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Zhu Yuanzhang

Zhu Yuanzhang

The Hongwu Emperor (September 21, 1328 – June 24, 1398), personal name Zhu Yuanzhang, was the founder of the Ming Dynasty of China, and the first emperor of this dynasty from 1368 to 1398. His era name Hongwu means "Immensely Martial." Among the Chinese populace there were strong feelings against the rule of "the foreigners" under the Mongol Yuan Dynasty which finally led to a peasant revolution, led by Hongwu, that pushed the Yuan dynasty back to the Mongolian steppes and established the Ming Dynasty in 1368. Hongwu, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, was one of the only two dynasty founders who emerged from the peasant class. The other one was Han Gao Zu of Han Dynasty. Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping are the two other peasant revolutionaries to have ruled the world's most populous nation.

Early life

Orphaned as a teenager, he entered a Buddhist monastery to avoid starvation. This is where he became literate, and at age 25 joined a rebel band, where his native ability soon brought him on top. Later, as a strongwilled rebel leader, he came in contact with the well-educated Confucian scholar gentry from whom he received an education in state affairs. He acquired training in the Red Turban Movement, which was a dissident religious sect combining cultural and religious traditions of Buddhism, Daoism, and others. No longer a Buddhist, he positioned himself as defender of Confucianism and neo-Confucian conventions and not as a popular rebel. Despite his humble origins, he emerged as a national leader against the collapsing Yuan Dynasty.

Emperor of China

Defeating rival national leaders, he proclaimed himself emperor in 1368, establishing his capital at Nanjing and adopting Hongwu as his reign title. Under Hongwu, the Mongol bureaucrats who had dominated the government for nearly a century under the Yuan dynasty were replaced by the Chinese. The traditional Confucian examination system that selected state bureaucrats or civil servants on the basis of merit and knowledge of literature and philosophy was revamped. Candidates for posts in the civil service or the officer corps of the 80,000-man army, once again, had to pass the traditional competitive examinations in the Classics. The Confucian scholar gentry, marginalized under the Yuan for nearly a century once again assumed its predominant role in the Chinese state. Having fought off the calamities of the Mongol invasion, and given the realistic threat to China still posed by the Mongols, Hongwu reassessed the orthodox Confucian view regarding the military as an inferior class to be subordinated by the scholar bureaucracy. Simply put, maintaining a strong military was essential since the Mongols were still a threat. As an aside, the name Hongwu means "Vast Military" and reflects the increased prestige of the military. Hongwu attempted to, and largely succeeded in, consolidating control all aspects of government so that no other group could gain enough power to overthrow him and to buttress the country's defenses against the Mongols. As emperor, Hongwu increasingly concentrated power in his own hands and abolished the Imperial Secretariat, which had been the main central administrative body under past dynasties, after suppressing a plot for which he had blamed his chief minister. When the emperorship became hereditary, the Chinese recognized this and established the office of prime or chief minister. While incompetent emperors could come and go, the prime minister could guarantee a level of continuity and competence in the government. Hongwu, wishing to concentrate absolute authority in his own hands, abolished the office of prime minister and so removed the only insurance against incompetent emperors. Hongwu was succeeded by his grandson, but he was soon usurped by his uncle Chengzu, a younger son of Hongwu, who ruled as the Yongle Emperor from 1403 to 1424 (Yongle was responsible for moving the capital back to Beijing). Hongwu noted the destructive role of court eunuchs under the Song Dynasty, drastically reducing their numbers, forbidding them to handle documents, insisting that they remained illiterate, and liquidating those who commented on state affairs. Hongwu had a strong aversion to the imperial eunuchs (a castrated court of servants for the emperor), epitomized by a tablet in his palace stipulating: "Eunuchs must have nothing to do with the administration". Under his successor, however, they began regaining their old influence. The emperor's role this became even more autocratic, although Hongwu necessarily continued to use what he called the Grand Secretaries to assist with the immense paperwork of the bureaucracy, which included memorials (petitions and recommendations to the throne), imperial edicts in reply, reports of various kinds, and tax records. During his rule he also laid out the foundation of organizations resembling modern-day secret police. The role of state support is the focus of much of this debate on the official downgrading of commerce. Hongwu laid the foundations for a state uninterested in commerce and more interested in extracting revenues from the agricultural sector. With little understanding of economic processes of markets, Hongwu, backed by the Confucian scholar gentry, just accepted the Confucian viewpoint offhand that merchants were solely parasitic. In a typically Confucian viewpoint, Hongwu felt that agriculture should be the country's source of wealth and that trade was ignoble and parasitic. Perhaps this view was accentuated because of his background as a peasant. As a result, the Ming economic system emphasized agriculture, unlike that of the Song Dynasty, which had preceded the Mongols and relied on traders and merchant for revenues. With an aversion to trade, he also supported the creation of self-supporting agricultural communities. Neo-feudal land-tenure developments of late Song and Yuan times were expropriated with the establishment of the Ming Dynasty. Great landed estates were confiscated by the government, fragmented, and rented out; and private slavery was forbidden. Consequently, after the death of Yongle, independent peasant landholders predominated in Chinese agriculture. These laws might have paved the way to social harmony and removed the worst of the poverty of the Mongol era. The laws against the merchants and the restrictions under which the craftsmen worked, remained essentially as they had been under the Song dynasty, but now the remaining foreign merchants of Mongol time also fell under these new laws, and their influence quickly dwindled. Although Hongwu's rule saw the introduction of paper currency, capitalist development would be stifled from the beginning. Not understanding inflation, Hongwu gave out so much paper money as rewards that by 1425 the state was forced to reintroduce copper coins given that the currency was worth 1/70 of its original value. During Hongwu's reign, however, the early Ming Dynasty was characterized by rapid and dramatic population growth, largely due to the increased food supply and Hongwu's agricultural reforms. Population probably rose by at least 50 percent by the end of the Ming Dynasty, stimulated by major improvements in agricultural technology promoted by the pro-agrarian state, which came to power in midst of a pro-Confucian peasant's rebellion. Under his tutelage, living standards greatly improved. The Hongwu Emperor increasingly feared rebellions and coups. He even made it a capital offence for any of his advisors to criticize him. A story goes that a Confucian scholar who was fed up with Hongwu's policies decided to go to the capital and berate the emperor. When he gained an audience with him, he brought his own coffin. After delivering his speech, he climbed into the coffin, expecting the emperor to execute him. Instead, the Emperor was so impressed by his bravery he spared his life. Hongwu died after a reign of 30 years. He had 24 sons, all of whom became princes. They include:
- Zhu Biao (1355-1392), Hongwu's first child, and the father of his successor Jianwen
- Zhu Di (1360-1424), Hongwu's fourth son, and third emperor after usurpation of the throne from Jianwen
- Zhu Quan (1391-1448), 17th son

Names

Hongwu is also known as Hung-Wu. That name is also applied to the period of years from 1368 to 1398 when Chu Yuan-chang ruled. Other names for him include , his temple name Ming Tàizǔ (明太祖) "Great Ancestor of the Ming", and the "Beggar King," in allusion to his early poverty.

