中国文化概论（英文版）：Survey of Classic Chinese Culture下

CHAPTER 9 A Sumptuous
Architecture Treasure
----- A Panorama of Ancient
Chinese Architecture
? Human involvement in architecture has been
enduring from the Neolithic Age to the
present day in the long run,Over millenniums
of the Paleolithic Age,human ancestors
lived on hunting,fishery,and nomadism,
and were compelled to linger in trees and
caves in search of the shelter from natural
disasters and beasts‘ assaults,Toward the
arrival of the Neolithic Age man learned to
engage in stock raising and farming,and
settled down by digging caves and building
up simple residence with twigs and lumber,
thus commencing their architectural creation,
During over 3,000-year course of the feudalist
society Chinese ancient architecture had
gradually formulated its unique system coupled
with a considerable progress respecting urban
planning,gardening,civil housing and
construction technique,In 221 B.C having
leveled to ground the neighboring six kingdoms
the First Emperor of Chin established the first
united feudal empire in China,whereupon
mobilizing as full resources as possible in his
domain to embark upon a massive-scale
construction campaign,In the listing of high-
prestige buildings are enrolled such as the
A‘fang Palace,the imperial mausoleums,the
Great wall and Dujiangyan water-conservancy
project,succeeded by a hoard of immortal
masterpieces in various dynasties,
I,Sequence of Chinese
Ancient Architecture
Chinese architecture has approximately
coursed through the following phases,
? The primitive period and the Chin Dynasty
(before 200 B.C) was deficient in both
historical literature and tangible evidence;
though scores of the ruins of the city states
and imperial palaces have been confirmed
yet they are on the verge of further
archeological excavation.
? The Western-Eastern Han Dynasties (204
B.C-220 A.D) survived over four hundred
years,a thriving era in architectural
undertakings,when there remained an
abundance of historical records hereof and
the relics unearthed such as coffin
chambers and aisles,which exhibit a
glimpse of the frameworks.
? The Wei-Jin-Southern-Northern Dynasties
(220-590) beheld a rampant construction
campaign of palaces and Buddhist abbeys
thanks to the gigantic impetus of the
exuberating Buddhism,As regards technical
process,―Greco-Buddhist style‖,a substitute
for Han style,was absorbed into decorative
threads and engravings of flowers and trees,
birds,beasts and human figurines;
remarkable accomplishments were achieved
in rock grottoes,Buddhist pagodas and
imperial mausoleums.
? During the Sui-Tang Dynasties (590—
906) Sui was stationed in the capital
Chang‘an,assuming an extensive-scope
civil construction,The succeeding Tang,
with an aid of the political stability and
the prosperous diffusion of Buddhism
and Daoism,witnessed the full-fledged
building technology in palaces and
temples,
? After the revolt in the reign of Emperor
Gao quantities of architectural treasures
had been demolished to pieces except
the brick-stone pagodas,certain
grottoes and graveyards,The stone-
arch bridges in Sui and the wood-framed
Buddhist temples at the close of Tang
were rated as the most valuable relics
therein,The building style of Tang
appeared robust in structure and soigné
in technique,an imposing sight in the
history of Chinese architecture
? The Five Kingdoms-Song-Liao-Jurchen
period (906-1280 was paralleled by the
workmanship that took on a trend from the
intricate to the frail-looking in erection of
palaces in the mid-Song; despite them being
shattered in fires and earthquakes,Buddhist
abbeys or pagodas built in a fixed regular
and punctilious manner are equally available
everywhere in good standing in the northern
provinces,A book entitled Stereotypes in
Civil Engineering has been in reserve as a
testimony to the vicissitudes in this respect
? The Yuan-Ming-Qing Dynasties (1280-1912)
with the capital instituted in Beiping (Beijing
or Peking) saw the peerless scale in
imperial palaces and urban constructions
except with the same building stereotype as
before,The entry of Tibetan-style structures
at the turn of Ming-Qing and the entry of
Western-model matches at the decline of
Qing caused a partial abolition of the
contemporary architectural standards
whereas the Western rivals made debut in
certain Chinese metropolises,
? The Republic of China (1912-1949) was
challenged by a retarded progress hereof
while European or American-model was
exploiting the markets in some commercial
port cities,a western-oriented morale in
vogue,
? Considering stereotypes,Chinese ancient
architecture can be categorized as follows,
? ―Imperial palaces,office buildings and
official residences,
? ―Defense buildings such as city walls,city
gateways,forts,fortresses,passes,the Great
Wall and beacon towers.
? ―Memorial and decorative buildings such as
council halls,clock towers,drum towers,cross-
street pavilions,memorial gateways and
movable walls.
? ―Mausoleum construction works such as
stone watch towers,archways,cliff tomb,
sacrificial altars,and imperial tombs.
? ―Gardening projects such as imperial gardens,
official gardens,private gardens and villas.
? ―Sacrificial buildings such as Literati Temple
(Confucian Temple),Marshal Temple (Guang Yu
Temple) and ancestral halls.
? ―Bridge and water conservancy projects such as
stone bridges,wooden bridges,dams,harbors,and
wharfs
? ---Civil housing such as cave dwellings,thatched
cottages,tile-roofed houses,courtyards and principal
rooms.
? ―Religious structures such as abbeys,convents,halls,
temples in Buddhism and Daoism along with mosques
in Muslim and churches in Christianity.
? ―Recreational works such as night clubs,theatres,
dancing halls,stalls and auditoriums.
? Exclusively in Shanxi province can be seen
a host of the representative buildings in
good condition,the Founder Pagoda at
Buddhist Light Temple in Mount Wutai; the
quadrangle at Qiaojiabao in Qi county; the
honorific archway at Zhonghe street in
Heshun county; a pair of stone lions at
Daiyue Temple in Jincheng city; Zhongyang
Pavilion in Xiaoyi county;
? the tripitaka hall of Bojia Religion at Huayan
Temple in Datong city; the Nanlaoyuan
kiosk,the Duiyue Gateway,the wooden-
carved dragon at the front veranda of St,
Maria Hall,and the Sarira Stupa Pagoda at
Buddha-Adored Temple in Jin Temple in
Taiyuan city; the giant Buddhist statue and
the Sky-Flying Fairy Statue at Yungang
Grottos in Datong city,the upturned eaves
of Yungang Grottos and the Liao-Dynasty
sculptures at the tripitaka hall of Bojia
Religion at Huayan Temple in Datong city.
? Nowadays in China have remained the
following stereotypic ancient relics:
? The Great wall is esteemed an extremely
stupendous military project in the ancient
China extending eastward form Shanhai
Pass in Hebei province via Shanxi provinece,
Inner Mongolia,Shaanxi province and
Ningxia westward to Jiayu Pass in Gansu
province,an aggregate length of over
12,000 li (a li is equal to half kilometer),
The Great Wall was commenced to be
under construction in the Warring States
period as a defense screen against the
nomadic tribes or kingdoms cruising on the
northern border,which was resumed and
completed in the Chin Dynasty winding
westward from Lintao to Liaoning eastward,
The presently-standing Great Wall claims to
be the remainder of the Ming Dynasty based
upon the achievements from Chin,Han、
Northern Wei,Northern Qi via Sui and
Song to Yuan,
? The prodigious project had undergone the
unrivaled drudgery over the past 2,000
years while the stones and bricks,the soil
and wood inlaid therein condensed the
perseverance and intelligence steeped in
Chinese nation,having cemented a well-
ranging prestige of Chinese ancient
engineering technology,one of the greatest
architectural wonders across the globe.
? The Dharma King Temple Pagoda,founded
in Yongping 14,the Han Dynasty (71 A.D),
is situated in the north of Dengfeng county
in Henan province as one of the most age-
old Buddhist abbeys in China.
? The Temple consists of two sections,the
temple yard and the two-entrance pagoda
yard built up in the Ming Dynasty with a
three-partition gateway under a single-eaves
gabled roof,which has been preserved as
the earliest wooden structure therein since
the reign of Emperor Hongzhi (1488-1505)
as per the Records of Reconstruction Works
of Dharma King Temple written in Jiaging 10,
the Ming Dynasty (1531).
? On the sloping hill north of the temple yard
is located the pagoda yard wherein is
erected a 15-storey intense-eaves square
pagoda matched with three small single-
storey grave towers,The pagoda stands
40m-plus high with a flat outer wall and the
flying eaves laid with bricks layer upon layer,
a short tower raised on the top,It was
fabricated upright and elegant,with an arch
gate in the lower body and arch window
frames between the eaves on different
stories,a high-grade of the kind,
? Mount Maiji Grottoes,enrolled in the four
most prominent grottos in China,lies in the
southeast of Tianshui city in Gansu province,
The Mount protrudes upstanding as an
isolated peak in the western Chin Range,
looking like an immense wheat haystack.
? The Grottoes was excavated roughly in the
Later Chin Dynasty (384-417) and gradually
improved into a grandiose-scale complex of
stone grottos with Buddhist statuettes
installed within cubicles on the precipices
tier upon tier and the wooden-plank road
zigzagging its way round the cliff,
? Approximately in Kaiyuan 22,the Tang
Dynasty (734 A.D) there happened a
stalwart earthquake in Tianshui which
caused the collapse of the middle part of the
precipices and rendered solely left the
eastern and western grottoes,Currently the
eastern grottoes contain fifty four cubicles
and the western one hundred forty cubicles,
preserving a treasure of over 7,000 clay
sculptures or stone engravings and 1,000
m2 frescoes spread from the end of the
fourth century to the beginning of the
nineteenth century;
hereto stands a clay-sculpture Buddhist
statue as high as fifteen meters fulfilled in
the Sui Dynasty,over which rests a Han-
style attic---Seven-Buddha Pavilion and
under which are coupled two grottoes with
the stone-chiseled eaves in the four-pillar
three-partition frame,The pillars were
polished in an octagonal shape in
robustness and appropriate proportion,
? The clay sculptures and stone engravings in
Mount Maij Grottoes,no matter whether
they may appear in ―thin bone and slender
figure‖,a favorite fashion in Southern-
Northern Dynasties,or in plump and mellow
flesh,as was valued in the later centuries,
were evinced in the traditional approach of
―portraying the spirit with the image‖ or ―the
spirit cemented with the image‖,a full
incarnation of the unequaled style
respecting Chinese ancient sculptures.
? At the pinnacle of Mount Maiji is available a
9.4-meter high dagoba executed during the
throne of Emperor Wen of Northern Wei
Dynasty,Ascending there and looking afar
visitors can enjoy an overview of mountains,
valleys,and seas of green pine trees and
drifting clouds,the prime of ―Maiji Misty Rain‖
of the eight local sightseeing wonders in
Tianshui,
? The Buddhist Light Temple is situated at
Foguang village twenty five kilometers
northeast of Mount Wutai in Shanxi province,
Facing the east it was constructed on the
hillside with a spacious inner yard and a gross
of one hundred and twenty palaces,halls,
chambers and pavilions,It made appearance in
the rule of Emperor Xiao Wen of Northern Wei
Dynasty (471-499) and found expression in a
heap of the chronicles to the effect that
congregations of disciples used to dedicate
religious homage to the Buddhist shrines
therein in burning incense and praying,In
Huichang 5,the Tang Dynasty,a nation-wide
campaign was launched to abolish Buddhism,
hence came its destruction,
The current grand hall was restored in Dazhong 11,
the Tang Dynasty,in a seven-partition wide and four-
entrance deep compound with a single-eaves hip roof,
imposing corbel arches and far-reached eaves in a
stately beauty,The pillars,corbel arches,horizontal
tablets,window frames and walls were unanimously
structured in a simple design and painted vermillion
with lacquer,appearing to be antique in style,This
temple,in both structure and molding proportion,
epitomizes the features of the wooden buildings in the
Tang Dynasty holding a remarkable status in the
history of Chinese architecture as well as world
architecture,Besides the Tang-style sculptures,
murals and calligraphic works equally have shared
reputation,prized as ―four wonders‖ together with
what‘s mentioned above,
? The Suspension Temple in the south of
Hunyuan county in Shanxi province dates back
to the concluding phase of the Northern Wei
Dynasty and was reconstructed respectively in
Jurcheng,Yuan and Ming,The project is
suspended on the hillside,looking upward at
the hanging rocks and overlooking the deep
valley with a cluster of more than thirty halls,
chambers,garrets and pavilions ―strewn at
random‖ on an evergreen vertical escarpment;
being watched afar it seems to be a splendid
Heavenly jade mansion looming ahead,
? The framework therein avails itself of the
principle of structural mechanics and has
remained unimpaired over hundreds of
years in rainy erosion and disastrous earth
tremors,denoting the expertise and
dexterity involving the architectural
technology of the ancient Chinese people.
? Yungang Grottoes is located at the southern
cliff of Mount Zhouwu on the western suburb
of Datong city,inscribed onto the list of key
protection institutions of national cultural
relics,It was excavated alongside the 1000
m-long cliff,of which the cardinal grottoes
had been accomplished before the transfer of
the Northern Wei capital to Luoyang,So far
available have been fifty three cubicles
inclusive of twenty one large-sized ones
rivaled with 51,000 stone statues and
statuettes,one of the tripartite highly-valued
grottoes in China.
? Songyue Temple Pagoda as the earliest brick
tower preserved so far was mounted on the
southern side of Mount Song,six kilometers
northwest of Dengfeng county in Henan
province,in Zhengguang 4,the Northern Wei
Dynasty (523),Originally this Temple served
as an imperial sojourn palace and was
donated as a Buddhist abbey in Zhengguang
1,the reign of Emperor Xiao Ming,Bearing
an initial title Stay-Idle Temple at the outset,it
was transferred to Songyue Temple in
Renshou 2,the Sui Dynasty,It won prodigy in
scale during the period of the Northern Wei,
? Songyue Temple Pagoda is framed a
dense-eaves brick tower with a 41-m
height in a regular 12-side outer contour,
The central chamber enclosed therein is
shaped in regular octagon with 7.6 m in
width and 2.45 m in the wall thickness on
the ground floor,which is accessible
through four entrances in east,west,
north and south,Among armies of the
brick towers handed down to the present
day it stands out exclusively as a 12-side
miracle.
