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Documents for "Chinese and Taiwanese History":

• banner system Manchu conscription system. Companies of Manchu warriors were grouped (1601) into brigades, each with a distinctive banner. The banner system integrated former tribal units into a bureaucratic war machine that enabled the Manchus to conquer and...

• Boxer Uprising 1898-1900, antiforeign movement in China, culminating in a desperate uprising against Westerners and Western influence.

• Cathay name for North China used by medieval Europeans, derived from the Khitan (or Khitai), a Manchurian people who conquered S Manchuria and N China and founded the Liao dynasty (937-1125). S China was...

• China Incident see Sino-Japanese War, Second.

• China, Great Wall of see Great Wall of China.

• Chinese Communist party see Communist party , in China.

• Chinese Dynasties Chinese Dynasties Dynasty Characteristics and History Hsia  c.1994-c.1523 BC Semilegendary Emperor Yu built irrigation channels, reclaimed land. Bronze weapons, chariots, domestic animals used. Wheat, millet cultivated. First use of written symbols. Shang or Yin  c.1523-c.1027 BC First historic dynasty. Complex agricultural society with a bureaucracy and defined social classes. Well-developed writing, first Chinese calendar. Great age of bronze casting. Chou  c.1027-256 BC Classical age ( Confucius , Lao Tzu , Mencius ) despite political disorder. Written laws, money economy. Iron implements and ox-drawn plow in use. Followed by Warring States period, 403-221 BC Ch'in  221-206 BC Unification of China under harsh rule of Shih Huang-ti. Feudalism replaced by pyramidal bureaucratic government. Written language standardized. Roads, canals, much of the Great Wall built. Han  202 BC-AD 220 Unification furthered, but harshness lessened and Confucianism made basis for bureaucratic state. Buddhism introduced. Encyclopedic history, dictionary compiled; porcelain produced. Three Kingdoms  AD 220-265 Division into three states: Wei, Shu, Wu. Wei gradually dominant. Confucianism eclipsed; increased importance of Taoism and Buddhism. Many scientific advances adopted from India. Tsin or Chin  265-420 Founded by a Wei general; gradual expansion to the southeast. Series of barbarian dynasties ruled N China. Continued growth of Buddhism. Sui  581-618 Reunification; centralized government reestablished. Buddhism, Taoism favored. Great Wall refortified; canal system established. T'ang  618-907 Territorial expansion. Buddhism temporarily suppressed. Civil service examinations based on Confucianism. Age of great achievements in poetry ( Li Po , Po Chü-i , Tu Fu ), sculpture, painting. Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms  907-960 Period of warfare, official corruption, general hardship. Widespread development of printing (see type ); paper money first printed. Sung  960-1279 Period of great social and intellectual change. Neo-Confucianism attains supremacy over Taoism and Buddhism; central bureaucracy reestablished. Widespread cultivation of tea and cotton; gunpowder...

• Chinese examination system civil service recruitment method and educational system employed from the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) until it was abolished by the Ch'ing dowager empress Tz'u Hsi in 1905 under pressure from...

• Chinese Nationalist party see Kuomintang.

• Communist party in China, ruling party of the world's most populous nation since 1949 and most important Communist party in the world since the disintegration of the USSR in 1991.

• Cultural Revolution 1966-76, mass mobilization of urban Chinese youth inaugurated by Mao Zedong , attempting to prevent development of a bureaucratized Soviet style of Communism. Mao closed schools and encouraged students to join Red Guard units, which persecuted Chinese teachers and...

• Double Tenth see Wuchang , China.

• examination system see Chinese examination system.

• Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period of Chinese history between the fall of the T'ang dynasty (AD 907) and the establishment of the Sung dynasty (AD 960). It is named for the five successive short-lived dynasties and the ten...

• Gang of Four term of opprobrium given by the Chinese Communist authorities to four persons held responsible for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution (1966-69). They were also accused of trying to seize power after the deaths (1976) of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. The most notable of the Gang of Four was Jiang Qing , Mao's widow. The others were Wang Hongwen, Yao Wenyuan, and Zhang Chunqiao. They were imprisoned in 1976, tried in 1980, and sentenced in 1981. Their sentences ranged from death (later commuted to...

• Great Leap Forward 1957-60, Chinese economic plan aimed at revitalizing all sectors of the economy. Initiated by Mao Zedong , the plan emphasized decentralized, labor-intensive industrialization, typified by the construction of thousands of backyard steel furnaces in place of large steel mills. Wildly unrealistic...

• Great Wall of China fortifications, c.1,500 mi (2,400 km) long, winding across N China from Gansu prov. to Hebei prov. on the Yellow Sea. The wall, running mostly along the southern edge of the Mongolian plain, was...

• Jiaozhou see Kiaochow , China.

• Kiaochow or Jiaozhou , former German territory, area c.200 sq mi (520 sq km), along the southern coast of Shandong prov., China. Its administrative center was the city of Qingdao. Germany leased Kiaochow in 1898 for 99...

• Kuomintang [Chin.,=national people's party] (KMT), Chinese and Taiwanese political party. Sung Chiao-jen organized the party in 1912, under the nominal leadership of Sun Yat-sen , to succeed the Revolutionary Alliance. The original Kuomintang program called for parliamentary democracy and moderate socialism. In 1913, Yüan Shih-kai , the president of China, suppressed the Kuomintang although it held a majority in the first national assembly. Under Sun Yat-sen, the party established unrecognized revolutionary governments at...