September 21

September 21 is the 264th day of the year (265th in leap years). There are 101 days remaining.

Events

- 454 - Roman Emperor Valentinian III assassinates Aëtius in his own throne room.
- 1745 - Battle of Prestonpans: A Hanoverian army under the command of John Cope is defeated, in ten minutes, by the Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart
- 1765 - Antoine de Beauterne announced he had killed the Beast of Gévaudan.
- 1780 - American Revolutionary War: Benedict Arnold gives the British the plans to West Point.
- 1792 - The French National Convention votes to abolish the monarchy.
- 1827 - Joseph Smith, Jr., claims that the angel Moroni gave him a record of gold plates, one-third of which is translated into The Book of Mormon.
- 1860 - In the Second Opium War, an Anglo-French force defeats Chinese troops at the Battle of Baliqiao.
- 1896 - British force under Horatio Kitchener takes Dongola in the Sudan.
- 1897 - The Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus letter is published in the New York Sun.
- 1898 - Empress Dowager Cixi seizes power and ends the Hundred Days' Reform in China.
- 1921 - Oppau explosion, a storage silo at a fertilizer producing plant exploded in Oppau, Germany, 500—600 killed.
- 1937 - J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is published.
- 1939 - Romanian Prime Minister Armand Calinescu is assassinated by pro-Nazi members of the Iron Guard.
- 1942 - The B-29 Superfortress makes its debut.
- 1950 - George Marshall sworn in as the 3rd Secretary of Defense of United States.
- 1964 - Malta becomes independent from the United Kingdom.
- 1970 - Monday Night Football premieres.
- 1972 - Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos issues Proclamation No. 1081 placing the entire country under martial law.
- 1981 - Belize is granted full independence from the United Kingdom.
- 1991 - Armenia is granted independence from Soviet Union.
- 1993 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin suspends parliament and scraps the then-functioning constitution, thus triggering the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993.
- 1993 - Grunge rock band Nirvana releases its album In Utero.
- 1999 - Chi-Chi earthquake occurs in central Taiwan, leaving about 2,400 people dead.
- 2001 - Deep Space 1 flies within 2,200 km of Comet Borrelly.
-
- 2002 - International Day of Peace recognized by the United Nations as a full day of ceasefire and nonviolence.
- 2003 - Galileo mission terminated by sending the probe into Jupiter's atmosphere, where it is crushed by the pressure at the lower altitudes.
- 2004 - The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People's War and the Maoist Communist Centre of India merge to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist).
- 2004 - Punk rock band Green Day releases its critically acclaimed album American Idiot.

Births

- 1328 - Hongwu Emperor of China (d. 1398)
- 1411 - Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, claimant to the English throne (d. 1460)
- 1415 - Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1493)
- 1428 - Jingtai Emperor of China (d. 1457)
- 1452 - Girolamo Savonarola, Dominican priest and ruler of Florence (d. 1498)
- 1629 - Philip Cardinal Howard, English Catholic cardinal (d. 1694)
- 1645 - Louis Joliet, Canadian explorer (d. 1700)
- 1756 - John MacAdam, Scottish engineer and road-builder (d. 1836)
- 1840 - Murad V, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1904)
- 1842 - Abd-ul-Hamid II, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1918)
- 1853 - Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1926)
- 1863 - John Bunny, American film comedian (d. 1915)
- 1866 - H. G. Wells, English writer (d. 1946)
- 1866 - Charles Nicolle, French bacteriologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1936)
- 1873 - Papa Jack Laine, American musician (d. 1966)
- 1874 - Gustav Holst, English composer (d. 1934)
- 1895 - Sergei Yesenin, Russian poet (d. 1925)
- 1902 - Luis Cernuda, Spanish poet (d. 1963)
- 1912 - Chuck Jones, American animator (d. 2002)
- 1919 - Mario Bunge, Argentine philosopher and physicist
- 1919 - Fazlur Rahman, Pakistani scholar (d. 1988)
- 1920 - Jay Ward, American animator (d. 1988)
- 1926 - Donald A. Glaser, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1929 - Bernard Williams, English philosopher (d. 2003)
- 1929 - Sándor Kocsis, Hungarian footballer (d. 1979)
- 1931 - Larry Hagman, American actor
- 1934 - Leonard Cohen, Canadian singer and songwriter
- 1935 - Henry Gibson, American actor
- 1944 - Fannie Flagg, American actress and novelist
- 1944 - Hamilton Jordan, Carter's 1ST Chief of Staff
- 1945 - Jerry Bruckheimer, American film and television producer
- 1946 - Moritz Leuenberger, Swiss Federal Councilor
- 1947 - Stephen King, American author
- 1947 - Marsha Norman, American playwright
- 1949 - Artis Gilmore, American basketball player
- 1950 - Charles Clarke, British politician
- 1950 - Bill Murray, American actor
- 1951 - Aslan Maskhadov, Chechen rebel leader
- 1952 - Neil Peart, Canadian drummer (Rush)
- 1953 - Arie Luyendyk, Dutch race car driver
- 1954 - Shinzo Abe, Japanese politician
- 1955 - Mika Kaurismäki, Finnish director
- 1957 - Ethan Coen, American film director
- 1959 - Dave Coulier, American actor
- 1960 - David James Elliott, Canadian actor
- 1961 - Nancy Travis, American actress
- 1962 - Rob Morrow, American actor
- 1963 - Angus Macfadyen, Scottish actor
- 1963 - Curtly Ambrose, West Indian cricketer
- 1963 - Cecil Fielder, baseball player
- 1965 - Cheryl Hines, American actress
- 1967 - Faith Hill, American singer
- 1967 - Tyler Stewart, Canadian drummer (Barenaked Ladies)
- 1968 - Ricki Lake, American actress and talk show hostess
- 1971 - Luke Wilson, American actor
- 1971 - Alfonso Ribeiro, Dominican-born actor
- 1972 - Liam Gallagher, British singer (Oasis)
- 1972 - Jon Kitna, American football player
- 1972 - David Silveria, American drummer (KoЯn)
- 1974 - Andy Todd, English footballer
- 1975 - Doug Davis, baseball player
- 1979 - Richard Dunne, Irish footballer
- 1979 - Chris Gayle, West Indian cricketer
- 1979 - Julian Gray, English footballer
- 1980 - Kareena Kapoor, Indian actress
- 1981 - Nicole Richie, American actress
- 1983 - Maggie Grace, American actress
- 1983 - Hart Hancock, American musician (Amphoteric)