? The Pagoda is marked by not only the
unparalleled plane design but also the graceful
outline,This 41 m-high tower rests on a 1 m-
minus-high brick base,and the trunk solely
accounts for one third of the total height,the
remaining two thirds of the height being utilized
for the 15-layer dense eaves and the apex
inlaid with bricks tier upon tier reaching beyond,
Hereto is adopted the hollow-cylinder structure
for the brick pagoda,the interior of which is
furnished with the 9-tier eaves for installation of
wooden beams and planks,Despite no trace of
the planks left at present it pioneered for the
modern steel-concrete multi-storey cylinder
framework.
? The Incense-Accumulated Temple Pagoda
is lying at Shenheyuan southwest of Weiqu
town of Chang‘an county in Shaanxi
province,17 kilometers away from Xi‘an
proper,Erected in Shenglong 2,the reign of
Emperor Zhong (Li Xian) of Tang (706),it
was highly esteemed at that time in the
honor and for the bury of Monk Shan Dao,
the forerunner of Buddhist Sukhavati or
Pure Land Sect,So naturally it works as a
birthplace of the Sect weighing in the history
of Buddhism,
The age-old Pagoda was incipiently built up
as a 13-story brick tower with wooden
planks in a square plane,each side being
9.5 m in length; and it remains presently in
ten storeys with a 33-metre height owing to
the early damage to the apex,Its design
was engineered to be a dense-eaves
pavilion-like style,featuring an immense
height on the first storey and a meticulous
craftsmanship compared with those of the
genus,and retaining a certain degree of
worth over the history of architecture.
? As the most aged wooden framework present in
China,the grand hall of Nanchan Temple was
put up at Lijiazhuang Village of Yangbai
Township of Wutai County in Shanxi Province in
Jianzhong 3,the Tang Dynasty (782),roughly
one thousand two hundred years ago,
Constructed in a moderate scale,the grand hall
is designed as a three-partition square with no
poles inside but two full-length four-rafter
frameworks,The hip roof with flying eaves
extends far beyond while the corbel arch bears
no supplementary partition,a typified Tang-style
wooden structure in a well-balanced grace,The
majority of the poles fixed nearby appears
circular,but three of them square which are
suspected to be the original relics and are solely
found in Dunhuang frescoes,as being the first
discovery of the kind.
? The Three Pagodas in Dali lie at the foot of
Mount Cang north of Dali county in Yunnan
province,leaning westward against the
clouds-drifting Mount Cang and overlooking
the glistening calm waves in the Erhai Lake,
a resplendent natural scene,The chief
pagoda thereof was executed in the mid-
Tang or the later stage of Nanzhao Kingdom
and the other two costar pagodas in the
early Song or the rule of Dali Kingdom.
? The three pagodas are erected in tripartite,
the chief one Qianxun Pagoda standing
upright on a two-layer base,enclosed within
a ring of stone fence,With a 70-meter height
it is designed a 16–story dense-eaves
square brick tower and painted white with
lime plaster except the folded spire; on each
storey there is a cubicle in each direction,
the neighboring couple respectively for
Buddhist statuettes and for window frames
which are alternated on the neighboring
stories with a view to ventilation; and the
ground floor maintains a 13-meter height,
The lesser two pagodas tower 40 meters
high in a 10-storey dense-eaves octagon
bearing a pavilion-style contour; on each
corner is installed a pillar and on each
storey is devised a bench; all the more on
the fourth and sixth storeys are set the
corbel arches decorated with relief
sculptures in the window frames,a gold-
gilded spire resting on the stupa.
? Xi‘an Steles Forest was originally fulfilled at
the turn of Tang and Five Dynasties,In
Tianyou 1,the reign of Emperor Zhao of
Tang (904) when a governor named Han
Jian contrived to reconstruct the city of
Chang‘an in a reduced size,so Shitai Filial
Scripture and Kaicheng Stone Sutra would
be compelled to be removed to the western
chamber of the state council within the
imperial city lest they should be missing,
In Song the scriptures and other invaluable
engraved tablets were transferred to the
north of the education department (modern
location of the Steles Forest) and henceforth
a host of houses,corridors and pavilions
were under construction for the sake of
laying aside,displaying and protecting the
calligraphic treasures,
? In Jurcheng and Yuan the buildings in
question embraced further improvement,
Later in Jiaqing 34,the Ming Dynasty (1555)
when the central plain of Shaanxi province
incurred a catastrophic earthquake,the
Steles Forest was severely damaged and
then retrieved in the Wanli reign of Ming,
The wooden archway and the stone gates
were none other than Ming relics,the
engravings on which denote a typified Ming-
flavor colorful painting,
During the peaceful throne of Emperor Kang Xi
and Emperor Qian Long there was a large-scale
supplement and rearrangement of the tablets or
steles,a sight of ―In the front and the rear of the
central hall are unexceptionally re-exhibited the
new arrays of steles;‖ and the three newly–built
mansions were allocated for the preservation of
the masterpieces created in Ming and Qing,
Currently the titanic-size stone carvings in original,
such as the Six Galloping Horses at the
Mausoleum of Emperor Zhao of Tang,are
unalterably prized the national hoard.
? The Steles Forest maintains a huge stock of over
2,300 steles and epigraphs ranging from Han,
Wei,Sui,Tang,Song and Yuan to Ming and Qing,
of which some have won a lingering charm,the
Yishan Stele by Li Si (the prime minister of the
Chin Kingdom before 221 B.C),the Thousand-
Character Stele by Zhangxu and Huai Su
(calligraphers of Han),and the authentic
calligraphic works by such masters as Ou
Yangxun,Yu Shinan,Yan Zhenqin and Liu
GongQuan (writers and calligraphers of Tang),
which have served over a millennium as the
paragons for the would-be calligraphy practitioners,
? The Giant Wild Goose Stupa,located in the
enclosure of Ci‘en Temple four kilometers
beyond the Peace Gateway in Xi‘an,was
executed under the supervision of Monk
Xun Zhuang in Yonghui 3,the reign of
Emperor Gao of Tang (652) in the purpose
of disposing the Buddhist canons he had
brought back from Hindu.
? The Stupa was engineered to be of five stories and
180-chi high (3 chis equal 1 meter),During the rule of
Empress Wu Zetian it went through reconstruction
before being shattered again in the belligerent days,In
the Later Tang Dynasty (belonging to the Five
Dynasties) it was bettered into what it looks like
nowadays with seven storeys,Framed in a 64m-high
square cone it bears a 25-meter base line on each
side,brief-mounted and well-proportioned,assuming a
solemn and antique air,The trunk is equipped with the
gateways,corbel arches and horizontal inscription
tablets made of the wood-like bricks,the interior of
which is supplied with a flight of spiraling staircase
reaching the apex while on each storey there stand
four brick-inlaid arches so that visitors can take
advantage of absorbing the overview of Xi‘an proper,
Inside the two cubicles on the ground floor are
displayed two tablets,The Prelude to Sacred
Buddhism and The Prelude to Tripitaka Sacred
Buddhism of Great Tang,On the horizontal frames
of the stone gates in four directions were engraved
Buddha statuettes and Heaven Lord statuettes
and other cultural relics in the Tang Dynasty that
provide intelligibility to the contemporary
calligraphy,paintings and carvings; especially the
stretch of the halls therein carved on the horizontal
frame of the west stone gate is treasured a rarity
for the research of Tang-style architecture.
? Sakyamuni Stupa of Buddhist Palace
Temple in Yin county of Shanxi province,
abridged as the Wooden Stupa in Yin
County,is listed among the state key
institutions of preserving cultural relics,
Commenced in Qingning 2,the Liao
Dynasty (1056) it is shaped in a pavilion and
in an octagonal plane towering in total nine
storeys with a 67.31-meter height and a 30-
meter diameter at the base,It is invariably
fabricated with wooden structures and
corbel arches in precision and grandeur,
higher and more aged than any other
wooden frame towers available in China.
? The Imperial Palace of the Ming-Qing
Dynasties is situated in the downtown of
Beijing proper,age-long and majestic,
occupying a floor space of 720,000 square
meters and being the most prodigious,the
most unimpaired ancient wooden-frame
complex in existence throughout the world,
It was otherwise nicknamed the Forbidden
City in the old days,
? This architectural wonder retains a 961-
meter length in the north-south axis and a
753-meter width in the east-west axis,
enclosed by a 10 plus-meter high wall and a
52-meter wide moat; on each of the four
corners herein stands aloft an elegantly-
modeled turret in a carpenter-square plane
covered with a 72-ridge roof.
? The Forbidden City was commenced in Yongle 4,the
Ming Dynasty (1406) and virtually completed in Yongle
18 (1420),which is currently paralleled by an army of
over 9,000 chambers and rooms holding a building area
of 150,000 square meters,The overall layout conceived
therein seems compact and regular with the cardinal and
the secondary being distinctive in space,formulating a
north-south axis cutting through the Forbidden City itself
from Tiananmen Square to Mount Jin,sharply coinciding
with the axis of the ancient city site,Duanmen Gate in
Tiananmen Gateway,by way of a stone-planked imperial
path,leads to the main entrance— Meridian Gateway
which is,designed in recess,equipped with an attic
bearing a wide nine-partition front,35.6-meter high with
a hip roof and of which both wings are flanked by four
double-eaves garrets combined with a non-roof corridor,
whereupon nicknamed the Five-Phoenix Tower.
? Behind Meridian Gateway,the Forbidden City is
divided into the front part,or the Outer Court of the
past and the rear part or the Inner Court.
? The Outer Court is centered on the front three
halls (Hall of Supreme Harmony,Hall of Central
Harmony and Hall of Preserving Harmony) with
Hall of Liberal Splendor and Hall of Marshal Feats
at the two wings wherein a bench of emperors
used to exercise sovereign powers,At the outset
the three grand halls were nominated Hall of
Adoring Heaven,Hall of Divine Umbrella and Hall
of Prudent Deed; in Jiajin 41,the Ming Dynasty
(1562) they were changed to Hall of Golden
Extreme,Hall of Medium Extreme and Hall of
Establishing Extreme; and they were finalized as
the present titles in Shunzhi 2,the Qing Dynasty
(1645).
? The Gateway of Supreme Harmony appears
to be the main entrance to the foregoing
three grand halls,bearing a wide nine-
partition front and a double-eaves saddle
roof with an area of 1800 square meters,the
largest gateway in the Former Imperial
Palace,On the square south of it flows a
200 plus-meter long moat borne with five
stone bridges,Behind this Gateway is the
Outer Court.
? At the far southern end of the Outer Court is
lying Hall of Supreme Harmony,renamed
Hall of Imperial Throne,which was claimed
to be more imposing and more authoritative
than any remainders in the feudalist society,
The three grand halls were unanimously
installed on a 8.13-meter three-layer white
marble base revealing a majestic air.
? The central area of the Inner Court equally
consists of three palaces,In the south is Palace of
Heavenly Cleanness,the abode of the emperors,
which was under construction in Shunzhi 12,the
Qing Dynasty (1655),later reinforced in Kangxi 8
and restored after a fire disaster in Jiaqing 2
(1797),Palace of Earthly Tranquility pertained
exclusively to the empresses as the bedchamber
packed with two heating halls in the east and the
west,The in-between Palace of Union was put up
in the later stage as a small-sized supplement,
The two flanks in the Inner Court house the
imperial concubines,called the East-West Six
Palaces,
? Attached behind Palace of Earthly
Tranquility is the royal garden where Hall of
Imperial Serenity is centered with pavilions,
towers,chambers and lofts in rich varieties
scattered around aged trees and queer-
looking boulders and pebbles,an imperial
luxury as well as a high-brow classical folk
park.
? The architectural décor and colorful painting
in the Former Imperial Palace radiated
intricacy and sheen to such an effect that
the yellow glazed tiles,red walls,brown-red
gates,gold-tinged window frames,engraved
white-marble rails plus the azure sky and
drifting clouds comprise a wealthy,noble
and gracious space,
? An exhibition of the high-grade expertise
and creational ingenuity bestowed upon
Chinese ancient artisans,the Forbidden City
has survived not only as an invaluable
cultural heritage in China but also as a
glittering peerless pearl among the treasure
of global ancient architecture.
? Lapuneng Temple is a magnificent building of
Gelu School or Yellow Sect of Lamaism which
served in the past to be the heart of politics,
religion and culture involving the Tibetans living on
the border between Gusu province,Qinghai
province and Sichuan province,and which could
house a hierarchy of over 3,500 monks at the
height of prosperity,Lying on the northern bank of
the Daxia River within the domain of Xiahe county
of Gansu province the temple is circumscribed by
precipitous escarpments with dragon spruce and
white poplar trees clustered here and there,a
stream trickling around,It was erected in Kangxi
49,the Qing Dynasty (1710) in such a Tibetan
flavor that the chambers in tiers with wooden
windows,the upturned eaves carved in dragons,
the gold-tinted tiles and red–painted walls display
a solemn splendor,
? Lapuneng Temple is composed of six
academies (Awareness & Contemplation
Academy,Continued Upper Section Academy,
Continued Lower Section Academy,Gleeful
Vajra Academy,Retribution Academy and
Medicine Academy),sixteen Buddhist
monasteries,eighteen official residences of
high-ranking Living Buddhas,two forums for
publicizing religious scriptures and a vast
expanse of Lamas‘ apartments,as being a
colossal architectural mass with a floor space
of 80-plus hectares dotted with no less than 10,
000 chambers and halls as if a town of
moderate size.
? Awareness & Contemplation Academy proves to
be the centre therein,over which gate is hung a
horizontal inscription tablet conferred upon by
Emperor Qian Long of Qing reading as Wisdom &
Awakening Temple,The main hall maintains a 11-
partition front,a 100-meter width and a 75-meter
depth mounted with 140 pillars,some of which are
thick enough to be embraced by two persons hand
in hand,capable of accommodating 4,000 Lamas
simultaneously for praying rituals,Ornamented
with a miscellany of colorful flags in a dim light and
permeated in the smoke rising from hundreds of
buttered oil lamps,the hall seems holy and
mystical,It is covered with a hip roof installed with
the gold-galvanic bottles,sheep and wheels in a
gorgeous luster.
? Of the Buddhist monasteries Palace of
Longevity and Fortunes claims
predominance,acquiring a 20 plus-meter
height in six storeys rivaled with a gold-
gilded dragon winding through the roof and
a couple of copper lions squatting on kneels
at the entrance,an appealing sight in
grandeur.
