest city in the Far East, and the largest port in the Far East. In 1949, with the Communist takeover in Shanghai, overseas trade was cut dramatically. The economic policy of the People's Republic had a crippling effect on Shanghai's infrastructure and capital development. In 1991, the central government allowed Shanghai to initiate economic reform. Since then, the port of Shanghai has developed at an increasing pace. By 2005, the
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Yangshan deep water port was built on the Yangshan islands, a group of islands in Hangzhou Bay, linked to Shanghai by the Donghai Bridge. This development allowed the port to overcome shallow water conditions in its current location, and to rival another deep-water port, the nearby NingboZhoushan port.

Shanghai Stock Exchange 177

Skyline of Pudong

Shanghai Port is the worlds busiest container port

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Nanjing Road is one of the world's busiest shopping streets

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East Nanjing Road is a dedicated commercial zone. At its eastern end is the central section of the Bund, featuring the Peace Hotel.
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Immediately west of the Bund precinct was traditionally the hub of Europeanstyle restaurants and cafes, although in recent years these have become less of a feature as the demographics of visitors to Nanjing Road have shifted from affluent local residents to visitors from around the country. Close by is the Central Market, a century-old outdoor market today specializing in electronic components and digital media. Further west is the Nanjing Road pedestrian mall.

Located here are most of Shanghai's oldest and largest department stores, as well as a variety of domestic retail outlets, and some traditional eateries with a long history.

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Night view down Yan'an Road, the former Avenue Edward VII, just south of the Bund, in Shanghai.

Longhua Temple inner courtyard 182

University City District in Songjiang

The Maglev with a top speed of 431 km/h (268 mph) exiting the Shanghai Pudong International Airport

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Shanghai is a major hub of China's expressway network. Many national expressways (prefixed with G) pass through or terminate in Shanghai, including G2 Beijing Shanghai Expressway (overlapping G42 ShanghaiChengdu), G15 ShenyangHaikou, G40 Shanghai Xi'an, G50 ShanghaiChongqing, G60 ShanghaiKunming (overlapping G92 ShanghaiNingbo), and G1501 Shanghai Ring Expressway. In addition, there are also numerous municipal expressways prefixed with S (S1, S2, S20, etc.). In the city center, there are several elevated expressways to lessen traffic pressure on surface streets, but traffic in and around Shanghai is often heavy and traffic jams are commonplace during rush hour.

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There are bicycle lanes separate from car traffic on many surface streets, but bicycles and motorcycles are banned from most main roads including the elevated expressways. Private car ownership in Shanghai has been rapidly increasing in recent years, but a new private car cannot be driven until the owner buys a license in the monthly private car license plate auction. Around 8,000 license plates are auctioned each month and the average price is about 45,291 RMB (5,201). The purpose of this policy is to limit the growth of automobile traffic and to alleviate congestion.

The Shanghai World Financial Center is a supertall skyscraper located in the Pudong district of Shanghai, China. It was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox
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and developed by Mori Building. It is a mixed-use skyscraper, consisting of offices, hotels, conference rooms, observation decks, and ground-floor shopping malls. Park Hyatt Shanghai is the hotel component, containing 174 rooms and suites. Occupying the 79th to the 93rd floors, it is the second-highest hotel in the world, surpassing the Grand Hyatt Shanghai on the 53rd to 87th floors of the neighboring Jin Mao Tower. On 14 September 2007, the skyscraper was topped out, at 492.0 meters (1,614.2 ft) making it the second-tallest building in the world and the tallest structure in the People's Republic of China at the time. It also had the highest occupied floor and the highest height to roof, two categories used to determine the title
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of "worlds tallest building". The SWFC will be exceeded in height by the nearby Shanghai Tower, which is due for completion in 2014. The SWFC opened on 28 August 2008, with its observation deck opening two days later. This observation deck, currently the world's tallest, offers views from 474 m (1,555 ft) above ground level.

The SWFC has been lauded for its design, and in 2008 it was named by architects as the year's best completed skyscraper.

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The Shanghai World Financial Center in 2010.

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Shanghai World Financial Center (left) and Jin Mao Tower (right)

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The Shanghai International Exhibition Center, an example of Soviet neoclassical architecture in Shanghai

The Mercedes-Benz Arena, previously known as the Expo Cultural Center during the world expo in 2010.

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Although often viewed as a modern metropolis, Shanghai still contains some picturesque rural suburban areas.