Deaths

- 454 - Aëtius, Roman general
- 1217 - Lembitu of Lehola, Estonian soldier
- 1327 - King Edward II of England (b. 1284)
- 1397 - Richard FitzAlan, 11th Earl of Arundel, English military leader (executed) (b. 1346)
- 1542 - Juan Boscán Almogáver, Spanish poet
- 1558 - Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1500)
- 1576 - Gerolamo Cardano, Italian mathematician (b. 1501)
- 1586 - Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, French church leader (b. 1517)
- 1626 - François de Bonne, duc de Lesdiguières, Constable of France (b. 1543)
- 1719 - Johann Heinrich Acker, German writer (b. 1647)
- 1743 - Jai Singh II, King of Amber-Juiper (b. 1688)
- 1748 - John Balguy, English philosopher (b. 1686)
- 1796 - François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers, French general (b. 1769)
- 1798 - George Read, American lawyer and signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1733)
- 1832 - Sir Walter Scott, Scottish writer (b. 1771)
- 1860 - Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (b. 1788)
- 1897 - Wilhelm Wattenbach, German historian (b. 1819)
- 1904 - Chief Joseph, Nez Perce leader (b. 1840)
- 1926 - Leon Charles Thevenin, French telegraph engineer (b. 1857)
- 1938 - Ivana Brlic-Mazuranic Croatian writer (b. 1874)
- 1954 - Kokichi Mikimoto, Japanese inventor (b. 1858)
- 1957 - King Haakon VII of Norway (b. 1872)
- 1971 - Bernardo Houssay, Argentine physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1887)
- 1974 - Walter Brennan, American actor (b. 1894)
- 1974 - Jacqueline Susann, American novelist (b. 1918)
- 1987 - Jaco Pastorius, American bassist (b. 1951)
- 1995 - Rudy Perpich, American politician (b. 1928)
- 1998 - Florence Griffith Joyner, American athlete (b. 1959)
- 2002 - Robert L. Forward, American physicist and writer (b. 1932)
- 2004 - Barry Noble Wakeman, American naturalist and educator (b. 1939)

Holidays and observances

International

- International Day of Peace of the United Nations, as propagated by Peace One Day
- RC Saints - Matthew the Evangelist Also see September 21 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

National

- Independence Day in Malta (1964), Belize (1981) & Armenia (1991)
- Philippines - Thanksgiving Day
- Mabon - Neopagan festival of Mabon
- In ancient Greece, the eighth day of the Eleusinian Mysteries, when the secret rites in the Telesterion finish and the feast, Pannychis, begins.

External links

- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/21 BBC: On This Day] ----- September 20 · September 22 · August 21 · October 21 · more historical anniversaries ko:9월 21일 ms:21 September ja:9月21日 simple:September 21 th:21 กันยายน

June 24

June 24 is the 175th day of the year (176th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 190 days remaining.

Events

- 972 - Battle of Cedynia, near Cedynia. Polish forces have had their first documented victory.
- 1128 - Battle of São Mamede, near Guimarães. Portuguese forces led by Alfonso I defeat his mother D.Teresa and D.Fernão Peres de Trava. After this battle, the future king calls himself "Prince of Portugal", the first step towards "official independence" in 1143.
- 1314 - End of the Battle of Bannockburn. Scottish forces led by Robert the Bruce defeat Edward II of England. Scotland regains its independence.
- 1374 - A sudden outbreak of St. John's Dance causes people in the streets of Aix-la-Chapelle, Prussia, to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion.
- 1441 - Eton College founded.
- 1497 - John Cabot lands on North America in Newfoundland; first European discovery of the region since the Vikings.
- Cornish traitors Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank executed at Tyburn, London
- 1509 - Henry VIII crowned King of England.
- 1534 - Jacques Cartier makes the European discovery of Prince Edward Island.
- 1535 - The Anabaptist state of Münster is conquered and disbanded.
- 1597 - The first Dutch voyage to the East Indies reaches Bantam (on Java).
- 1662 - Dutch attempt but fail to capture Macau.
- 1664 - The colony of New Jersey is founded.
- 1692 - Kingston, Jamaica founded.
- 1793 - First republican constitution in France adopted.
- 1812 - Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon's invasion of Russia begins.
- 1813 - Battle of Beaver Dams : A British, and Indian joint force defeat the U.S Army.
- 1821 - Battle of Carabobo : Venezuela gains total independence from Spain.
- 1859 - Battle of Solferino: (Battle of the Three Sovereigns). Sardinia and France defeat Austria in Solferino, northern Italy.
- 1861 - Tennessee becomes the 11th and last state to secede from the US.
- 1880 - First performance of O Canada, the song that would become the national anthem of Canada, at the Congrès national des Canadiens-Français.
- 1894 - The IOC decides to hold the Olympic Games every four years.
- 1901 - First exhibition of Pablo Picasso's work opens.
- 1902 - King Edward VII of the United Kingdom develops appendicitis, delaying his coronation.
- 1910 - Japan invades Korea.
- 1913 - Greece and Serbia annul their alliance with Bulgaria.
- Joseph Cook becomes the 6th Prime Minister of Australia.
- 1916 - Mary Pickford becomes first film star to get million dollar contract.
- 1918 - First airmail service in Canada from Montreal to Toronto.
- The giant cannon Big Bertha begins bombardments on Paris
- 1932 - A military coup ends the absolute power of the king of Siam (Thailand).
- 1940 - France and Italy sign an armistice.
- 1941 - Government of briefly independent Lithuania conducts its first meeting under prime minister Juozas Ambrazevičius
- 1945 - The U.S.S.R. capture the Free Republic of Schwarzenberg.
- 1946 - Georges Bidault becomes Prime Minister of France
- 1947 - First known sighting of UFOs: Kenneth Arnold, flying over Washington, notices nine luminous disks in the form of saucers.
- 1948 - Start of the Berlin Blockade. The Soviet Union makes overland travel between the West with West Berlin impossible.
- 1957 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment.
- 1963 - Zanzibar is granted internal self-government by the UK.
- 1974 - The UPC label is used for the first time to ring up purchases at a supermarket.
- 1975 - An Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 crashes at John F. Kennedy Airport, New York. 113 people die.
- 1981 - For what would be the world's longest single-span suspension bridge for 17 years, the Humber Bridge, connecting Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, opens.
- 1983 - Sally Ride, first female American astronaut, returns to earth.
- Yasir Arafat banned from Damascus.
- 1993 - Yale computer science professor Dr. David Gelernter loses the sight in one eye, the hearing in one ear, and part of his right hand after receiving a mailbomb from the Unabomber.
- 1995 - The New Jersey Devils sweep the Detroit Red Wings in four games in the 1995 NHL Stanley Cup finals.
- In the final of the Rugby Union World Cup held at Ellis Park in Johannesburg, a drop goal in extra time by Joel Stransky lifts South Africa to a 15-12 win over New Zealand.
- 1996 - Michael Johnson breaks the world record in the 200 metres with a time of 19.66 seconds
- 1999 - The guitar with which Eric Clapton recorded Layla is sold at auction for $497,500.
- 2004 - Habib Dodo, the general secretary of the Communist Youth of Côte d'Ivoire is assassinated by pro-government forces.