II,Graceful Garden
Architecture
Chinese garden architecture,as one of the four
essentials in garden building,is competent for
sufficing respectively both the requirement in
architectural functions and the garden landscape
with a due concern on the incorporation of gardens
into natural environment and with the spot-
landscape structures or the near-watch scenic
spots being focused in sightseeing configuration in
order to play a finishing-touch role.
? The planning and locality-selection regarding the
garden structures took advantage of topography to
such a degree that the natural scenes and human
interests could be merged as often as not with the
involvement of poetry and paintings,As regards
the space allotment they shunned symmetry in
axis in search of the irregular or flexible layout and
the more spacious sense,In respect of the garden
building style the priority of aesthetic conception
was assumed in modeling and contour so as to fit
surroundings and local features,The exquisite
décor including guardrails,hollow windows and
grilles upgraded the beauty thereof.
? A pavilion or chamber or hall in Chinese-
style garden,in most cases,works as a
focus in the sight tableau that is linked with
a roof-covered corridor going through the
scenic-spot route,So it is not surprising that
the orientation of structures and the location
and size of windows were compelled to be
taken into consideration for the sake of
extending tourist routes.
? Out of Chinese-style gardens or parks
predominance ought to be granted to Chengde
Mountain Resort,The Full-Moon Park (the former
Summer Palace) and The Lingering Garden in
Suzhou.
? The Mountain Resort,otherwise termed Rehe
Sojourn Palace,is in the enclosure of Chengde
city of Hebei province,250 kilometers away from
Beijing,It was commenced in 1703 at the order of
Emperor Kang Xi who conceived of two aims,the
one that ―it is utilized for exercising marshal arts in
order to suppress the remote kingdoms‖ and the
other that ―it is intended to unite Manchu,Han and
other minorities to consolidate the monarchy.‖
? Availing itself of the natural landscape in Chengde,
the Mountain Resort stretches between the Lion
Range,the Martyr Range and the Vast-Kindness
Range occupying an area of 560 hectares as the
paramount royal park of Qing,It is encircled by a
string of eight temples as headed by Manjusri
Sculpture Temple,Samantabhadra Sect Temple,
inside which there is a cluster of the thirty six
scenic resorts put up in the reign of Emperor Kang
Xi and the other one of thirty six scenic spots
under the crown of Emperor Qian Long,scattered
among lakes,plains,ranges and valleys,two
thirds of which accounts for mountainous
topography,
? The Resort was constructed pursuant to the
following three conceptions,the first to convey the
emperor‘s benevolence to the multitude,the
second to formulate a plain beauty in the merger
of landscape and artificial structures and the third
to be choice specimens separately symbolizing
Mount Tai by General Vitality Palace,the south-of-
the Yangtze-River-Valley by a congeries of lakes
and the vast expanse of Mongolian grassland by
the Mongol–style tents in Ten-Thousand Garden,
The palaces served the emperors in administering
state affairs,as being disunited into the Eastern
Palace and the Main Palace unexceptionally in a
symmetry-in-axis and multi-entrance layout.
? The lake area contains seven lakes embellished
with shoals,islets,waterside pavilions,the
embankment and bridges in diverse designs,A
heap of three islets the Moonlight-River-Torrent
Islet,the Ring-of–Greenness Islet and the No-
Heat-Refreshing Islet look like three mammoth
glossy ganodermas (an alleged elixir for longevity
in the shape of mushroom) or patches of clouds
drifting over the water,The Moonlight-River-
Torrent Islet is fabricated to appreciate the
moonlight and surging river torrents at night; the
Green-Lotus Islet is furnished with the Misty-Rain
Pavilion in the mimicry of that one bearing the
same title in Jiaxing city of Zhejiang Province; the
Lesser Gold Mount in the model of the Gold Mount
in Zhenjiang city and the Water-Heart Pavilion is
designated for being connected to the
embankment.
? The plains area is divided into the Ten-
Thousand-Tree Park in the east and the
Horse-Racing Ground in the west where
Emperor Qian Long used to hold barbecues
with the chieftains of certain minorities.
? The mountain area is marked by an
unbroken view of interlaced hills,ridges and
ravines where decades of garden structures
in an antique-style stereotype were strewn
at random,of which the major portion,it is
pitiful,is no longer in existence.
? Samantabhadra Sect Temple lies to the
north of Chengde Mountain Resort with a
floor space of twenty two hectares,roomier
than the other seven,Modeled after Budala
Palace in Tibeta,it was built up against the
mountainous terrain,
? This temple used to work outright as a
prototype to represent the shrine of
Buddhism,It was executed in the throne of
Emperor Qian Long (1767-1771) with two
intentions,the one to celebrate his sixtieth
birthday and his mother‘s eightieth birthday,
the other to reconcile Dalai Lama in Tibet.
? It features the formation that the structures
lean against the terrain,notably the
mainstay Grand Red Terrace is hung on the
summit enjoying a panorama of the
landscape beyond,The sightseeing tableau
within the Temple comprises three units,the
mountain foot symbolizing the starting point
of Buddhist space,the mountain side the
turning point,the peak the climax.
? The Full-Moon Park is referred to as the
aggregate of Full-Moon Park,Long-Spring
Park and Evergreen Park,It is situated to
the east of the Summer Palace and to the
north of Beijing University holding an area of
5,200 mu (346 hectares) with a periphery of
roughly 10 kilometers,Originally it was a
300-mu royal garden in the Ming Dynasty,
which had later been awarded by Emperor
Kang Xi to his fourth son Yin Ren (Emperor
Yong Zheng),
? Having ascended the crown Emperor Young
Zheng launched a gigantic-scale
reconstruction works expanding it to 3,000
mu packed with twenty eight scenic resorts,
Emperor Qian Long as the successor
continued the project and by 1745 another
cluster of forty sightseeing spots had been
completed,
? Furthermore he ordered that the royal painters
make paintings of the genuine scenery,dependent
on which,what is more,he ever composed poems
by himself that have been circulating to the
present day,During the course of 1749-1751 he
demanded the construction of Long-Spring Park
east of the Full-Moon Park,at the northern end of
which in 1760 a host of ten buildings coupled with
fountains were erected,nominated the Western
Buildings,In 1772 a group of privately-owned
gardens was incorporated into Brilliant Spring Park
(later renamed Evergreen Park),
? In Jiaqing 14 (1809) an imperial decree was
issued that the gardens conferred before
upon the princes west of the Resort be
regained and incorporated to the thirty
scenic spots,Till then had the massive Full-
Moon Park been fundamentally
accomplished over a period of 100 years
? As an embodiment of the cream of Chinese
ancient gardening,it had congregated the
features of both local gardens in the South-
of-the-Yangtze-River-Valley and the
counterparts in the remote antiquity,
Countless craftsmen across the nation,by
taking avail of the device of ―a garden
involving gardens‖,suited measures to the
concrete conditions weaving the poetic
sentiments and painting conceptions into a
resplendent overview in a medley of natural
landscape and man-made scenes,
Earlier or later a total of 160,000-square-meter
buildings had been erected contributing to 100-
plus wood or stone bridges,140 gardening scenes
matched with a multitude of pavilions,
superstructures,halls,garrets,waterside pavilions,
towers,chambers,palaces and corridors,an
imperial resort even more spacial than Forbidden
City by 10,000 square meters,No wonder that
Full-Moon Park had shared a long-standing fame
over the global history of garden engineering,
conferred upon such titles as ―the model of all
gardens in the world‖,―the stereotype in all
gardening arts‖ and ―the Earthly paradise‖,
? It appeared not only as a grand-scale
imperial park,but as a sojourn palace for the
emperors ―listening to the briefings in quiet
surrounding‖ since there were available the
Outer Court and the Inner Court as well,In
addition to the exquisite décor and display
there had been stored a copious treasure of
rare jewels,cultural or historical relics and
books; the Long Cultural Origin Hall therein
had already been enrolled among the seven
nationwide-known royal libraries,which
worked,in fact,as a multi-purpose royal
museum,
Twice respectively in 1860 and 1900 the Full-Moon
Park incurred the demolition and pillaging by the
British-French allied troops and the Eight-Power
entente while later the ruins underwent repeatedly
the stealth and damage by local warlords,
bureaucrats,bandits,and treacherous dealers,
leaving solely a few spots of shattered columns
and walls,After the Liberation in 1949 a special
management body was instituted with a view to
safeguarding the survived buildings such as the
Genuine Hall Temple affiliated to the Evergreen
Park (the only intact building therein) and the
overall circumference,as has been embraced the
teaching specimen of patriotism.
? The Lingering Garden,founded in the Ming
Dynasty,occupies a floor space of three
hectares and was rendered open to the
public in 1953 after repair,The title of the
garden is meant the survival of the
marvelous scenery composed of peculiar-
shaped stones,slimly-pruned trees and
gracefully-engineered pavilions and
chambers from the commotion in belligerent
times.
? The Garden maintains three partitions,the
eastern one featuring the local-flavor yards
and chambers dotted with the precious
stones,the central pond surrounded by an
array of rockeries and the western stuffed
with mounds and trees; and what impresses
tourists most surprisingly is the fifty-meter
long zigzagging passage leading from the
street into the entrance of the Garden,an
outcome of ingenious application of artistic
devices
? The central pond is designed in a northwest-
southeast alignment which is cut apart by
two bridges and an islet called Penglai
(denoting Shangrila),Herein between
Spinet-Plucking Tower and Evergreen-Hill
Chamber is inserted Keting Pavilion in
homophone to ―take a break to enjoy the
surroundings‖,
On the northeast corner stands an ancient
studio entitled ―Get-Rope-to-Fetch-Water-in-
Well Place‖,as derived from a verse by a
Tang-Dynasty poet Han Yu,connoting that
one is obliged to learn before attaining
knowledge,
East of the Garden rests the Five-Peak-
Fairy Chamber rivaled with an upright pine
tree nicknamed Towering-into-Clouds Peak.
Northwest lies a cluster of rockeries with a
chamber Lively Land lingering at the
northern tip of a rivulet.
III,The Elite of Ancient
Chinese Architecture---Lu Ban
Lu Ban was born in Dinggong 3,Lu
Kingdom (507 B.C) toward the decline of the
Spring-Autumn Period,His initial name was
Shu Ban with Shu being his surname and he
was revered Master Gong Shu at the
moment,
? However among the populace he was called
Lu Ban for he had been rooted in Lu
Kingdom by kinship,and otherwise recalled
in some historical records as Gongshu Pan,
Gongshu Ban or Lu Ban.
? Lu Ban was born of an aged artisan family–
the GongShus,He had been registered in
the ancient annals as one of the earliest
skilled artisans and inventors bearing the
title ―excelling man‖ or ―perfect craftsman‖,
and esteemed as the founding father of civil
work artisans by the folk in generations.
? Toward the concluding phase of the Spring-
Autumn Period there prevailed the disputes and
uproars between the duke kingdoms while slavery
was being abolished and the feudal system was
on the rise,Talented as he proved in engineering
inventions,Lu Ban had not highly been valued in
Lu Kingdom and consequently he trudged over a
long distance to Chu Kingdom where throngs of
the elite in various trades were being employed
and well treated,and where his genius and
expertise had been exerted to the full extent,
Below are enclosed his major achievements:
? 1).The Scaling Ladder applicable in taking
cities or fortresses in the ancient battles,as
being collected in the book Gongshu from
Master Mo,―Gongshu Pan manufactured
scaling ladders for Chu Kingdom with
success.‖
? 2).The Reinforced Hook for the battle on rivers,
There is a record in Queries of Lu Kingdom from
Master Mo that,when being plunged in the battles
on rivers prior to the arrival of Lu Ban,the fighting
boats of Chu Kingdom advanced down stream and
retreat upstream that was prone to be defeated
whereas the rival of Yue Kingdom advanced
upstream and retreat downstream that was likely
to win the triumph,To reverse the unfavorable
situation Lu Ban was appointed,upon his arrival in
Chu,to make the reinforced hook capable of
securing the withdrawing opponent boats and
defending the advancing foe.
? 3).The Wooden Magpie as a flying device
made of wood and bamboo,As per Queries
of Lu Kingdom from Master Mo,―Master
Gongshu sliced bamboo and wood,
assembled them in a shape of magpie and
succeeded in driving it to fly in the air for
consecutive three days.‖
? 4).The Carpenter‘s Implements,The carpentry
craftsmanship had reached a fairly high degree
during the Spring-Autumn & Warring-States period,
Lu Ban and his fellow carpenters could not
manage without the implements regarding the
erection of houses and bridges,As demonstrated
in Lilou from Mencius,‖ Master Gongshu was so
resourceful that frameworks,square or circular,
failed to be made without recourse to the
compasses and squares.‖ It claims to be true that
the carpenter‘s square in wide use today was
probably based upon ―ju‖ invented by Lu Ban,
which is venerated by modern carpenters as Lu
Ban‘s Rule.
?,
? 5).The making of the graveyard for the Ji
family,The Book of Rites offered a record
that he made an enormous tomb for Master
Ji Kang‘s mother.
? By his strenuous endeavor,Lu Ban had
extended his marked dedication to Chinese
ancient technology in respect of architecture,
civil engineering and apparatus
CHAPTER 10
MagicalMedicine Benefiting
Human Beings
—The Long-Standing and Well-Established
Chinese Medicine
―Though recipes not known to all,
Doctors should keep in mind conscience;
On duty to cure the patients,
You never should sell it for pence.‖
? The Martial Emperor or Emperor Wu of Han
clung to a blind worship in deities in his 50
plus-year reign,conniving at the alchemists
such as Li Shaojun in pursuit of the elixir or
panacea who had been ultimately involved in
medicine,pharmacy and hygiene,The
application of meteorology and the monitoring
devices concerned had prompted the
advancement of the scientific interpretation of
natural phenomena,the strength-directed
doctrine and pathogeny science;
? on the other hand crop planting,
mulberry and silkworm raising with
resort to hot springs and green houses
had effected a crucial repercussion over
pharmacy while mathematics,physics
and alchemy had more or less
forwarded the endless source to the
medical theories,Chinese medicine has
devoted its share in immensity to
Chinese nation as well as all human
beings.
? This ancient ditty clearly discloses the
quintessence of Chinese medicine.