• long march Chin., Changzheng, the journey of c.6,000 mi (9,660 km) undertaken by the Red Army of China in 1934-35. When their Jiangxi prov. Soviet base was encircled by the Nationalist army of Chiang Kai-shek, some 90,000 men...

• Manchurian Incident or Mukden Incident, 1931, confrontation that gave Japan the impetus to set up a puppet government in Manchuria. After the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5), Japan replaced Russia as the dominant foreign power in S...

• Mandarin [Port. mandar =to govern, or from Malay mantri =counselor of state], a high official of imperial China. For each of the nine grades there was a different colored button worn on the dress cap. Mandarin Chinese was the language spoken by the official class and was based on the Beijing dialect. Mandarin Chinese is now taught throughout the country, and it is the official national language. It is widely...

• May Fourth Movement (1919), first mass movement in modern Chinese history. On May 4, about 5,000 university students in Beijing protested the Versailles Conference (Apr. 28, 1919) awarding Japan the former German...

• Middle Country see Middle Kingdom.

• Middle Kingdom or Middle Country, Mandarin Zhongguo, Chinese name for China. It dates from c.1000 BC, when it designated the Chou empire situated on the North China Plain. The Chou people, unaware of high civilizations in the West, believed their...

• Mukden Incident see Manchurian Incident.

• Nian Rebellion or Nien Rebellion , uprising that occurred against the Ch'ing dynasty of China. Bands [Chinese,= nien ] of antigovernment rebels in the south part of the North China Plain (between the Chang and Huai rivers) coalesced in 1853 as government strength weakened in the face of the Taiping Rebellion (1850-64). The Nien employed guerrilla tactics and swift cavalry movement but lacked a coherent ideology and strong central leadership. Faced with the greater Taiping challenge, the Ch'ing made...

• Nien Rebellion see Nian Rebellion.

• Northern Expedition in modern Chinese history, the military campaign by which the Kuomintang party overthrew the warlord -backed Beijing government and established a new government at Nanjing. At the outset of the campaign in July, 1926, the Kuomintang controlled only Guangdong and Guangxi provs. It was allied with...

• oracle bones bones used for divination by the Chinese during the Shang dynasty (traditionally c.1766 BC-c.1122 BC). Along with contemporary inscriptions on bronze vessels, these records of divination, which were incised on the shoulder blades of animals (mainly oxen)...

• Red Guards in Chinese history, politically active students of the Cultural Revolution (1966-69), who organized units to carry out Mao Zedong 's aim of rerevolutionizing Chinese society. As their numbers grew,...

• Shimonoseki, Treaty of Apr. 17, 1895, ending the First Sino-Japanese War. It was negotiated and signed by Ito Hirobumi for Japan and Li Hung-chang for China. Harsh terms were imposed on a badly defeated China. The treaty provided for the end of Chinese suzerainty over...

• Sino-Japanese War, First 1894-95, conflict between China and Japan for control of Korea in the late 19th cent. The Li-lto Convention of 1885 provided for mutual troop withdrawals and advance notification of any new troop...

• Sino-Japanese War, Second 1937-45, conflict between Japanese and Chinese forces for control of the Chinese mainland. The war sapped the Nationalist government's strength while allowing the Communists to gain control over...

• Six Dynasties period of Chinese history between the fall of the Han dynasty (AD 220) and the unification of China under the Sui dynasty (AD 589). It is named for the six successive dynasties that appeared in S...

• South Manchurian Railway Japanese-developed enterprise, with a trackage of 701 mi (1128 km). The line from Changchun to Lüshun (Port Arthur), originally belonging to the Russian-built Chinese Eastern Railway, was part of...

• Sun Tzu fl. c.500-320. BC, name used by the unknown Chinese authors of the sophisticated treatise on philosophy, logistics, espionage , and strategy and tactics known as The Art of War. It includes many commentaries by later Chinese philosophers. The core text was probably written by one person during a time of expanding feudal conflicts, but the exact century is uncertain. Most...

• Taiping Rebellion 1850-64, revolt against the Ch'ing (Manchu) dynasty of China. Perhaps the most important event in 19th-century China, it was led by Hung Hsiu-ch'üan, a visionary from Guangdong who evolved a...

• Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history from 220 to 265, after the collapse of the Han dynasty. The period takes its name from the three states into which China was divided. Wei occupied the north. South of Wei...

• Triad Society name given to a number of Chinese antidynastic secret societies by 19th-century Western observers. Most of these groups claimed descent from the Heaven and Earth Society (Taendi hui) or the Triad...

• warlord in modern Chinese history, autonomous regional military commander. In the political chaos following the death (1916) of republican China's first president and commander in chief, Yüan Shih-kai , central authority fell to the provincial military governors and regional military groups emerged based on personal loyalties. During the next decade there was a series of wars between shifting...

• White Lotus Rebellion Chinese anti-Manchu uprising that occurred during the Ch'ing dynasty. It broke out (1796) among impoverished settlers in the mountainous region that separates Sichuan prov. from Hubei and Shaanxi...

• Wu-ti posthumous temple name of the 5th emperor (140 BC-87 BC) of the Han dynasty. Wu-ti [Chin.,=martial emperor] ruled directly through a palace secretariat. During his vigorous reign he incorporated the native states of S China into the empire, drove the nomadic...