Births

1244 to 1899

- 1244 - Henry I of Hesse (d. 1308)
- 1340 - John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (d. 1399)
- 1386 - Giovanni da Capistrano, Italian saint (d. 1456)
- 1485 - Johannes Bugenhagen, German reformer (d. 1558)
- 1519 - Theodore Beza, French theologian (d. 1605)
- 1532 - Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, English politician (d. 1588)
- 1542 - St. John of the Cross, Spanish Carmelite friar and poet (d. 1591)
- 1546 - Robert Parsons, English Jesuit priest (d. 1610)
- 1663 - Jean Baptiste Massillon, French churchman (d. 1742)
- 1687 - Johann Albrecht Bengel, German scholar (d. 1757)
- 1694 - Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, Swiss publicist (d. 1748)
- 1704 - Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens, French writer (d. 1771)
- 1777 - John Ross, British naval officer and explorer (d. 1856)
- 1795 - Ernst Heinrich Weber, German anatomist and physiologist (d. 1878)
- 1803 - George James Webb, English-born composer (d. 1887)
- 1804 - Willard Richards, American religious leader (d. 1854)
- 1813 - Henry Ward Beecher, American clergyman and reformer (d. 1887)
- 1826 - George Goyder, surveyor-general of South Australia (d. 1898)
- 1842 - Ambrose Bierce, American author
- 1850 - Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, British field marshal (d. 1916)
- 1882 - Carl Diem, German Olympic official (d. 1962)
- 1883 - Victor Franz Hess, Austrian-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1964)
- 1888 - Gerrit Rietveld, Dutch architect (d. 1964)
- 1895 - Jack Dempsey, American boxer (d. 1983)

1900 to 1999

- 1901 - Harry Partch, American composer (d. 1974)
- 1906 - Pierre Fournier, French cellist (d. 1986)
- 1907 - Arseny Tarkovsky, Russian poet (d. 1989)
- 1908 - Hugo Distler, German composer (d. 1942)
- Guru Gopinath, Indian classical dancer (d 1987)
- Alfons Rebane, Estonian military officer (d. 1976)
- 1909 - David Rose, English composer and musician (d. 1990)
- 1911 - Juan Manuel Fangio, Argentine race car driver (d. 1995)
- 1914 - Robert Aickman, English author (d. 1981)
- 1915 - Fred Hoyle, British astronomer and science fiction author (d. 2001)
- 1922 - Tata Giacobetti, Italian singer and lyricist (Quartetto Cetra)
- 1927 - Martin Lewis Perl, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1930 - Claude Chabrol, French film director
- 1931 - Billy Casper, American golfer
- 1942 - Mick Fleetwood, musician (Fleetwood Mac)
- Michele Lee, American actress
- 1944 - Jeff Beck, English guitarist (Yardbirds)
- Chris Wood, British musician (d. 1983)
- 1945 - Colin Blunstone, British musician (The Zombies)
- George Pataki, Governor of New York
- 1946 - Ellison Onizuka, astronaut (d. 1986)
- 1950 - Mercedes Lackey, American author
- 1953 - Garry Shider, American musician (P Funk)
- 1955 - Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, Guru of Siddha Yoga
- 1956 - Joe Penny, English actor
- 1958 - Jean Charest, Premier of Québec
- 1963 - Anatoly Borisovich Jurkin, Russian writer
- 1967 - Richard Kruspe-Bernstein, German guitarist (Rammstein)
- 1969 - Sissel Kyrkjebø, Norwegian singer
- 1970 - Glenn Medeiros, American singer and songwriter
- 1978 - Erno "Emppu" Vuorinen, Finnish guitarist (Nightwish)
- 1978 - Luis Garcia, Spanish footballer
- 1979 - Craig Shergold, Internet folklore subject
- 1982 - Kevin Nolan, English footballer
- 1986 - Solange Knowles, American actress and singer

Deaths

803 to 1899

- 803 - Higbald of Lindisfarne
- 1398 - Hongwu Emperor of China (b. 1328)
- 1439 - Duke Frederick IV of Austria (b. 1382)
- 1519 - Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara (b. 1480)
- 1520 - Hosokawa Sumimoto, Japanese samurai commander (b. 1489)
- 1604 - Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, Lord Great Chamberlain of England (b. 1550)
- 1637 - Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, French astronomer (b. 1580)
- 1766 - Adrien-Maurice, 3rd duc de Noailles, French soldier (b. 1678)
- 1778 - Pieter Burmann the Younger, Dutch philologist (b. 1714)
- 1803 - Matthew Thornton, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1714)
- 1817 - Thomas McKean, American lawyer and signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1734)
- 1894 - Marie François Sadi Carnot, French statesman (b. 1837)

1900 to 1999

- 1908 - Grover Cleveland, President of the United States (heart failure) (b. 1837)
- 1909 - Sarah Orne Jewett, American writer (b. 1849)
- 1922 - Walther Rathenau, German Minister of Foreign Affairs (assassinated) (b. 1867)
- 1935 - Carlos Gardel, Argentine singer (airplane crash) (b. 1890)
- 1947 - Emil Seidel, Mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (b. 1864)
- 1981 - Terry Fox, Canadian runner (b. 1958)
- 1987 - Jackie Gleason, American actor and musician (b. 1916)
- 1993 - Archie Williams, American athlete (b. 1915)

2000 onwards

- 2000 - Vera Atkins, Romanian-born intelligence officer (b. 1908)
- 2002 - Pierre Werner, Prime Minister of Luxembourg (b. 1913)
- 2003 - Maynard Jackson, Mayor of Atlanta (b. 1938)
- Leon Uris, American author (b. 1924)
- 2004 - Ifigeneia Giannopoulou, Greek songwriter (b. 1957)
- 2005 - Paul Winchell, American voice actor and ventriloquist (b. 1922)

Holidays and observances

- Roman Catholic Church - Feast of Saint John the Baptist, patron of farriers
- Original Midsummer's Eve in Finland and Sweden, although the official holiday is now moved to the nearest Friday
- One of the four Irish Quarter days in the Irish Calendar.
- Discovery Day in Newfoundland and Labrador (celebrating the 1497 discovery by John Cabot)
- Fête nationale du Québec, also called St-Jean-Baptiste Day
- Day of Indian in Peru
- Battle of Carabobo Day in Venezuela (1821)
- Bannockburn Day in Scotland (see 1314 above)
- Bahá'í Faith - Feast of Rahmat (Mercy) - First day of the sixth month of the Bahá'í Calendar
- Quarter days in England
- Skt. Hans Day in Denmark
- St. John's Day in Estonia and Sao Joao in Porto

External links

- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/24 BBC: On This Day]
- [http://www.britannica.com/eb/dailycontent?month=6&day=24 Encyclopædia Britannica: This Day in History] ---- June 23 - June 25 - May 24 - July 24 -- listing of all days ko:6월 24일 ms:24 Jun ja:6月24日 simple:June 24 th:24 มิถุนายน

Ming Dynasty

Ming Dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644. It was the last ethnic Han dynasty in China, supplanting the Mongol Yuan Dynasty before falling to the Manchu Qing Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty () was also called The Great Ming Empire (大明帝國). Though the Ming capital, Beijing, fell in 1644, remnants of the Ming throne and power (now collectively called the Southern Ming) survived until 1662. This dynasty began as a time of renewed cultural blossoming, with Chinese merchants exploring all of the Indian Ocean and Chinese art (especially the porcelain industry) reaching unprecedented heights. Under Ming rule, a vast navy and army was built, with four masted ships displacing 1,500 tons and a standing army of one million troops. Over 100,000 tons of iron per year were produced in North China, and many books were printed using movable type. Early Ming China was the most advanced nation on Earth at the time. There were strong feelings against the rule of "the foreigners" among the populace during the following Qing Dynasty and the restoration of the Ming dynasty was used as a rallying cry up until the modern era.