? China is enrolled among the incipient birthplaces
of human beings,At the dawn of Chinese
civilization 4,000 years ago the medicine and
hygiene,particularly the recognition of human
body and its diagnosis and cure had become a
public concern while the primeval medical science
was taking root,During the Western Han Dynasty
(206 B.C-8 A.D) there occurred an official
campaign in rearrangement and annotation of
ancient canons and literatures resulting in
―Classics Study‖,which had exercised a well-
ranging impetus upon the course of Chinese
medicine and pharmacy.
I,The Evolving Course of
Chinese Medicine
Chinese medicine is prized as one of the
five traditional medical schools in the
ancient world and the unique one that has
been unalterably circulating in force and
persistently evolving till the present day,full
of vim and vigor.
? The Chin-Han Dynasties worked to inherit
the pioneering medicine and usher in the
succeeding creations over the history of
Chinese medicine,having witnessed the
idea of analyzing and differentiating
pathological conditions,the remarkable
progress in clinical cure,the preliminary
outcome of the medicament-recipe system
and the early records of medical cases,
? By means of the Treatise on Typhoid,Zhang
Zhongjing,a prominent doctor in the Eastern
Han Dynasty,established the rudimentary
specifications of determining cure based on
differential symptoms and formulated the
system of treatment approaches integrated
with medical recipes depending upon the six
hollow organs (gallbladder,stomach,small
intestine,large intestine,bladder and the
three
? visceral cavities) and the five internal organs
(heart,liver,spleen,lung and kidney),therefore
reaffirming the fundamental theories governing the
four methods of diagnosis,the eight-principle
syndrome,viscera,the body channels and
collaterals,the three-pathogeny theory and the
eight therapeutic approaches,The Treatise on
Typhoid by Doctor Zhang,which proved highly
effective in curing chills and fevers and the internal
diseases,has ever since been esteemed a
medical scripture by generations of Chinese
doctors,Hua Tuo,another medical genius,
pioneered in surgical operations by an anesthetic
herb powder enlightening the upcoming surgeons
in regard to the medical academic research,
? The Medical Herbal Canon of Shen Nong claimed
to be a conglomerate of the materia medica
accumulated until the Eastern Han Dynasty,
exercising a far-reaching influence on the study of
medical herbs and recipes to come,And the
recipes and the relevant theoretical conclusions
taken down in the Treatise on Typhoid have been
revered the forerunner of all the recipes in the long
run,The early records of medical cases involved
in the patients‘ private information respecting
name,identity,birthplace,sex,the definition of
disease,the pathogeny of disease,the pulse
condition,the diagnosis,the cure (recipes,
acupuncture,moxibustion,gargles etc.) and the
precaution,an indicator of unsophisticated
academic morale in the ancient times,
? During the Three Kingdoms-Six Dynasties period,
being confronted to the century-long warfare,the
social disturbance and the amalgamation of varied
nationalities in culture and kinship,scores of
practitioners secured more opportunities in
treating the diseased,thus facilitating the rapid
development of clinical medicine with the newly-
recorded inventions in diagnostics and
therapeutics,This period saw the publication of
nearly 200 editions of medical works concerning
internal medicine,surgery,orthopedics,obstetrics,
gynecology,paediatrics and the first-aid,A
whopping progress had been obtained in
diagnostics and therapeutics,
? For instance,the Pulse Canon written by Wang
Shuhe and the Jiayi Canon of Acupuncture &
Moxibustion compiled by Huangpu Bi acquired
predominance of the sort,A pile of over seventy
works had been granted to materia medica,the
most impressive of the type being the Aggregate
Annotation to the Herbal Canon by Tao Hongjing
in the Southern-Northern Dynasties on a basis of
the already-made accomplishments thereof and
with reference to the Supplementary Records of
Renowned Practitioners,
? The Annotation not only resulted in a multi-fold
increase in herb descriptions,the specific
regulations on dosage,measurement and recipes,
but also broke up a new horizon for categorization
of medical herbs,giving rise to a millennium-long
repercussion,The Frying & Moxibustion of Medical
Herbs of Mister Lei written by Lei Xue claimed to
be the pioneering work in that matter,Triggered by
the metaphysical philosophy in the phase,
alchemy gained momentum both leading to many
a new disease and favoring the maturity of materia
medica.
? Chinese medicine became full-fledged in the Sui-
Tang Dynasties owing to the thriving economy and
culture,the stupendous progress in science and
technology,the frequent exchange between China
and foreign countries,and the emphasized
concern derived from the royal authorities,The
medical achievements in the preceding centuries
had been overall concluded while the effective
recipes arising from the contemporary doctors,the
folks and the alien peoples were being assimilated
so as to pave the way for its furtherance in theory
and practice,
? The academic research in pharmacy,disease cure
and prevention tended to be more exquisite and to
be aimed at higher efficiency,Fueled by the
prosperity of Tang,a comparably complete system
of medical education was founded ranging from
the royal-level to the local level whereas flocks of
overseas students were enrolled,whereupon
spurring on the comprehensive proficiency in
medicine to the extreme and laying down a
cornerstone for the successive medical education,
The imperial court issued the Newly Revised
Herbal Canon as a new code of materia medica in
the new epoch and a textbook for the medical
schools and academies,
? The Song Dynasty was marked by the
invention and utilization of gunpowder,
compass and letterpress printing while an
unprecedented concern from the emperors
was conferred upon the medicine,Under
such circumstances a moderate mob of
scholar-officials and generals equally paid
attention to the annotation and revision of
the ancient medical literature; for example,
Su Shi and Shen kuo,a literary tycoon and
a celebrated scientist,retained a private
collection of the medical treatises.
? The Liao-Western Xia-Jurcheng-Yuan
Dynasties were characterized by the
supremacy of Chinese minorities over
sovereignty that either employed directly the
Han-nationality medicine or made
innovations by depending upon their own
medicine and exploiting the former,a
distingue period over the history of Chinese
medicine.
? The Ming Dynasty remained to be a
politically-stable and economically-advanced
stage in Chinese history when the capitalist
production relationship spouted in the mid-
late time,the commercial-oriented economy
pushing ahead the overseas exchange,
sciences,technology and culture,
henceforth arrived the updated medicine,
Since Buddhism was extolled and the filial
piety advocated fervently the medicine came
to be counted as an important means to
fulfill the duty,
? There prevailed a slogan that goes like ―If
one cannot ascend to a devoted minister,he
might as well be an excellent doctor.‖ It was
made imperative that the intelligentsia who
had failed in the imperial service
examination flocked to the medical
profession,thus upgrading the educational
qualities and knowledgeable structure of the
practitioners and bettering the situation that
the surgeons in the preceding Song had
been far from being well bred and literate,
And also their social status was moderately
raised,
? Another advantage of the improved
transportation and communication rendered
more possibilities that doctors could
congregate in metropolises and travel
around to pursue the masters and to
conduct investigations among the folks in
the comparatively stable social order,
forwarding the favorable conditions both for
the accumulation and transmission of
medical experiences and for the
advancement of the medical theories,
Such a historic phase had created a host of
medical aristocratic families wherein either the son
was in succession to the father or the son-in-law
inherited the knack from the father-in-law,having
promoted the diversification in medicine to a great
extent,For instance,Chen Sicheng,the author of
the Secret Records of Syphilis,had been born of
an eight-generation medical family,A masterpiece
was as often as not initiated by the father,and
afterwards finalized by the son or even the
grandson,which claimed to be specialized and
authoritative in certain field,and so prone to be
acknowledged extensively,
? Creating novelty seemed to be the
mainstream of the medical science in Ming,
as illuminated by the two stars,On
Pestilence by Wu Youxing and the Syllabus
of Medical Herbs by Li Shizhen,The
knowledge of smallpox and the execution of
human pox vaccination became the most
impressive event of all,which had so
strikingly shocked the circle of world
medicine that Sir William Jenner was
enlightened three hundred years later in
inventing the cowpox vaccination,a new era
for immunity,
? The comprehensiveness of the medicine as
an applied science had been unfolded via a
long-standing stock of practitioners‘
experiences and a specialized progress,
Affected intensely by Chinese traditional
culture and thinking style,deepened with the
aid of the classical medical theories and
innovated by generalizing the clinical cases,
the Ming doctors had eventually forged a
medical science with unequaled theoretical
system.
? The early-mid period in the Qing Dynasty
was testified by the maturity and perfection
attained after a long run of sedimentation
and examination regarding the overall
medical conclusions,the clinical diagnostics
and therapeutics in differential departments,
as,in view of the miraculous effect at the
moment,excelled somewhat the remaining
peers around the globe,
? It deserves a special attention that the tepid-
disease school played a positive role in
curing epidemic pyreticosis,diminishing
death rate and preventing diseases; all the
more the all-round implementation of the
human pox vaccination against smallpox
had sparkled over the Chinese and global
medicine history.
II,Medical Theories in Ancient
China
Chinese medicine is prized as one of the five
traditional medical schools in the ancient
world and the unique one that has been
unalterably circulating in force and
persistently evolving till the present day,full
of vim and vigor.
? The Chin-Han Dynasties worked to inherit
the pioneering medicine and usher in the
succeeding creations over the history of
Chinese medicine,having witnessed the
idea of analyzing and differentiating
pathological conditions,the remarkable
progress in clinical cure,the preliminary
outcome of the medicament-recipe system
and the early records of medical cases,
By means of the Treatise on Typhoid,Zhang
Zhongjing,a prominent doctor in the Eastern
Han Dynasty,established the rudimentary
specifications of determining cure based on
differential symptoms and formulated the
system of treatment approaches integrated
with medical recipes depending upon the six
hollow organs (gallbladder,stomach,small
intestine,large intestine,bladder and the
three
? As presented aforesaid the medical theories
rooted in the ancient China had claimed its own
independent system through a historical course
ranging from embryo to maturity,from simplicity to
complication and from chaos to integrity,Whereas
there had existed some concepts and simple
theoretic justification concerned in the Spring-
Autumn period,the late-arriving The Yellow
Emperor‘s Canon of Internal Medicine marked the
birth of the systematic Chinese medicine with an
assistance from the practitioners‘ experiences and
natural philosophy prevalent in the Warring States
period,
? Upon the completion of the system hereof,
thousands of hundreds of medical prodigies
sprang up and manifold relevant schools or
doctrines coincided with an ocean of
medical books and treatises in that matter
that have to the present worked as a
guidance to the current clinical practice,
manifesting the obvious scientific trait of
Chinese medicine system.
? As presented aforesaid the medical theories
rooted in the ancient China had claimed its own
independent system through a historical course
ranging from embryo to maturity,from simplicity to
complication and from chaos to integrity,Whereas
there had existed some concepts and simple
theoretic justification concerned in the Spring-
Autumn period,the late-arriving The Yellow
Emperor‘s Canon of Internal Medicine marked the
birth of the systematic Chinese medicine with an
assistance from the practitioners‘ experiences and
natural philosophy prevalent in the Warring States
period,
? Upon the completion of the system hereof,
thousands of hundreds of medical prodigies
sprang up and manifold relevant schools or
doctrines coincided with an ocean of
medical books and treatises in that matter
that have to the present worked as a
guidance to the current clinical practice,
manifesting the obvious scientific trait of
Chinese medicine system.
? The Canon argues that the ―substance‖ serves to be the
essence of the universe and man appears to be a
component therein,whereupon Chinese medical theory
was based on the plain materialism just as life science is
dependent upon the substantive,as being an indicator of
the scientific intension enclosed therein,The ancient
philosophical concepts ―Qi‖ and ―Jingqi‖ were borrowed as
the rudimentary units of the substance in the medical
system; so naturally ―Man is born of Qi concealed in
Heaven and Earth,and live on the changing seasons.‖(On
Precious Life and Human Body from Blank Queries) ―The
substance in Heaven is Qi; the substance in Earth makes
form; only when form and Qi are fused do all things exist.‖
(The Records of Universe) In this sense the things on the
globe seem to be a union of the unbroken Qi and the
intermittent form,
? The Canon contends that the world is
substantive,―In Heaven and Earth all things
can live and grow‖ and ―Unless all things
disappear,life will not fade.‖,thus
presenting a philosophical category
―substance‖ that made up of the major
portion of Chinese ancient philosophy.( On
Regulating Mind by Four Kinds of Qi from
Blank Queries)
? Availing itself of such viewpoints as ―Qi‖ and ―Jinqi‖,the
Canon was capable of reaffirming physiology and
pathology concerning diagnostics and therapeutics to the
effect that the medical theoretical system had been set up
on the cornerstone of the ancient plain materialism,
Concurrently by means of ―Yin-yang‖ and Five Elements,
the Canon advocates that the unity of opposites permeated
in any contradictions claims to be the concluding law of the
movement and variation of the universe; the antithesis,the
co-existence,the co-progress and the co-transfer
embedded in ―Yin-yang‖ were also employed in analyzing
and differentiating pathological condition,―From Yin and
Yang can be inferred the cases in decade,hundred,
thousand,million and up to the innumerable; however the
core remains in one.‖(Yin-yang in Antithesis from Blank
Queries)
? At any rate the Canon,though wrapped in
some flaws,tendered an academic potential
for the upcoming practitioners,Preceded by
it,manifold medical schools competed with
one another in such a manner that Chinese
medicine was oriented to the further degree.
? Chinese medical schools,according to
some scholars,were approximately
categorized as the Eight Typhoid Masters
Prior to the Song-Jurcheng Dynasties,the
Three Typhoid Schools in the Ming-Qing
Dynasties,Hejian School,Yishui School,the
Seasonal-Febrile-Disease School and
Huitong School.
? As a pioneering group of the medical elite,the
Eight Typhoid Masters comprised Wang Shuhe in
Jin (4th century),Sun Simiao in Tang,Han Dihe,
Zhu Hong,Pang Anshi,Xu Shuwei and Guo Yong
in Song and Cheng Wuji in Jurcheng,who had
expounded from distinctive views the essence in
analyzing and differentiating pathological
conditions (ADPC) pervaded in the Treatise on
Typhoid,assuming such a massive impact upon
the later doctors that they have unanimously been
recognized as an academic faculty over the history
of Chinese medicine.