The Shanghai Museum, located in People's Square

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Shaolin Temple (Monastery)

The first Shaolin Monastery abbot was Batuo (also called Fotuo or Buddhabhadra, not to be confused with Bodhidharma) a dhyana master who came to China from India in AD 464 to spread Buddhist teachings. According to the Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks (AD 645) by Doxun, the Shaolin Monastery was built on the north side of Shaoshi, the central peak of Mount Song, one of the Sacred Mountains of China, by Emperor Xiaowen of the
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Northern Wei Dynasty in AD 477. Yang Xuanzhi, in the Record of the Buddhist Monasteries of Luoyang (AD 547), and Li Xian, in the Ming Yitongzhi (AD 1461), concur with Daoxuan's location and attribution. The Jiaqing Chongxiu Yitongzhi (AD 1843) specifies that this monastery, located in the province of Henan, was built in the 20th year of theTih era of the Northern Wei Dynasty, that is, the monastery was built in AD 497. Kangxi, the second Qing emperor, was a supporter of the Shaolin temple in Henan and he wrote the calligraphic inscriptions that hang over the Heavenly King Hall and the Buddha Hall to this day. The monastery has been destroyed and rebuilt many times. In 1641 the troops of anti-Ming rebel Li Zicheng sacked the monastery due to the monks' support of the Ming and the possible threat they posed to the

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rebels. This effectively destroyed the temple's fighting force. Perhaps the best-known story of the Temple's destruction is that it was destroyed by the Qing government for supposed anti-Qing activities. Variously said to have taken place in 1647 under the Shunzhi Emperor, in 1674 under the Kangxi Emperor, or in 1732 under the Yongzheng Emperor, this destruction is also supposed to have helped spread Shaolin martial arts through China by means of the five fugitive monks. Some accounts claim that a supposed southern Shaolin Temple was destroyed instead of, or in addition to, the temple in Henan: Ju Ke, in the Qing bai lei chao (1917), locates this temple in Fujian Province. These stories commonly appear in legendary or popular accounts of martial history, and in martial arts fiction.

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While these latter accounts are common among martial artists, and often serve as origin stories for various martial arts styles, their accuracy is questionable. The accounts are known through often inconsistent 19th-century secret society histories and popular literature, and also appear to draw on both Fujianese folklore and popular narratives such as the Water Margin. Modern scholarly attention to the tales is mainly concerned with their role as folklore. There is evidence of Shaolin martial arts techniques being exported to Japan in the 18th and 19th centuries. Okinawan Shrin-ry karate, for example, has a name meaning "Small [Shao]lin". Other similarities can be seen in centuries-old Chinese and Japanese martial arts manuals. In 1928, the warlord Shi Yousan set fire to the monastery, burning it for over 40 days, destroying 90 percent of the

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buildings including many manuscripts of the temple library. The Cultural Revolution launched in 1966 targeted religious orders including the monastery. The five monks who were present at the monastery when the Red Guard attacked were shackled and made to wear placards declaring the crimes charged against them. The monks were jailed after publicly being flogged and paraded through the street as people threw rubbish at them. The government purged Buddhist materials from within the monastery walls, leaving it barren for years. Martial arts groups from all over the world have made donations for the upkeep of the temple and grounds, and are subsequently honored with carved stones near the entrance of the temple. According to Matthew Polly, a travel writer and martial artist, during the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Taizong
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granted the Shaolin Temple extra land and special "imperial dispensation" to eat meat, and drink, which would make Shaolin the only temple in China that did not prohibit alcohol, although this practice has ceased today. Polly's statement is not corroborated in any period documents, such as the Shaolin Stele erected in 728 AD. The stele does not list any such imperial dispensation as reward for the monks' assistance during the campaign against Wang Shichong, only land and a water mill are granted. Historian Meir Shahar is unsure if the popular tale about wine and meat consumption originated after the released of films like Shaolin Temple. In the past, many have tried to capitalize on Shaolin Monastery fame by building their own schools on Mount Song. However, the Chinese government eventually outlawed this; the schools were moved to the nearby towns. However, as of 2010, the Ta
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Gou kung fu school, one of the largest kung fu schools in China, owns and practices on land below the Shaolin Temple. A Dharma gathering was held from August 19 to August 20, 1999, in the Shaolin Monastery for Master Shi Yongxin's assumption of office as abbot. In March 2006 Vladimir Putin, then President of Russia, became the first foreign leader to visit the monastery. In 2007 the Chinese government partially lifted the 300-year ban of the Jieba. The Jieba is the ancient ceremony of the nine marks, which are burned onto the head with sticks of incense. The ban was partially lifted only for those who were mentally and physically prepared to participate in the tradition. Two modern bathrooms were recently added to the temple for use by monks and tourists. The new bathrooms reportedly cost three million yuan.

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Jin Mao Tower

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The Great Wall of China

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