Origins

Qing Dynasty The Mongol Yuan Dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming Dynasty. During the rule, the Mongols' discrimination against the Han Chinese is often considered the primary cause for the end of Yuan rule in China. This finally led to a peasant revolt that pushed the Yuan dynasty back to the Mongolian steppes. Other causes include collusion with Tibetan lamas in depriving Chinese of their lands, paper currency over-circulation, which caused inflation to go up ten-fold during Yuan Emperor Shundi's reign, and the flooding of the Yellow River as a result of Mongols' abandonment of irrigation projects. In Late Yuan times, Chinese agriculture was in shambles. When hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians were called upon to work on the Yellow River, the prospect of rebellion ripened, and war broke out.The Ming dynasty emperors were members of the Zhu family. The revolt, led by Zhu Yuanzhang, established the Ming Dynasty in 1368. After many years of fighting, the rebel group led by Zhu Yuanzhang, secretly assisted by an ancient, highly secret intellectual fraternity called the Summer Place people, became the most powerful of the various Han Chinese groups. The future Hongwu emperor, Zhu declared the foundation of the Ming Dynasty in 1368, establishing his capital at Nanjing and adopting "Hongwu" as his reign title. With a Confucian aversion to trade, Hongwu also supported the creation of self-supporting agricultural communities. Neo-feudal land-tenure developments of late Song and Yuan times were expropriated with the establishment of the Ming dynasty. Great land estates were confiscated by the government, fragmented, and rented out; and private slavery was forbidden. Consequently, after the death of Yongle Emperor, independent peasant landholders predominated in Chinese agriculture. Under Hongwu, the Mongol bureaucrats who had dominated the government for nearly a century under the Yuan dynasty were replaced by the Han Chinese. The traditional Confucian examination system that selected state bureaucrats or civil servants on the basis of merit and knowledge of literature and philosophy was revamped. Candidates for posts in the civil service or the officer corps of the 80,000-man army, once again, had to pass the traditional competitive examinations in the Classics. The Confucian scholar gentry, marginalized under the Yuan for nearly a century, once again assumed its predominant role in the Chinese state of mind.

Exploration to isolation

Classics during the early Ming Dynasty. Decorated in dragons and phoenixes it was made to stand in an imperial palace. Made sometime during the Xuande reign period (1426-1435) of the Ming Dynasty. Currently on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

( See the closeup for more detail )

]] Between 1405 and 1433, Ming emperors sent seven maritime expeditions probing down into the South Seas and across the Indian Ocean. The era's xenophobia and intellectual introspection characteristic of the era's increasingly popular new school of neo-Confucianism, thus did not lead to the physical isolation of China. Contacts with the outside world, particularly with Japan, and foreign trade increased considerably. Yongle Emperor, fourth son of Hongwu, strenuously tried to extend China's influence beyond her borders by encouraging other rulers to send ambassadors to China to present tribute. The Chinese armies reconquered Annam and blocked Mongol expansionism, while the Chinese fleet sailed the China seas and the Indian Ocean, cruising as far as the east coast of Africa. The Chinese gained a certain influence over Turkestan. The maritime Asian nations sent envoys with tribute for the Chinese emperor. Internally, the Grand Canal was expanded to its farthest limits and proved to be a stimulus to domestic trade. The most extraordinary venture, however, during this stage was the dispatch Zheng He's seven naval expeditions, which traversed the Indian Ocean and the Southeast Asian archipelago. An ambitious Muslim eunuch of Hui descent, a quintessential outsider in the establishment of Confucian scholar elites, Zheng He led seven expeditions from 1405 to 1433 with six of them under the auspices of Yongle. He traversed perhaps as far as the Cape of Good Hope and, according to the controversial 1421 theory, the Americas. Zheng's appointment in 1403 to lead a sea-faring task force was a triumph the commercial lobbies seeking to stimulate conventional trade, not mercantilism. The interests of the commercial lobbies and those of the religious lobbies were also linked. Both were offensive to the neo-Confucian sensibilities of the scholarly elite: Religious lobbies encouraged commercialism and exploration, which benefited commercial interests, in order to divert state funds from the anti-clerical efforts of the Confucian scholar gentry. The first expedition in 1405 consisted of 62 ships and 28,000 men--then the largest naval expedition in history. Zheng He's multi-decked ships carried up to 500 troops but also cargoes of export goods, mainly silks and porcelains, and brought back foreign luxuries such as spices and tropical woods. The economic motive for these huge ventures may have been important, and many of the ships had large private cabins for merchants. But the chief aim was probably political, to enroll further states as tributaries and mark the reemergence of the Chinese Empire following nearly a century of barbarian rule. The political character of Zheng He's voyages indicates the primacy of the political elites. Despite their formidable and unprecedented strength, Zheng He's voyages, unlike European voyages of exploration later in the fifteenth century, were not intended to extend Chinese sovereignty overseas. Indicative of the competition among elites, these excursions had also become politically controversial. Zheng He's voyages had been supported by his fellow low eunuchs at court and strongly opposed by the Confucian scholar officials. Their antagonism was in fact so great that they tried to suppress any mention of the naval expeditions in the official imperial record. A compromise interpretation realizes that the Mongol raids tilted the balance in the favor of the Confucian elites. By the end of the fifteenth century, imperial subjects were forbidden from either building oceangoing ships or leaving the country. Some historians speculate this measure was taken in response to piracy. But during the mid-1500s, trade started up again with the "silverization" of China. China was like a bottomless sink. Silver replaced paper money and the value of silver skyrocketed relative to the rest of the world. Eventually with the laws of supply and demand, silver wasn't needed and there was a huge price inflation not just in China, but all over the world. Historians of the 1960s, such as John Fairbank and Joseph Levinson have argued that this renovation turned into stagnation, and that science and philosophy were caught in a tight net of traditions smothering any attempt to venture something new. Historians who held to this view argue that in the 15th century, by imperial decree the great navy was decommissioned; construction of seagoing ships was forbidden; the iron industry gradually declined.