? The Three Typhoid School in Ming and Qing
is referred to as the Wrong-Edition-Revised
School (WERS),the Old-Edition-Retained-
School (OERS) and the Analyzing-
Differentiating-Pathological-Condition
School (ADPCS),WERS held that there had
been a certain degree of wronged remarks
in the Treatise and that it should be revised
with the latest textual research,as typically
sponsored by Fang Youzhi and Yu Jiayan at
the turn of Ming and Qing.
? OERS maintained that the millennium-old
Treatise should be retained intact and
authoritative who,in contrast to WERS,lent
an affirming positive support to Wang Shuhe
and Cheng Wuji who had early reedited and
furnished the incipient annotation to the
Treatise respectively,By view of a diverse
standpoint,ADPCS embarked upon its
brand-new research of the Treatise.
? Hejian School in Song,molded in the
specific historic background and social
environment,was characterized at the
outset by the discovery of the pathology
governing high-fever disease and the adroit
distribution of chilly-natured herbs; in the
later course by the secret recipes for
countering ailment-inflicting factors and
nourishing body fluid and blood,out of which
arose the two sub-schools CAIFS and
NBFBS,
? Packed with new breakthroughs both in
theoretical presentation and clinical
treatment,it had prompted the pathological
study paving a way for the emergence of the
Hot-Fever School of Ming and Qing,and
being one of the most influential schools
over the history of Chinese medicine
research.
? Yishui School,relying on the scrutiny of the
externally-incurred hot fevers by the
precedent doctors,became full-grown in
Ming and Qing,and gradually crumbled into
the Pestilence School and the Hot–Fever
School,the former of which majored in the
exploration of pestilent maladies and
dedicated immensity to the establishment of
the pestilence theory,and the latter of which
concentrated on the common hot-fever
ailments (inclusive of the damp-fever ones),
? Both of the Schools hereof had played a
vital role in separating the theory of the
externally-incurred fevers from the Treatise
on Typhoid,exercising a far-reaching
reverberation on the evolution of Chinese
medicine.
III,Chinese Doctors with
Lasting Reputation
The long-ranged Chinese medicine has
produced a colossal throng of well-famed
medical geniuses and a library of medical
masterpieces.
? Bian Xi,living in Qi Kingdom at the start of the
Warring States period,learned with diligence and
formally became apprentice to Master Chang
Sang,an eminent doctor of the day,with an open
mind,having acquired a wide scope of the
techniques concerned,notably pulse palpation,He
used to travel round the different kingdoms and
had formulated a set of diagnostic methods (four
procedures,observation,auscultation & smelling,
interrogation and pulse feeling) by generalizing the
practitioners‘ experiences,which has invariably
been in effect in the present day,
an illustrious contribution to the growth of Chinese
medicine,It was allegedly true that he examined
the patient scrupulously and offered a so effective
prescription that the patient would get recovered
within the shortest possible time,Gradually he
obtained an increasing prestige throughout Cathay
in such a manner that he was later conferred upon
the title of Bian Xi (a legendary medical genius in
the primitive age under the authority of the Yellow
Emperor) whereas his real name was totally
neglected.
? Hua Tuo,born in Qiao county (modern Bozhou of
Anhui province) at the decline of the Eastern Han
Dynasty,was engrossed in all aspects of medicine,
especially expert at surgical operations,venerated
as the ―Holy Surgeon‖ and ―Forerunner of Surgery‖,
In childhood and youth he enjoyed reading
immensely and traveled around Xuzhou to pursue
studies before being well proficient in Chinese
classics and those for preserving health,Earlier or
later he had been recommended or conscripted to
be an imperial official separately by the prime
minister Chen Gui and the general commander of
the army Huang Wan of his native land Pei
Kingdom,which met his tactful refusal,
As he had been determined to succour the
community by healing the malady-stricken masses,
so he migrated through Anhui,Jiangsu,
Shandong,Henan and other provinces winning
over a public reverence,Cao Cao,the last prime
minister of the Eastern Han,had suffered long
from the unknown headache that other
practitioners had no alternatives to handle before
Hua Tuo was called on,Upon being exercised an
acupuncture needle,the pain was terminated
immediately,Cao required Hua Tuo to serve him
exclusively,but the doctor returned home under a
pretext and made no more appearance,Subjected
to Cao‘s outrage the medical master was
murdered.
? Hua Tuo exhibited his paramount talent in
surgery,By inventing the anesthetic herb
power he succeeded in executing an
abdomen operation in general anesthesia,
The procedure he took up is as follows,At
first the patient was advised to swallow the
anesthetic powder with wine; when he or
she lost sense as a drunkard the abdomen
was cut open in order that he could operate
on the tumor or the impaired intestines or
stomach;
after being washed up the cut was sewn and
distributed with a sort of medical ointment; a week
later it would heal up and the patient would get
recovered around a month,Hua Tuo pioneered in
the invention of general anesthesia and anesthetic
powder in the third century A.D,who had been
roughly 1,600 years earlier than the Western
rivals with ether or ―laughing matter‖ in the same
case,It is made conspicuous that Hua Tuo stood
out as the foremost surgeon both in China and
throughout the world to perform abdomen
operations in general anesthesia.
? Born of a noble family in Gaoping county in the
Western Jin Dynasty,Wang Shuhe had been well
educated since the very young age,He came to
take interest in medicine under the influence of
Wei Xun,a disciple of Zhang Zhongjing (the
author of The Treatise of Typhoid),afterwards
became resolved to be engaged in the medical
field,He assumed an earnest attempt to scrutinize
the medical masterpieces and consult the veteran
practitioners in a reserved manner,courting the
merits from among the multitude and meliorating
his expertise,
Eventually he gained his fame,In 208 A.D
when Cao Cao drove south to fight against
Liu Biao stationed in JinZhou of Hubei
Province,Wang was assigned to be the
military doctor under Cao,Later on he
served as a royal doctor and finally was
promoted as the chief of the royal medical
staff,His preponderant feat is claimed to be
the Canon of Pulse Palpation,the
pioneering work of the kind available in
China.
? A preeminent pharmacist in the Tang
Dynasty,Sun Simiao was highly gifted in
reciting a 1,000-character essay daily at the
age of seven and well versed in a medley of
classics at twenty,embraced as the child
prodigy in his day,However he was inflicted
on physical weaknesses and afterwards his
family went bankrupt due to the involvement
in debt for his treatment,Henceforth he
made up his mind to be engrossed in
studying medicine and to succor the
distressed,
Being devoted to the occupation he had acquired a
widespread prestige in adolescence while crowds
of patients nearby and far flocked to him,He
elbowed his way into the sources of Chinese
medicine,digesting the nourishment from the
ancient canons as quoted being Blank Queries,
Crux of Medicine,Jiayi Canon of Acupuncture and
Moxibustion,Herbal Canon of Shen Nong,
Treatise on Typhoid,Canon of Pulse Palpation
and so on so forth,to the effect that ―While the
white hair had crept over my head I did not
abandon reading the professional scriptures.‖
? Otherwise he directed attention to the alien or Hindu
medicine,Preceded by years of strenuous exploration Sun
Simiao had approached a fairly high proficiency in medical
attainments,Considering ―the vast ocean of the classics
and recipes,‖ which seemed troublesome to retrieve in
case of emergency,he was resolved to compile a concise
―medical handbook‖ which,through decades of hardships,
went to press in 652 A.D as the primary pharmaceutical
masterpiece—Essentials of Thousand Recipes in
Emergency,After the demise he was revered as
―Pharmacy King‖ and Mount Wutai was re-entitled Mount
Pharmacy King,where he had lived in seclusion and where
a memorial temple with his statue was built up in honor of
his high-brow personality and gigantic contribution to
Chinese medicine.
? Li Shizhen,born in Qi Zhou (modern Qichun
county of Hubei province) in the Ming
Dynasty,is prized a predominant pharmacist
both in China and across the world who was
well prestigious for his pharmaceutical
encyclopedia---Syllabus of Medical Herbs,
Bred in a century-old medical family Li
aspired to undertake the profession as his
elder generations,But the Li family more
often than not incurred insults from the local
tyrants and evil gentry since the folk doctors
at the time held a humble status,
It was no wonder that his father decided the
son be preoccupied in the routine imperial
service examination so as to start up in
career someday,However Li was
unfortunate enough to have failed quite a
few times,In turn he had recourse to his
father for permission to be steeped in the
ancestral profession,Till in his thirties Li had
shared a high renown in the home land,and
inaugurated to ponder over the scheme of
the Syllabus of Medical Herbs at the age of
thirty five,
? To make certain of the shapes,properties
and efficacies of herbs he was adventurous
resolutely to hold a bamboo basket on back
in the company of his son and a disciple
named Pang Kuang,trekking through the
countless wild mountains and deep valleys
scattered across the country,
It was after twenty seven years of
painstaking efforts and arduous labor that Li
Shizhen had eventually fulfilled the
encyclopedia-like pharmaceutical canon
with three revisions of the manuscript,which
not only made a crucial dedication to
Chinese pharmacy,but exercised a wide-
ranging reverberation upon the global
pharmacy,botany,zoology,mineralogy and
chemistry.
? Among a huge swarm of well-known
medical talents was enrolled Wang Qingren,
a practitioner of novelty in the Qing Dynasty,
who affiliated due concern to anatomy
conducting autopsy by himself and
elucidating it with illustrations,and who
lighted upon some brilliant ideas in respect
of clinical diagnoses and created a series of
recipes as regards enriching vital energy
and dredging extravasated blood so as to
invigorate the circulation of blood,
His representative work,the 30,000 -character
Corrections in Medical Circle furnished twenty five
illustrations and thirty one himself-invented recipes
in two volumes,The first volume offers an account
of his postmortem and observations hereof and
rectifies the ancients‘ errors in anatomy of viscera
and their physiological functions while clarifying
such an academic proposition that ―when
performing diagnoses,doctors should scrutinize
the viscera of patients.‖ and that ―The three cruxes
in treatment lie in awareness of vital energy and
blood.‖ The second volume articulates his
theoretical cognition of clinical medicine and
diagnostic experiences by applying the traditional
vital-energy-blood doctrine governing over fifty
maladies such as hemiplegia,
? facial paralysis,infantile polio,vomiting,
convulsion,chickenpox,sterility,dystocia,insanity,
and epilepsy,Furthermore the second volume
attaches biased importance to his own inventions
intended to invigorate the circulation of blood and
dredge extravasated blood,for example,the
masculine-nourished energy-returning recipe,the
vomiting-stopped recipe,the vital-energy-retained
recipe,the Yang-assisted itch-stopped recipe,the
first-aid-life-saved recipe,the root-of-
membranous-mile-vetch-anti-apoplexy recipe,the
antitote-blood-invigorated recipe,the channels-
directed-blood-invigorated recipe and so on,
Despite its title Corrections in Medical Circle,it is
virtually a gifted treatise respecting the medical
theories on treatment of blood stasis.
? At any rate Wang Qingren never failed to be
commended as an outstanding medical expert
stuffed with courage and innovation though,owing
to the limited conditions in his time,there existed a
lot of errors and misunderstandings with regard to
his anatomy records of postmortem,Nevertheless
he had inherited and creatively developed Chinese
medicine and pharmacy,particularly obtained an
acute insight into the cure of dredging
extravasated blood and invigorating its circulation
both in theory and in practice,respected as the
master therein,So far his research in blood stasis
has drawn a general concern from among the
professional circle at home and overseas.
? Appendix The First-Rate Masterpieces in
Chinese Medicine
? —The largest-size medicine work in China,
The Synopsis of Medicine
? —The largest-size alchemist work,The
Public-Succored Recipes
? —The paramount female doctor in the
ancient China,Zeng Zi
? —The first epidemic work,On Pestilence
? —The first pathogeny work,On
Pathogens of Diseases
? —The earliest work of acupuncture &
moxibustion in the world,JiaYi Canon of
Acupuncture & Moxibustion
? —The earliest work of medical herbs in the
world,Herbal Canon of Shen Nong
? —The first medicine masterpiece in the
world,A Treatise on Typhoid
? —The first palpation work in the world,
Palpation Canon
? —The first forensic medicine work in the
world,Anthology of Redressing Injustice
? — The first paediatrics work in the world,
Cruxes of Child Symptoms in Herbs
? The ―Oriental pharmaceutical encyclopedia‖,
Compendium of Matera Medica,
CHAPTER 11 ―External Exercise for Bones and
Muscles,Internal Discipline for a Breath of
Vitality‖
—Chinese Martial Arts to Display
Human Vitality
? Chinese martial arts,re-nominated as the
national arts,pertain to the traditional
sporting events in China which,in accord
with certain agreed-upon regulations,
incorporate such strokes as kicking,hitting,
wrestling,seizing,tumbling,striking,
wedging and stabbing into serial or single
exercises,barehanded or with apparatus.
? Chinese martial arts trace back to the
primeval society when man availed himself
of sticks,bars and other sorts of tools to
struggle against beasts; further he
undertook the making of more destructive
weaponry in pursuit of fortunes,During the
earlier periods the martial arts were
exclusively exercised in the army and later
laggardly imparted among the folks,
The Ming Dynasty marked a progressive phase
wherein a miscellany of schools involving martial
expertise,boxing and apparatus was thriving,all
the more in theoretical conclusions as highlighted
by Jinong Faggot Book,On Martial Arts,The
Remnant Arts After Farming,which,to a varying
degree,registered the course of the different
schools,the nominations and the characteristics of
sporting events,some affixed with ballads and
drawings,being an indispensable reference to the
forthcoming research into the martial arts.
? The modern martial arts cover three
categories,the boxing (Long Boxing,
Shadow Boxing,South Boxing,Body Boxing,
Eight-Diagram Boxing and so forth),the
armed combating (with long weapons,short
weapons and soft ones) and the sparring
(barehanded and/or with apparatus),They
have been created and advocated by
Chinese descendants of hundreds of
generations,being handed down as an
inestimable cultural legacy.
I,The Marrow in Chinese
Martial Arts
By vigorous,graceful and somewhat laborious
movements,Chinese martial arts provide
exercisers with enjoyment of beauty and
strength as well as possibilities to constitute
strong physique through sustainable exercises,
? In this term ―martial‖ is referred to as ―hitting‖
and ―arts‖ the methods or skills; hence the
marrow ingrained therein exists in a
progression of jumping,falling,crossing,
looping the loop,retreating,shaking,turning,
kicking,hitting,wrestling and capturing with
fairly pragmatic values.
? The strokes in progression at an
accelerating rate are counted the decisive
resort when confronting foes,The positions
of hands,legs and body in those strokes
weigh much in beating down rivals in a
twinkling without the slightest error or vice
versa,It is not astounding that Chinese
martial arts place priority on the thorough
apprehension of the competing knack in a
flash and its adroit employment.
? To attain the true essence imbedded in the
martial arts,the guidance by master-hand
coaches and conscientious practice are
required to such a degree that ―it is the
realm of dexterity that you fail to be
conscious of the boxing when exercising it‖,
a high degree of proficiency that throngs of
exercisers have long aspired earnestly,
? In the light of wrestling,the martial arts can
be rated in three grades,the inferior one
with no command of the skills,the middle-
brow with a pragmatic or moderate
command and the senior one with a high
degree of dexterity in conquering opponents,
A multitude of exercisers aspire to the senior
grade at the cost of life-time energy
? Out of Chinese martial arts the boxing is claimed
to be imperative to all exercisers,So far there has
been a colossal cluster of 192 boxing schools
charged with the detailed historical sources,
comparatively complete theoretical and technical
systems,The schools hereof were categorized
respectively in compliance with the mount (e.g,
Shaoling School at Mount Song and Wudang
School at Mount Wudang),the family kinship and
the region (e.g,the Yangtze River System and the
Yellow River System),
? The elementary genera register such a
lengthy listing,Long Boxing,Shadow Boxing,
South Boxing,Form-Meaning Boxing,Eight-
Diagram Palm,Backbone Boxing,Fanzi
Boxing,Ground Boxing,Wedge-Bond
Boxing,Grasshopper-Move Boxing,Eight-
Extreme Boxing,Monkey Boxing,Drunkard
Boxing,Hua Boxing,Fancy Boxing,Hawk-
Claw Boxing,Sponge Boxing,Six-Harmony
Boxing,Snake Boxing,Intention Boxing,
Teenager Boxing,Zha Boxing and so on so
forth.
? The Eight-Trigram Palm,originally named
―Turning Palm‖,otherwise called ―Body-
Moving Eight-Trigram Palm‖ or ―Eight-
Trigram-Interlocked-Rings Palm‖,features
the changed positions of palms and pace
movements,as somewhat resemble the
signs of the Eight Trigrams enclosed in the
Book of Changes,
? Its fighting principle ―assault and defense imbibed
as a whole‖ is implanted in the stratagem that ―I
move before foe moves and halt before him as
well; when foe is staunch I give way; when foe is
exhausted I keep energetic; when foe retreats I
advance; when foe moves I also move watching
and outwitting him; when foe comes I assault and
break him down; when foe advances I evade and
counteract him later; when foe is stationed I do not
cease to move.‖ In pragmatic action,the side-
advance-into-center tactics is preferred to frontal
assail.
? The Eight-Extreme Boxing is fully
designated as ―Door-Opened Eight-Extreme
Boxing‖ or ―Mount-Yue-Eight-Extreme
Boxing‖,The ―door-opened‖ in this case
denotes that the six cruxes in the fighting
technique are employed to break open the
rival‘s ―door‖ (defense posture),
? The ―eight-extreme‖ dates back to the
ancient assumption that ―Beyond the nine
continents (the world) exist eight universes;
beyond the eight universes exist eight
enormities; beyond the eight enormities
exist eight extremes‖,indicating the far-
away distance,And the ―Mount Yue‖ ushers
in a legend that the eight extremes issued
from the Mount Yue Temple in Jiaozuo city
of modern Henan province,
? The Eight-Extreme Boxing exploits the Six Cruxes
and the Eight Moves as the core of the fighting
technique,comprised of a series of moves,the
Baji-Butt,the Six-Knuckle,the Baji-Strength,the
New Baji Move,and the Baji-Double-Track; the
moves in armed combats with apparatus hereof
include sparring,straight lunge and diagonal
stabbing,They are characterized by swift and
concise strokes in bursting,shaking,breaking in,
hitting,approaching,stabbing,squeezing and
twining,and by repeated application of knuckles
and firm footholds,Since the founding of the new
republic it has been listed among the national
contests.
? The White-Eyebrow Boxing,a branch of the South
Boxing,is allegedly believed to be initially
imparted by a white-eyebrow monk in Mount Emei
of Sichuan province,which is still prevailing across
Sichuan,Guangdong,Hong Kong and Macao,
Staunch and ferocious in intense progression and
prolonged footings,its serial strokes contain the
Whip Boxing,the Double-Dash Boxing and the
Thousand-Character-Sword Boxing in a series of
the Small-Cross,the Big-Cross,the Three-Six-
Eight-Diagram,the Eighteen-Palm-Strength and
the Fierce-Tiger-Rush-out of–Jungle,It is matched
with such hand positions as the Hand-Shattered,
the Hand-Crossing,the Hand-Stopped and the
Hand-Resisted coupled with leg positions as
represented by the Side Kick (the Chick-Extend-
Claw) and juggling.
? The Shaolin Boxing belongs to the
catalogue of the Long Boxing,which,in a
broad sense,makes reference to the
Shaolin School and,in a narrow sense,to
the boxing practiced by the monks living in
the Shaolin Temple in Mount Song of Henan
province,and which unexceptionally covers
the armed combating therein,In the Ming
Dynasty the Muscle-Canon Exercise,the
Eight-Part-Belt Exercise and some
traditional gymnastics were publicly
propagated within the abbey,
From the turn of Ming and Qing to the reign
of Emperor Xian Feng the Shaolin Boxing
became alloyed with the outside schools,
shifting the stalwart combating to the
―intrinsic-extrinsic discipline‖,In modern
times it assumed an air of the merger of
boxing versus religion (Dhyana Sect) and
mind versus physique in sturdy struggling,
precipitous assault and withdrawal,
? The serial moves in Shaolin Boxing seem
short in a straight-line route,Considering the
postures it is required that head be
maintained upright while eyes being focused
on one point giving concern to both sides;
that chest be stuck out,waist straightened,
legs locked up with toes slightly closed; that
shoulder be loosened with arms in an alert
position; that the gravity center in body be
adjusted in motion and at rest for the sake of
a concerted assail; and that concerted
rapidity in pace,body and hands be
displayed in strokes,
It was categorized in a series of Teenager
Hong Boxing,Elder Hong Boxing,Veteran
Hong Boxing,Arhat Boxing,Zhaoyang
Boxing,Plum Boxing,Cannon Boxing,
Seven-Star Boxing and Tender Boxing (judo)
whereas the sparring series are inclusive of
Hand-Twisted-Six-Round,Hand-Bitten-Six-
Round,Ear-Grasped-Six-Round and Kick-
Hit-Six-Round together with Heart-Mind
Seizure in a single-man combat.
? The Zha Boxing,otherwise named ―Fork
Boxing‖ or ―Inserting Boxing‖,features the
stroke ―Finger Thrusting‖ (zha in Chinese) in
fastidiousness with a pithy formula in
combating,―The first move is finger thrusting,
the second capturing and the third stabbing.‖
It is characteristic of the precipitate
consecutive moves in progression,requiring
exercisers ―to stride like wind,stand like a
nail,rise like an ape,fall like an eagle,move
like a tiger and linger like a mountain.‖
? The postures should appear balanced,swift
and unhurried,staunch vs gentle,abrupt-
turning vs sudden-halting,composure being
imperative in the various moves,
supplemented by the ―ten essentials‖ for
assault and defiance (shrinking,minimizing,
twining,softening,clever-devising,missing,
rushing,hardening,hurrying and sliding),
? Related to the above mentioned there is a shoal of
the hand positions (thrusting,tantalizing,splitting,
covering,picking,embracing,inserting and
cutting),the body positions (evading,turning,
bending,somersaulting,rushing,barging,
squeezing and approaching),the leg positions
(juggling,ejecting,kicking,leaping,treading,
inserting and skimming),the pace positions
(advancing,retreating,circling,sticking-in,dashing
and turning) and the eye positions (fixing,staring,
transferring and gazing),Exercisers in motion
―should move right firstly when intending to move
left,and should retreat firstly when intending to
advance‖,There is a succession of leaping and
turning moves therein,
? The Zha Boxing maintains a stock of
subsidiaries in ten series,Mother-Children
Boxing,Waving-Hand Boxing,Kicking-Foot
Boxing,Land-Leveling Boxing,North-of-the-
Great-Wall Boxing,In-Ambush Boxing,Plum
Boxing,Chain-of-Rings Boxing,Dragon-
Sway-Tail Boxing and Move-Interlocked
Boxing,as affiliated by auxiliary strokes in
the first and second series,
Swords,spears,hooks and knives in varied
sizes are employed in apparatus fighting,
For the sake of elementary discipline are
matched with Cannon Boxing,Sliding
Boxing,Hong Boxing,Leg Boxing,Ten-
Route Leg-Ejecting exercises and many a
sparring series,The Long Boxing ever had
recourse to some moves from the Zha
Boxing that were equally compiled into the
general boxing textbooks of Chinese sports
colleges or departments involved.
? The Shadow Boxing was nominated after the
phrase ―Grand Terminus‖,which originates from
the Book of Changes (one of the Five Classics)
that is generally believed to be composed by King
Wen of Zhou,referring to the primitive mixed state
of Heaven and Earth,The Great Treatise in the
Book of Changes argues,―Therefore in (the
system of) the I there is the Grand Terminus,
which produced the two elementary Forms,Those
two Forms produced the four emblematic Symbols,
which again produced the eight Trigrams which
served to determine the good and evil (issues of
events)‖,
Some ancient Chinese scholars ever interpreted,
―The Grand Terminus claims to be a title of
nothingness,or extreme abundance in reverse
connotation,‖ ―The Grand Terminus is the primitive
mixed state of Heaven and Earth,that is to say,
the Grand Beginning,or the Grand One‖,From it
the Grand Terminus was worshipped to be the
source of what the universe was supposed to be
or the omnifarious inanimate objects and living
beings,which abided solely as a conviction of
Chinese traditional philosophy,not as a scientific
assertion,Exploited from a medley of folk boxing
schools and improved by generations of
exercisers,Shadow Boxing has been an age-long
boxing series.
? Shadow Boxing features a close unity of
mind,breath and moves (body),requiring a
composed but focused mind with relaxing
motion,quoted as saying ―Mind works as a
commander and body a soldier‖; ―When
body is in motion it is divided into moves,
and when body is at rest moves shrink back
into one‖; ―When in motion nothing stays at
rest,and when at rest nothing is in motion‖;
and ―Serenity is pursued in motion‖,
disfavoring awkward strength and nurturing
a consecutive motion like wheels and deep
breath,
The postures ―linger still like a mountain and move
like a river‖ characteristic of roundness,softness,
slowness,stability and evenness,The moves
extend far and wide in strict coordination,as all
being an antithetical unity of Yin-yang (the
negative and positive,So naturally it is true to all
schools of the sort that the theories concerned
sound identical regardless of the discrepancies
arising from the varied serial moves,Hereafter are
introduced the five popular type of Shadow Boxing,
the Chen Type,theYang Type,the Wuu Type,the
Wu Type,and the Sun Type.
? The Chen-Type Shadow Boxing was
founded by a distinguished boxer Chen
Wanting at the turn of the Ming and Qing
Dynasties,who,according to the Chronicle
of Wen County,was appointed the
commander of the local garrison in
Chongzhen 14,in the reign of Emperor Si of
Ming,later returned home in hermitage after
the decline of Ming,and at old age created
the boxing by himself coaching his offspring
and disciples.
? The Yang-Type Shadow Boxing was fostered by
Yang Luchan,a native of Yongnian county in
Hebei province,who had earlier learned Chen-
Type Shadow Boxing from Chen Changxing in
Wen county of Henan province and then
developed it into Yang-Type Shadow Boxing with
an assistance of his son Yang Jianhou and
grandson Yang Chenpu,In its course such moves
as leaping,shaking feet and spurting were deleted,
and it was constituted in the middle-size posture
by Yang Jianhou and later on in the great-size
posture by Yang Chenpu,e.g,the present fashion
of the type.
? The Wuu-Type Shadow Boxing came into
being from Wuu Yuxiang,also a native of
Yongnian county in Hebei province,He had
learned Chen-Type Shadow Boxing from his
countryman Yang Luchan,further
proceeded to imitate Zhaobao-Type Boxing,
a branch of the Chen type after Chen
Qingping and finalized Wu-Type Shadow
Boxing through rectification of the former.
? The Wu-Type Shadow Boxing sprang out in
Beijing,As mentioned above Yang Luchan
learned the Chen type and founded the
Yang type in Beijing as a boxing tutor,He
adopted a disciple named Wu Quanyou who
was at the time conscripted in the garrison,
Wu made a later resort to Yang Banhou,the
son of the Yang-type founder and emerged
in the end as the initial master of the Wuu
type.
? The Sun-Type Shadow Boxing was ascribed
to Sun Lutang born in Wan county of Hebei
province who embarked upon the martial
arts in childhood learning Image-Meaning
Boxing from Li Kuihuan and then from Guo
Yunshen,the coach of Li,and who later
turned to Cheng Tinghua for Eight-Trigram
Palm and to Hao Weizhen for Shadow
Boxing,Imbued in the quintessence out of
what he had practiced in years,Sun Lutang
established the Sun-type.
? Among the legacies of Chinese martial arts can be
enrolled Emei School,described as ―Five
blossoms in a tree / that are held by eight leaves; /
Bright moonlight at Emei / Shines in martial-arts
field.‖ ( Emei Boxing Shop written by Zan Ran,a
senior priest of Buddhism at the outset of the Qing
Dynasty),which weighs as much as Shaolin
School and Wudang School,Nurtured in the motile
series of Daoism and the dyana of Buddhism or
sit-in meditation,it made debut as a unique
system of the dynamic-static martial art
amalgamated with other types of boxing,
apparatus-combating and sparring,
Regarding the dynamic exercise available
are the twelve body positions,―the Heaven,
the Earth,the Zigzag,the Mind,the Dragon,
the Crane,the Wind,the Cloud,the Great,
the Minor,the Secluded,and the
Profound ‖while the static exercise is rivaled
with the six steps,―the Tiger-Pace,the
Heavy-Thump,the Shrink-into-Earth,the
Body-Suspended,the Finger-Tip and the
Nirvana‖,of which the 36-type Finger-Tip
exercise was most empowered in massage
and subduing foes,
In addition Emei School availed itself of ―five
peaks‖(head,shoulder,elbow,buttocks and
knee) and ―six elbows‖ (upper elbow,down
elbow,left elbow,right elbow,circular elbow
and reverse elbow),The assail-defense
tactics is incarnated through such skills as
―jumping,shifting,dodging,somersaulting,
drifting,sinking,swallowing and vomiting‖.