Ming military conquests

iron in Washington, D.C.]] The beginning of the Ming dynasty was one of Ming military conquests as they sought to perpetuate their hold on power. Early in his reign the first Ming emperor Zhu Yuanzhang provided instructions as injunctions to later generations. These instructions included the advice that those countries to the north were dangerous and posed a threat to the Ming polity and those to the south did not.Furthermore he stated that those to the south, not constituting a threat, were not to be subject to attack. Yet, either because of, or despite of, this, it was the polities to the south which were to suffer the greatest effects of Ming expansion over the following century.This prolonged entanglement in the South with no long lasting tangible benefits was ultimately to weaken the Ming.

Decline of the Ming, the aborted commercial revolution

Long wars with the Mongols, incursions by the Japanese into Korea, and harassment of Chinese coastal cities by the Japanese in the sixteenth century weakened Ming rule, which became, as earlier Chinese dynasties had, ripe for an alien takeover. See Qing Dynasty for an account of these events. Historians debate the relatively slower "progression" of European-style mercantilism and industrialization in China since the Ming. This question is particularly poignant, considering the parallels between the commercialization of the Ming economy, the so-called age of "incipient capitalism" in China, and the rise of commercial capitalism in the West. Historians have thus been trying to understand why China did not "progress" in a similar pattern since the last century of the Ming dynasty. In the early 21st century, however, some of the premises of the debate have come under attack. Economic historians such as Kenneth Pomeranz have begun to argue that China was technologically and economically equal to Europe until the 1750's and that the divergence was due to global conditions such as access to natural resources from the new world. Much of the debate nonetheless centers on contrast in political and economic systems between East and West. Given the causal premise that economic transformations induce social changes, which in turn have political consequences, one can understand why the rise of capitalism, an economic system in which capital is put to work to produce more capital, was somewhat of a driving force behind the rise of modern Europe. Capitalism after all can be traced in several distinct stages in Western history. Commercial capitalism was the first stage, and was associated with historical trends evident in Ming China, such as geographical discoveries, colonization, scientific innovation, and the increase in overseas trade. But in Europe, governments often protected and encouraged the burgeoning capitalist class, predominantly consisting of merchants, through governmental controls, subsidies, and monopolies, such as British East India Company. The absolutist states of the era often saw the growing potential to excise bourgeois profits to support their expanding, centralizing nation-states. This question is even more of an anomaly considering that during the last century of the Ming dynasty a genuine money economy emerged along with relatively large-scale mercantile and industrial enterprises under private as well as state ownership, such as the great textile centers of the southeast. In some respects, this question is at the center of debates pertaining to the relative decline of China in comparison with the modern West at least until the Communist revolution. Chinese Marxist historians, especially during the 1970s identified the Ming age one of "incipient capitalism," a description that seems quite reasonable, but one that does not quite explain the official downgrading of trade and increased state regulation of commerce during the Ming era. Marxian historians thus postulate that European-style mercantilism and industrialization might have evolved had it not been for the Manchu conquest and expanding European imperialism, especially after the Opium Wars. Post-modernist scholarship on China, however argues that this view is simplistic and at worst, flat out wrong. The ban on ocean going ships, it is pointed out, was intended to curb piracy and was lifted in the Mid-Ming at the strong urging of the bureaucracy who pointed out the harmful effects it was having on coastal economies. These historians, who include Jonathan Spence, Kenneth Pomeranz, and Joanna Waley-Cohen deny that China "turned inward" at all and point out that this view of the Ming Dynasty is inconsistent with the growing volume of trade and commerce that was occurring between China and southeast Asia. When the Portuguese reached India, they found a booming trade network which they then followed to China. In the 16th century Europeans started to appear on the eastern shores and founded Macao, the first European settlement in China. Other historians usually link the "premature" development of European-style mercantilism and industrialization to the decline of the Ming dynasty. The role of state support is the focus of much of this debate on the official downgrading of commerce. During the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Hongwu laid the foundations for a state uninterested in commerce and more interested in extracting revenues from the agricultural sector. With little understanding of economic processes of markets, Hongwu, backed by the Confucian scholar gentry, just accepted the Confucian viewpoint offhand that merchants were solely parasitic. In a typically Confucian viewpoint, Hongwu felt that agriculture should be the country's source of wealth and that trade was ignoble and parasitic. Perhaps this view was accentuated because of his background as a peasant. As a result, the Ming economic system emphasized agriculture, unlike that of the Sung dynasty, which had preceded the Mongols and relied on traders and merchant for revenues. The laws against the merchants and the restrictions under which the craftsmen worked, remained essentially as they had been under the Sung, but now the remaining foreign merchants of Mongol time also fell under these new laws, and their influence quickly dwindled. Although the late Ming, following contacts with the Europeans, saw the emergence of a genuine silver money economy (due, in large part, to trade with the New World via the Spanish and Portuguese), due to the attendant development of relatively large-scale mercantile and industrial enterprises under private as well as state ownership (most notably the great textile centers of the southeast), the Ming age was probably not one of "incipient capitalism" due to the predominance of the political realm over the economic. As mentioned, Hongwu laid the foundations for a state uninterested in commerce and more interested in extracting revenues from the agricultural sector. The state extracted most of its revenues from agriculture, not commerce, providing it little incentive to stimulate commerce. Although commerce was stimulated by the flow of silver from the New World, used to pay for Chinese exports of tea, silk, and ceramics, and although Chinese businessmen devised a way of mass-producing cheaper types of porcelain to satisfy European markets, comparing economic patterns to the those in Europe during the genesis of capitalism illustrate why state backing of capitalism was crucial. In Europe these early capitalists, who generated most of their profits from the buying and selling of goods, were protected and encouraged by governmental controls, subsidies, and monopolies. The bourgeoisie, after all, were a viable new taxbase for the crown in Europe but not to the same extent in China. Although Hongwu's rule saw the introduction of paper currency, capitalist development would be stifled from the beginning or at least limited from reaching its true potential. Not understanding inflation, Hongwu gave out so much paper money as rewards that by 1425 the state was forced to reintroduce copper coins given that the currency was worth 1/70 of its original value. State control (but not necessarily support) of the Chinese economy and for that matter, of society in all its aspects, remained the dominant characteristic of Chinese life in Ming times as earlier. Concentrating power would also have disastrous implications if the emperor were incompetent or uninterested in government. The key issue in this decline was the Ming political innovation of concentrating all power in the hands of the emperor. Western historians also argue that the quality of the emperors declined and this was exacerbated by the centralization of authority. As mentioned, since the era of Hongwu the emperor's role this became even more autocratic, although Hongwu necessarily continued to use what he called the Grand Secretaries to assist with the immense paperwork of the bureaucracy, which included memorials (petitions and recommendations to the throne), imperial edicts in reply, reports of various kinds, and tax records. Hongwu increasingly concentrated power in his own hands and in 1380 abolished the Imperial Secretariat, which had been the main central administrative body under past dynasties, after suppressing a plot for which he had blamed his chief minister. When the emperorship became hereditary, the Chinese recognized this and established the office of prime or chief minister. While incompetent emperors could come and go, the prime minister could guarantee a level of continuity and competence in the government. Hongwu, wishing to concentrate absolute authority in his own hands, abolished the office of prime minister and so removed the only insurance against incompetent emperors. Hongwu was succeeded by his son, but the latter was soon usurped by Cheng Zu, who ruled as the Emperor Yongle from 1403 to 1424. He was responsible for moving the capital to Beijing. Yongle was also very active and very competent as an administrator, but an array of bad precedents was established. First, although Hongwu maintained some Mongol practices, such as corporal punishment, to the consternation of the scholar elite and their insistence on rule by virtue, Yongle exceeded these bounds, executing the families of his political opponents, murdering thousands arbitrarily. Second, despite Hongwu's strong aversion to the eunuchs, encapsulated by a tablet in his palace stipulating: "Eunuchs must have nothing to do with the administration," his successors revived their informal role in the governing process. Hongwu, unlike his successors, noted the destructive role of court eunuchs under the Song, drastically reducing their numbers, forbidding them to handle documents, insisting that they remained illiterate, and liquidating those who commented on state affairs. Third, Yongle's cabinet or Grand Secretariat, would become a sort of rigidifying instrument of consolidation that became an instrument of decline. Earlier, however, more competent emperors time supervised or approved all the decisions of this council. Hongwu himself was generally regarded as a strong emperor who ushered in an energy of imperial power and effectiveness that lasted far beyond his reign, but the centralization of authority would prove detrimental under less competent rulers.

Fall of the Ming Dynasty

The fall of the Ming Dynasty was a protracted affair, its roots beginning as early as 1600 with the emergence of the Manchu state under Nurhaci. With superior artillery the Ming were able to repeatedly fight off the Manchu invaders, notably in 1623 and in 1628. However they were never able to capitalise on their victories and from 1629 onwards the Ming were wearied by a combination of internal strife and constant harassment of Northern China by the Manchu; who had turned to raiding tactics so as to avoid facing the Ming armies in open battle. Unable to attack the heart of Ming China directly, the Manchu instead bided their time, developing their own artillery and gathering allies. In 1633 they completed a conquest of Inner Mongolia, resulting in a large scale recruitment of Mongol troops into the Manchu banners, and an additional route into the Ming heartland. By 1636 the Manchu ruler Abahai was confident enough to proclaim the Imperial Qing Dynasty at Shenyang, which had fallen to the Manchu by treachery in 1621, taking the Imperial title Chongde. The end of 1637 saw the defeat and conquest of China's traditional ally Korea by a 100,000 strong Manchu army, and the Korean renunciation of the Ming dynasty. On May 26, 1644, Beijing fell to a rebel army led by Li Zicheng. Seizing their chance, the Manchus crossed the Great Wall after Ming border general Wu Sangui opened the gates at Shanhai Pass, and quickly overthrew Li's shortlived Shun Dynasty. Despite the loss of Beijing (whose weakness as an Imperial capital had been foreseen by Zhu Yuanzhang) and the death of the Emperor, Ming power was by no means destroyed. Nanjing, Fujian, Guangdong, Shanxi and Yunnan could all have been and were in fact strongholds of Ming resistance. However, the loss of central authority saw multiple pretenders for the Ming throne, unable to work together. Each bastion of resistance was individually defeated by the Qing until 1662, when the last real hopes of a Ming revival died with Zhu Youlang. (See also the relevant sections in the Qing Dynasty article)

China

to protect the north from nomadic invaders and has been rebuilt several times since.]] China () refers to a number of states and cultures that have existed and are viewed as having succeeded one another in continental East Asia, dating back at least 3,500 years. China as it exists today has been variously described in different points of view as a single civilization or multiple civilizations, as a single state or multiple states, and as a single nation or multiple nations. With one of the world's longest periods of mostly uninterrupted civilization and the world's longest continuously used written language system, China's history has been largely characterized by repeated divisions and reunifications amid alternating periods of peace and war, and violent imperial dynastic change. The country's territorial extent expanded outwards from a core area in the North China Plain, and varied according to its moving fortunes to include multiple regions of East, Northeast, and Central Asia. For centuries, Imperial China was also one of the world's most technologically advanced civilizations, and East Asia's dominant cultural influence, with an impact lasting to the present day throughout the region. By the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, China's political, economic, and military influence declined relative to growing regional power Japan and the influence of Western powers. Semi-colonialism developed by the late nineteenth century in parts of China, and the country was invaded by the Empire of Japan during World War II. The imperial system in China ended with the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC) under Sun Yat-sen in 1912; however, the next four decades of ROC rule were marred by warlord control, the Second Sino-Japanese War (WWII), and the Chinese Civil War which pitted Chinese Nationalists against the Communist forces. After its victory in the Chinese Civil War, the Communist Party of China under Mao Zedong established the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, forcing the Republic of China (ROC) to retreat to the island of Taiwan, which it had governed since the end of World War II. Since then, the ROC has maintained administrative control over Taiwan, the Pescadores, several islands off the coast of Fujian province, and some islands in the South China Sea.

Terminology

"Zhongguo"

South China Sea China is called Zhongguo in Mandarin Chinese (Simplified: 中国, Traditional: 中國; also romanized as Jhongguo or Chung-kuo), which is usually translated as "Middle Kingdom", but could also be translated as "Central State" or "Central Country". Zhong (中) means "middle" or "center" while guo (国 or 國) means "country," "kingdom," "state," or "land", referring to the claim that China stood at the centre of that society's "known world", surrounded by lesser tributary states. The term has not been used consistently throughout Chinese history, however, and carries certain cultural and political connotations both positive and negative, some ideological, and early states considered part of Chinese history are not called "Zhongguo". During the Spring and Autumn Period, it was used only to describe the states politically descended from the Western Zhou Dynasty, in the Yellow River (Huang He) valley, to the exclusion of states such as Chu and Qin. The "Chinese" thus defined their nation as culturally and politically distinct from - and as the axis mundi of surrounding nations; a concept that continued well into the Qing Dynasty, although being continually redefined while the central political influence expanded territorially, and its culture assimilated alien influences. Thus Zhongguo quickly came to include areas farther south, as the cultural and political unit (not yet a "nation" or "country" in the modern sense) spread in a southerly direction, including the Yangtze River and Pearl River systems, and by the Tang Dynasty it even included "barbarian" regimes such as the Xianbei and Xiongnu. Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet, and the island of Taiwan, over time, came to be dominated (to a greater or lesser extent) by, or officially ruled by, imperial China, and are often included as a part of Zhongguo, though acceptance or denial of such claims remains politically controversial, especially where Zhongguo means PRC. During the Han Dynasty and before, Zhongguo had three distinctive meanings: # The area around the capital or imperial domain. The Book of Poetry explicitly gives this definition. # Territories under the direct authority of the "central" authorities. The Historical Records states: "Eight mountains are famed in the empire. Three are with the Man and Yi barbarians. Five are in Zhongguo." # The area now called the North China Plain. The Sanguo Zhi records the following monologue: "If we can lead the host of Wu and Yue (the area of southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang) to oppose Zhongguo, then we should break off relations with them soon." In this sense, the term is synonymous with Hua (華) and Xia (夏). During the period of division after the fall of the Han Dynasty, the term Zhongguo was subjected to transformation as a result of the surge of nomadic peoples from the northern frontier. This was doubly so after the loss of the Yellow River valley, the cradle of Chinese civilization, to these peoples. For example, the Xianbei called their Northern Wei regime Zhongguo, contrasting it with the Southern Dynasties, which they called the Yi (夷), meaning "barbarian". The southern dynasties, for their part, recently exiled from the north, called the Northern Wei Lu (虏), meaning "criminal" or "prisoner". In this way Zhongguo came to represent political legitimacy. It was used in this manner from the tenth century onwards by the competing dynasties of Liao, Jin and Song. The term Zhongguo came to be related to geographic, cultural and political identity and less to ethnic origin. The Republic of China, as it controlled mainland China, and later, the People's Republic of China, have used Zhongguo as an entity existing theoretically to mean all the territories and peoples within their political control as well as those outside of it (people in the Republic of China on Taiwan now usually use Zhongguo to refer to the PRC and use Taiwan to refer to itself). Thus it is asserted that all 56 officially recognized ethnic groups are Zhongguo ren (中國人), or Zhongguo people. Their disparate histories are collectively the history of Zhongguo.