? Apparatus has played a momentous role in
Chinese martial arts containing broadsword,
sword,spear,cudgel,double-broadsword,
double-sword,double-spear,double-hook,
nine-section whip,rope hammer,rope dart
and so on,with the first four pieces in
popularity,The broadsword play is
composed of the strokes,head-twining,
splitting,cutting and teasing,aided by the
moves of another hand,pacing in various
styles and leaping,full of the air of gallantry,
? With another hand in finger moves and
pacing styles,the sword play has an
attribute of touching,bursting,stabbing,
bantering,splitting and hanging,a brisk and
gracious performance,The spear play,
based upon the strokes of intercepting and
capturing and pricking,betrays a mixed
flavor of valor and yieldingness,And the
cudgel play seems to be a dauntless series
of brandishing,splitting,stabbing,holding
and turning.
? Furthermore there has prevailed a phrase ―the
martial arts in eighteen genres‖,which is referred
substantially to a congeries of martial arts,not
exactly to the eighteen genres,A host of writers
delivered a medley of interpretations hereto as
shown distinctly in the Romantic Wang Huan at
Hundred-Flower Pavilion from the Selection of
Yuan Operas compiled by Qi Jinshu in the Ming
Dynasty,in Chapter Two of the Water Margin
written by Shi Lai‘an at the turn of Yuan and Ming,
and in Acrobatics in Five varieties edited by Xie
Shaozhe in the throne of Emperor Wan Li of Ming,
To sum up,―the martial arts in eighteen
genres‖ consisted of the subsidiaries below,
the projectiles (bow,mechanic bow,arrow,
primitive rocket),the long weapons (dagger-
axe,spear,cudgel,stick,bar,axe,trident,
halberd,broadsword,spade),the short
weapons (sword,short-handle knife,whip,
hook,sickle,hammer,crutch,ring),the soft
weapons (chain,rope hammer,cotton-
thread rope dart) and the ―nothing to hit‖ or
barehanded wrestling,as affording a
synopsis of ancient Chinese martial arts,
II,The Cultural Gist of Chinese
Martial Arts
As an integral segment and a special
expression of Chinese culture,Chinese
martial arts unveil the elementary features
implanted therein in profile.
? Chinese martial arts have been long-standing and
well established,blended with a heap of cultural
attainments regarding philosophy,medicine,
military strategy & tactics,techniques,education,
and aesthetics etc,reflecting at a specific angle
the character and sagacity of Chinese nation,The
gist of the martial arts is imposed on such a
psyche or policy for assault-defense wrestling that
―Strength should be tamed by mind and body by
strength;‖ ―Hands,eyes,body,adroitness and
paces are unexceptionally subjugated to mental
power;‖ ―Staunchness in body and ingenuity in
mind should be fused into a whole‖,
? A flexible motional beat is welcomed in
bustling activities whereas resourcefulness
is to be exploited so as ―to lift a thousand jin
simply by stirring four liang.‖ (One jin is
equated with half kilogram,one liang with 50
grams.) Concessions are as often as not
made at the start to leave some leeway with
a focused concern upon the surety in
accurate and ferocious striking.
? Chinese martial arts derived its sources from
Chinese classical philosophies for the
interpretation of boxing principles,from the
classical military stratagem for the combating
codes and from the classical medicine for the
exercises,The technical evolving course of
Chinese martial arts coincided with the pattern of
the ancient culture and technology,particularly
with the evolution of the fighting fashion,the
artistic interests and the body-building skills,which
has experienced the three phases,the first ―valiant
spirit‖ propped up with strength and bravery,the
second ―martial technique‖ rivaled with technique
and astuteness and the third ―martial arts‖
specified comparatively in stylization.
? The initial evolving route was the merger of
the ancient health-keeping technique and
the military assault-defense wrestling.
? The next evolving route was the
exemplification and artistry of some
wrestling strokes and their combination with
dance and acrobatics.
? The third evolving route was the mixture of
body-building and mind-discipline extracting
a complete set of ―body fused with mind‖ or
―cultivating personality‖ technique.
? The top concern steeped in Chinese martial
arts was governed by the body-mind
relationship inside human body,so called
―External exercise for bones and muscles
and internal discipline for a breath of vitality.‖
None of all the schools failed to lay down
stress upon ―presence of mind,presence of
breath and presence of strength‖,
equilibrating Yin & Yang,regulating breath
and blood,dredging body channels,
reinforcing physique and gaining strength,
By means of ―form and content‖ relationship
the martial arts were upgraded to a
combating skill while the body-mind bond
was evinced through the fiend-friend bond
outside human body,Therefore no matter
which branch one may belong to,all
emphasized ―One shall gain momentum
dependent on the Mean‖ and ―One shall
achieve triumph by obtaining possibilities.‖
On this stratum it was adopted for defending
and conquering foes,
? Also from ―abandon body to pursue mind‖ to
―acquire what mind demands‖ it was
sublimated to a philosophical realm,The so
called phrase ―Heaven Combined with Man‖
was meant a high degree of unity between
Existence and Nothingness,Motion and
Quiet,Yin and yYang,Mind and Object,
Subjective and Objective as well as a
product of objective laws alloyed with man‘s
conscious dynamic role,
? On such a stratum it was availed itself of for
cultivating mind and nurturing character,
apprehending natural & social laws and
contributing to one‘s inner tranquility,when,thanks
to the demolition of biases,people could hold a
―playful‖ attitude towards wrestling with foes,aloof
from the secular lure in triumph and defeat,
success and failure,gain and loss,and advantage
and disadvantage,as claimed to be sharply
nothing but man‘s carefree activity and his
independent development cast off a miscellany of
dependent relationships,
? Henceforth Chinese martial arts cannot be
solitarily deemed as a sporting technique or
a combating skill,but directly as a thinking
style,a life attitude and an order of
personality cultivation,Chinese martial arts
are charged not only with the fastidiousness
in the serial strokes,but with the
squeamishness in temperament and delight
of life,saturated in a broad and profound
martial spirit overriding itself.
III,Cultivation of Breathing ercise
of Chinese Martial Arts
Breathing exercise (Qigong) is esteemed an
approach to strengthen physique and exploit
human body potential energy in Chinese
martial arts,
? In a broad sense it is not only confined to
the cultivation methods but also
encompasses its gist and the related
theories and methods targeted at
exploitation of human body potentials,In the
present day Qigong can be classified into
the following schools:
? The Soul-Particle school (spontaneous
exercise) is said to have been practiced by
the ancient genuine wizards,who were
convinced that inside human body there
existed a matter designated as ―soul particle‖
that was imperative in making up human
soul and worked as a carrier of human sub-
consciousness,
? The crux of cultivating it lay in the fact that
man was to be subdued by the ―soul particle‖
and would conduct some spontaneous
moves under the free reign of sub-
consciousness to such an effect that the
potential energy in body could be disciplined
and consolidated,This exercise was chiefly
applied for curing the exerciser himself or
the diseased,Its representative exercise,
the Soul-Particle-Motion-Show Technique,
? The Internal-Cinnabar school found the source in
Daoism and evolved from the alchemy flourishing
in the Eastern Han Dynasty,which,as a matter of
fact,appeared to be a mixture of Daoism,
Confucianism and the Book of Changes,the last
of which had imposed an immense impetus upon
the genre hereof,Those who practiced it held a
firm belief that,by reaching the extreme it claimed,
they could survive permanently as if they had
taken panacea; and it was on account of the belief
that people had undertaken a long-length pursuit
of such an exercise that it grew into a mainstream
with a complete and complicated system,It aimed
at the ―great way‖ or longevity,not at the
comprehension.
? The Martial-Arts school bore no definite
source,By cultivation and application of the
internal energy in human body,it was
practised to stimulate certain human
potential energy temporarily so as to
overrun foes,taking such examples as the
light-move exercise,and the hard-breath
exercise.
? The Tibet-Secret school was originated from Tibet
for the overall benefit of exploiting human potential
energy,which had developed a fairly entire
theoretical procedure holding that varied rounds of
cultivation should proceed from the Business
Sector to the Supreme Yoga Sector,While
practicing it the disciple murmured the authentic
phrases with a sacred deed in hand,In conformity
with the religious decree,however,the disciple
could not be engrossed in it until he or she was
granted the privilege through a religious ritual
―Penetrating It through Head‖ by the Living
Buddha,And as the opportunity came in a meager
manner,individuals had to procure it by destiny.
? The Hindu hatha yoga and the Western hypnotism
are also included herein.
? What was meant by Qi (vigor)? It was considered
the energy in human body that could be mobilized
by mind for practicing exercises,Energy is valued
the motive power of life,The course of maintaining
life is the one of transformation in metabolism
demanding consumption of energy,so do human
viscera in motion and manual or mental labor,
―Man lives on a breath‖,In case of suspension of
breath,the energy is exhausted and life expired,
That is why energy remains mandatory throughout
life cycle.
? Having inherited a host of Chinese
traditional Qigong (breath-exercise),Daoist
disciples found over a hundred methods for
practicing it susceptible of the static exercise,
the dynamic exercise and the dynamic-static
exercise with the incipient gaining upper
hand,There were roughly available five
orders concerning the static Qigong of
Daoism,the Mind-Cultivated,the Breath-
Disciplined,the Mind-Maintained,the
Apertures-Conserved,and the Internal-
Cinnabar,
? The Mind-Cultivated order,tracing back to
Master Lao and Master Zhuang,laid
emphasis on cultivating the mind and
nullifying desires with a long list of
procedures such as the Way-Conserved,
the Mind-Preserved,the One-Retained,the
Mental Abstinence,the View-Settled,the
Mind-Clarified,the Mind-Watched,the Sit-
Forget,the Mind-Practised-Nullity-Returned,
and the Mind-Practised-Way-Observed,
? In common with Buddhism was the Mind-
Cultivated order,From the Southern-Northern
Dynasties onwards,Daoism,starting from the
doctrines of Master Lao and Master Zhuang and
ingesting Tiantai Sect and Zen Sect of Buddhism,
had fashioned the mind-cultivated exercise,In the
Three Treatises on the Decree published in the
Tang Dynasty,the mind-cultivated exercise,in line
with the metaphysics-oriented philosophy,was
phased in the Serenity of Mind,the Extinction of
Desires and the Comprehension of Truth,of which
the third one was honored the supreme realm of
mind by the classical canon Master Zhuang.
? After the Song Dynasty the mind-cultivated
exercise was further alloyed with Dhyana
(deep meditation) in Zen Sect,appraised as
the ―top-grade method‖,and ―paramount
enlightenment way‖.
? The Breath-Disciplined was originated from
the exercise for regulating breath prior to the
Pre-Chin Period,featuring such processes
as the Breath-Impeded,the Much-Inhaled-
Less-Exhaled,the Internal-Vital-Air-Gulped
and the Outside-Air-Gulped.
? The Breath-Impeded practice was renamed
―the umbilical cord movement‖ in the book
On Sluggishness by Master Bao Pu,which
was interpreted as below,the exerciser
inhaled air gradually by nose shut it up and
held it on for the longest possible time while
counting the numbers from one to over
thousand,Till the last moment he or she
exhaled it in a retarded manner,
? The Much-Inhaled-Less-Exhaled practice
was specified as in the Taiqing Canon of
Breath Regulation,―The exerciser inhales a
long breath of air and gobbles it before
exhaling it at a hindered rate.‖ Specifically
the exerciser inhaled five breaths
continuously,and at an interval of pause
exhaled one with a third of air hidden in
body.
? The External-Air-Gulped practice seemed to
be a product of the Mind-Maintained
process and the Air-Gulped process,
composed of many a method such as the
Five Sprouts,the Six Genera of Air,fog,the
Three Orders of Atmosphere and the Purple
Air,
? The Five Sprouts were supposed to be the
five-color air emerging from the five
directions which,according to Daoism,was
in concert with the five human viscera and
the five kinds of air therein,So naturally it
was beneficial for viscera and longevity to
gulp the five-color air thereof,The remedy
was quoted in the Great Lord Canon of
Health-Keeping Breath Exercises as follows:
the exerciser was seated to the east direction
closing eyes and clicking teeth thrice while
fancying that the green air (sprout) from the east
was pouring into his or her mouth,then taking nine
breaths of it and three gulps of saliva secreted
from tongue and lips and further fancying that the
green air had entered the viscera and blood
vessels,In turn he/she was advised to inhale the
red air in the south,the yellow air in the centre,the
white air in the west and the black air in the north,
? For the Three-Atmosphere practice,the
exerciser should face where the sun was
rising at daybreak fancying that there were
emerging the three orders of atmosphere
turning green,white and red in the sunshine,
which was rushing down into the mouth,and
digesting them into 90% volume of lungs,
? The Fog-Gulped practice allured the
exerciser to fancy the five-color fog (or
clouds) reigning everywhere and to gulp it
into 50% volume of lungs,
? The Purple-Air-Gulped practice provoked
disciples to fancy the purple air rising out of
genitals and to gulp it.
? The ―vital air‖ In the Internal Vital-Air-Gulped
practice was referred to as the air coming up from
the lower part of abdomen (―red field‖ or ―air
sea‖).When such a vital air gushing up toward the
mouth,the exerciser was persuaded to shut it up
and swallow it consecutively until it returned to the
―air sea‖,The Pithy Formula of Mr,Fancy Gulping
Internal Vital Air recorded a decade of the
practicing processes,the Advance,the Air Dredge,
the Air Adjustment,the Air Gulp,the Air Operation,
the Air Cultivation,the Air Accumulation,the Air
Impediment,
and the Air Distribution,of which the Air Gulp
indicated the gulping of the ―internal vital air‖,and
the Air Operation the process that,upon gulping it,
the exerciser should channel the air by mind from
the ―red field‖ through back and spine to head,
then directing it across hair,face,neck,hands,
arms,fingers,viscera,legs and toes,in the end
fancying that the ―sick air‖ and extravasated blood
in body were being driven away by the ―positive air‖
and diffused via hands and feet,as such called the
Air Diffusion practice leading to the Internal
Cinnabar exercise.