"China"

Song in ancient times, was the imperial capital of 13 different historical dynasties (including the Han and Tang dynasties) in China.]] English and many other languages use forms of the name China (and the prefix Sino-), which is believed to have derived from the name of the Qin dynasty that first unified the country, even though it is not completely resolved and the origins are still controversial to an extent [http://www.bartleby.com/61/80/C0298000.html]. Despite the fact that the Qin dynasty was short-lived and was often regarded as overly tyrannical it unified the written language in China and gave the supreme ruler of China the title of "Emperor", hence, the subsequent Silk Road traders would identify themselves by that name. Alternate theories on the origin of the word "China" exist. In any circumstance, the word China passed through many languages along the Silk Road before it finally reached Europe and England. The Western "China", transliterated to Shina (支那) has also been used by Japanese since the nineteenth century, and has since evolved into a derogatory term in that language. The term "China" can narrowly mean China proper, or, often, China proper and Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang, a combination essentially coterminous with the 20th and 21st century political entity China; the boundaries between these regions do not necessarily follow provincial boundaries. In many contexts, "China" is commonly used to refer to the People's Republic of China or mainland China, while "Taiwan" is used to refer to the Republic of China. Informally, in economic or business contexts, "the Greater China region" (大中華地區) refers to Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Sinologists usually use "Chinese" in a more restricted sense, more akin to the classical usage of Zhongguo, or to the meaning of the "Han ethnic group", who make up the bulk of Mainland China. In many contexts it may be more appropriate to speak of "mainland China" (中國大陸,zhōngguó dàlù in Mandarin), especially when contrasting it with other, politically different regions like Hong Kong, Macau, and territories administered by the Republic of China (Taiwan).

History

:Main articles: History of China, History of the Republic of China (1912–1949; 1949–Present on Taiwan), History of People's Republic of China (1949–Present) History of People's Republic of China China was one of the earliest centers of human civilization. Chinese civilization was also one of the few to invent writing independently, the others being ancient Mesopotamia (Sumerians), India (Indus Valley Civilization), the Mayans, and, some hold, Ancient Egypt—though it may have been learned from the Sumerians. The first dynasty according to Chinese historical sources was the Xia Dynasty. Until scientific excavations were made at early bronze-age sites at Erlitou in Henan Province, it was difficult to separate myth from reality in regard to the existence of the Xia Dynasty. But since then, archaeologists have uncovered urban sites, bronze implements, and tombs that point to the possible existence of the Xia dynasty at the same locations cited in ancient Chinese historical texts. However, the first confirmed dynasty is the Shang, who settled along the Huang He river, dating from the 18th to the 12th centuries BC. The Shang were in turn invaded by the Zhou (12th to 5th centuries BC), whose centralized authority was slowly eroded by the ceding of state-like authority to warlords ruling small states; eventually, in the Spring and Autumn period, many strong independent states, in continuous war, paid but nominal deference to the Zhou state as the Imperial centre. They were all unified under one emperor in 221 BC by Qin Shi Huang, ushering in the Qin Dynasty, the first unified centralized Chinese state. This state, however, did not last for long, as it was way too authoritarian, destroying many sources of competition for power that were also sources of good governance and development, such as scholars and intellectuals. After the fall of authoritarian Qin Dynasty in 207 BC came the Han Dynasty which lasted until 220 AD. A period of disunion followed again. In 580, China was reunited under the Sui. Under the succeeding Tang and Song dynasties, China reached its golden age. For a long period of time, especially between the 7th and 14th centuries, China was one of the most advanced civilizations in the world in technology, literature, and art. The Song Dynasty fell to the invading Mongols in 1279. The Mongols, under Kublai Khan, established the Yuan Dynasty. A peasant named Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Mongols in 1368 and founded the Ming Dynasty, which lasted until 1644. After the Ming dynasty, came the Qing (Manchu) dynasty, which lasted until the overthrow of Puyi in 1911. Oftentimes regime change was violent and strongly opposed and the ruler class needed to take special measures to ensure their rule and the loyalty of the overthrown dynasty. For example, after the foreign Qing (Manchus) conquered China, because they were ever suspicious of the Han Chinese, the Qing rulers put into effect measures aimed at preventing the absorption of the Manchus into the dominant Han Chinese population. However, these restrictions proved ineffective against the assimilation of Manchus into the Chinese identity and culture. In the 18th century, China achieved a decisive technological advantage over the peoples of Central Asia, which it had been at war with for several centuries, while simultaneously falling behind Europe in that respect. This set the stage for the 19th century, in which China adopted a defensive posture against European imperialism while itself engaging in imperialistic expansion into Central Asia. See Imperialism in Asia. However the primary cause of the decline of the Chinese empire was not European and American interference, as the ethnocentric Western historians would lead many to believe. On the contrary it was a series of internal upheavals. Most prominent of these was the Taiping Civil War which lasted from 1851 to 1862. The civil war was started by an extremist believer in a school of thought partly influenced by Christianity who believed himself to be the son of God and the younger brother of Jesus. Although the imperial forces were eventually victorious, the civil war was one of the bloodiest in human history - costing at least twenty million lives (more than the total number of fatalities in the First World War). Prior to this conflict a number of Islamic Rebellions, especially in Central Asia, had occurred. Later, a second major rebellion took place, although this latter uprising was considerably smaller than the cataclysmic Taiping Civil War. This second conflict was the Boxer Rebellion which aimed to repel Westerners. Although secretly supporting the rebels, the Empress, Ci Xi, aided foreign forces in suppressing the uprising. Ci Xi, 1949.]] In 1912, after a prolonged period of decline, the institution