? The Mind-Maintained order,somewhat like
the ―observation and meditation‖ in
Buddhism,was claimed to be the
overwhelming exercise of Fulu School in
Daoism,having sourced from Daoist
scriptures,The objectives fancied by Daoist
disciples in practicing it fell within the
religious segment and nonreligious segment,
The religious objectives included the deities
inside and outside human bodies,the fairy
land and the Heavenly palace,
The deities in question took forms in the viscera
deity and the twenty four deities in body as
described in the Peace Canon; also available were
the thirty nine authentic deities,the Sun deity,the
Moon deity,the five-star deity and the Dipper deity
as stated in The Great Cave Authentic Canon,in
particular the authentic deity lingering at the center
of the lower ―red field‖,called in Master Bao Pu as
the ―conserve-true-one.‖ In addition there were the
―319-Palace Practice‖ and the ―Lord-in-Silence‖
adoring the Supreme Lord as the dictating deity at
the center of the upper ―red field‖,This fancy,
though permeated in theism and ecclesiastical
affairs,undoubtedly in facto contained the nucleus
of Qigong (breath exercise) in the practicing
course.
? The non-religious segment hereof was packed
with the Internal-Observed method,the Sunshine-
Moonlight-Gulped method,the Three-Hue–Air-
Gulped method,the Vital-Air-Gulped method,the
Bathed-in-Sunshine Method,and the Purple-
Cloud-Gulped method,The practice of the first
method (IOM) could be found in the Red-Ink-
Purple-Character-Three-Five-Vertical-Line Canon
which boasted that,being seated and fancying the
viscera for long,the exerciser could surely see
through them,
? The Purple Scorching Light Canon
repeatedly asserted IOM as the case that
the exerciser would be capable of seeing
and hearing things at a remote distance of a
hundred or even a thousand miles away had
he or she persisted in directing ears and
eyes to the faraway objects,The section 45
of Seven Sticks of Bookcase offered an
account of the Sunshine-Moonlight-Gulped
method:
? the exerciser was advised to fancy that the image
of the Sun or the Moon would be,as big as a coin,
rolling toward the throat and then should be
swallowed with saliva a couple of times,It was the
same case with the Vital-Air-Gulped method and
the Bathed-in-Sunshine method that aroused
exercisers‘ fancy of natural air pouring into human
body,as was convinced to be of special effect to
sufficiency of body fluid and deficiency of vital
energy,The Three-Hue-Air-Gulped method,the
Cloud-Atmosphere-Gulped method and the
Purple-Cloud Gulped method required dosage of
the air and light in rich tints with an intention to
ingest life energy from nature.
? The Apertures-Conserved order was
intended to safeguard the abdomen (―red
field‖) in subsidiaries such as ―the One-
Safeguarded‖,―the Foetus-Breath‖ and ―the
Spirit-Conserved-Breath-Disciplined‖,Sun
Simiao,a prestigious medical expert in the
Tang Dynasty,declared in the Epigraph of
the Spirit-Conserved-Breath-Disciplined,―To
learn this technique,one is obliged to fast
beforehand,composed in breath sea and
maintaining spirit at red field‖,
? Mr,Fancy asserted himself in the
Annotation to the Foetus-Breath Canon,
―The exerciser usually keeps a stockpile of
air in abdomen and retains spirit in body; the
air and the spirit are to be melted into a
mental foetus.‖ It seems similar to the
Internal-Cinnabar order.
? Besides the static exercises aforesaid,Daoism
had also inherited from the Pre-Chin Period and
the Chin-Han Dynasties such therapies as the
Pull-Up exercise and massage matched with
teeth-clicking,saliva-gulping and oral-cavity
pealing as the significant means for health,
longevity and even being celestial,The Pull-Up
and massage were fairly simple in moving human
body like animals at the beginning,as stated in
Master Bao Pu,―(The exerciser should move like)
Dragons take a lead while tigers follow; bears
stride while tortoises gulp things; swallows fly and
birds chirp while snakes shrink; Heaven looks
down while Earth looks up.‖
? The gist had been accrued into the Five-Animal
Play and the Eight-Fragment Show,This order of
exercise was in most cases fused with the
methods such as the Breath-Adjustment,the
Breath-Impediment,the Sit-in-Meditation and the
Fancying,forged in the dynamic exercise and the
dynamic-static exercise,The moves and postures,
as described by Sima Chenzhen in the Essentials
of Gulping Air,had evolved in scores,something
like the body-posture exercise of Hindu hatha
yoga,Assisted by the Air Gulping,the Teeth
Clicking and the Oral-Cavity Pealing,the dynamic
exercise plus the static had afforded a distingue
feature of Qigong pertaining to Daoism,
? Frequently Qigong was furnished with Pigu
exercise,the Bait-Taking and the skill in
intercourse,Pigu was considered an access
to the consummate state of Qigong; Bait-
Taking connoted the taking of medicine,
gulping of air and the internal cinnabar,A
due concern had been granted to the skill in
intercourse by various schools hereof in that
it contained the hygiene knowledge and
breathing exercises,another knack of the
practice of Qigong.
? Having assimilated the alien nourishment from
Buddhism and Hindu hatha yoga and having
chased the aim of health,body-building and
longevity in the long run,Daoism had advanced in
succession to the various genera of exercise
methods in the history of China,forging a multi-
lateral and multi-strata system of Qigong,
Compared with Buddhism aimed at spiritual
vimukta (freedom) and Confucianism with
punctilious priority upon moral cultivation,Daoism
claimed to be scrupulous in health building,
uniquely equipped with the dynamic exercise,Pigu,
the Bait-Taking and the skill in intercourse
involving the dynamic vs the static and the intrinsic
vs the extrinsic in human body,
? Also in contrast with the medicine and the martial
arts targeted separately at curing the diseased
and combating with foes,the Daoism-rooted
Qigong exhibited a higher-level practising
approach and an intricate theoretical system,Of
the philosophical schools typified by Confucianism,
Buddhism and Daoism throughout Chinese feudal
society,Daoism was generally acknowledged the
overriding segment in health building while
Confucianism was applied to govern the society,
and Buddhism to tame the masses.
? Except the deity-fancying order,the
practicing methods of Daoism-rooted
Qigong,in an objective sense,mostly
refrained from religious contents and could
thoroughly be counted as pure Qigong
(breath exercise) provided exercisers were
excluded from the conviction of being
celestial and permanent longevity.
CHAPTER 12 ―Never dTakingAll
Pains & Never Mind oingat
Great etails‖
─Exquisite and Gourmet Chinese
Cuisine
? ―Male and female have delight in diet,which
is human nature‖ The Chinese ancestors
and sages had exuded a conservative
attitude toward sex,whereas the torrent of
human nature had been channeled to eating
tables,which had not only ushered in a
mammoth prosperity in Chinese cuisine,but
bestowed a social significance upon it,
? In the first place,considering the customs
and conventions such as marriage and
funeral arrangements,eating is outright
deemed a weighty factor or even the climax,
Secondly it serves as the most vital means
of social connections,In Chinese
countryside the phrase ―know‖ is as often as
not replaced by the sentence ―I dined with
him at the same table‖,
Meanwhile it is claimed to be an influential
manifestation of the national affection,In
case that a bosom friend arrives from afar
an exquisite dinner will function to a greater
extent as a sign of hospitality,During the
ancient times even the earnest state
administration was substituted with ―adjust
the tripod and quadripod‖,a typical term of
cookery,as reflecting a lofty standing of
Chinese cuisine.
? Chinese people are adept in and capable of
eating whatever run on the earth,fly in the
sky and swim in waters,Westerners have
no taste in animal‘s viscera while Chinese
regard them as the ―nutriments to relevant
human organs‖; take an example,the
animal‘s liver is justified in nourishing human
blood,the animal‘s kidney in invigorating
human kidney,and the ―petrel‘s nest,‖ the
jelly rarity that gold-feathered petrels
vomited after gulping marine alga in the
seaside nests,in resuming vital energy,
Hereto enclosed is a catalogue of the ancient
delicacies,the bear‘s claws,the leopard‘s embryo,
phoenix‘s (eagle‘s) marrow,the dragon‘s (snake‘s)
gall bladder,the horse‘s genitals,the elephant‘s
nose,the shark‘s fin and the gorilla‘s lips,It is said
that the kings of the Zhou Dynasty used to
appreciate such relishes as bee pupas and
cicadas,and their subjects took to the cypress-
cured mice whereas in Canton the baked cicadas
and diving beetles were sold out together in
restaurants,In a word the catalogue can be
extended further,
? In addition,Chinese people are skilled at
creating artificial delicacies,On entering the
vegetable restaurants,you can discover on
the menu the ―plain pig‘s kidney‖,―plain pig‘s
intestines‖ and ―plain fish‖ etc.,which,
cooked with soybean product,appear to mix
bad with good,Doufu or soybean cake,
notably,has long prevailed as a widely-
welcomed delicacy among the people of
different trades,the elder and the youngster,
and the male and female,
? The sauce industry seems to be another
special achievement hereof that avails itself
of soybean (or broad bean) as the staple
ingredient added with an optimum amount of
wheat bran,starch,salt and sugar in
fermentation,The sauce works not only as a
tasty appetizer,but as a nutriment
comprising many types of enzymes to
facilitate the complicated chemical reactions
within human body,a beneficial contribution
to nutriology and health care.
? Comparatively speaking,the Western cuisine is
inclined to science and nutrition while Chinese
peers tend to artistry,In the vision of Chinese
people,eating as a major issue in life weighs not
only as the demand of stomach,but also as a
creating course of art that involves a wide range of
factors,the preparations of cooking,the layout of
tableware,the order of serving,the eating
surroundings,the quality of dishes,the number of
diners,More often than not Westerners regard the
cooking of food as a complete mechanic job,from
which the Chinese diverge,
? A baker,engaged in rolling doughs in a street,can
be observed knocking on his working panel in
regular rhythm with his rolling pin; a butcher at
crumbling cattle ―(is laboring perfectly as if) he
were dancing to the beat and melody of classical
music;‖ a chef at cooking will rap the metal ladle to
subdue the procedure,all of which,as a matter of
fact,produces little favor to the task,but heightens
the artistic flavor,It does not prove an easy trifle to
lay out tableware,Some better-off families
developed a hobby to reserve at home scores of
sets of tableware which,of silver,ivory,rare timber
or bamboo,had to be matched with specific dishes,
a process of aesthetic judgment,
? After the Tang-Song Dynasties,the location
of Chinese tea houses and restaurants were
selected in most circumstances on a river
bank or lake side,wherein garden-style
buildings were erected,flower terraces,
pavilions and bamboo-lined trails scattered
here and there,Arriving there the diners
must have felt fresh and cozy with a good
appetite,This style of restaurants suffices
for both scientific norms and artistic sense,
? Even the denomination of dishes is brimming with
a luster of art,Take the two-cuisine black carp,the
carp meat is braised and the skeleton soup is
supplied with a string of peas drifting on the
surface,designated as ―A-Line of-Egrets-Is-Flying-
Up-into-the-Sky‖,an embellishment of poetry,For
other examples,the Chicken-in-Jadeite-Soup,the
Jade-Bracelet-Frog-Legs,Duck-Webs-
Surrounded-by-Hundred-Flower,and the Braised-
Mixture-of-Dragon-Tiger-Phoenix,these all are
none other than an impeccable marriage of
literature and appetite.
? The specification of Chinese cuisine seems severe
requiring the ―presence of nice color,fragrance
and savor‖,The ―color‖ in this case refers to the
color and the modeling of dishes,Respecting the
match in colors and the carving and designing of
materials,Chinese cooks are usually qualified of
approaching the height of artists,In the throne of
Emperor Yi of the Tang Dynasty when Princess
Tong Chang was going to marry out,Emperor Yi
ordered a course named ―Red Dragon‘s Breast‖
be delivered to his daughter,which was processed
from red beef into one-chi long threads (One chi is
equivalent to 33 centimeters.) resembling a host of
vigorous dragons in motion,
As registered in the News of Southern Chu
Kingdom there had been served two dishes of
frogs in what turned out to be modern Canton
(Guangdong province),devised in an ornate style,
the eaters acclaiming them as a marvel,An off-
beat genre stood out of Chinese cuisine---―on-
show dish‖ prepared primarily for admiration,
molded in a soigne manner and pregnant with
morals such as fish symbolizing ―Surplus fortunes
are available annually‖ (In Chinese language,―fish‖
and ―surplus fortunes‖ are homonyms).The on-
show dish was current rampantly in the Qing
Dynasty,especially at the royal banquets when
the aristocrats or Confucian descendents rendered
wishes to Ci Xi Empress Dowager,on the dishes
could be found such auspicious spellings as
―Great Luck‖ and ―Longevity‖,a gourmet format.
? ―Fragrance‖ makes reference to the fragrant
smell rising out of the dishes served on the
table before eating,as being an effective
appetizer,In the early stage of history
Chinese people had become aware of frying
spices in order to make up the strong-
fragrance dishes in rich varieties,crisp
fragrance,oil fragrance,smoke fragrance,
milk fragrance,pungent fragrance,mildew
fragrance,charring fragrance,peppery
fragrance,tingling fragrance,cocoa
fragrance,Chinese-onion-garlic fragrance
and tingling-biting fragrance,
Within most of Chinese kitchens drifts oily
smoke that seems troublesome to clean
while the fragrance of various species can
be spread farther and wider,which captures
the eagerness of hurrying-home guys and
wandering-around travelers,thus forming a
rare complex sedimented in their psyches in
the long run,Those hermit poets could not
but sing candidly of ―bass and asparagus in
water-shield soup‖ in the native land,the
fragrance in memory holding a grip of their
minds and dreams consistently,
? ―Taste‖ overwhelms nutriments in the view
of Chinese diners,With regard to certain
gourmet dishes the food can but be treated
as a carrier of taste and diners are gratified
to appreciate an abstract sensation arising
therein,No wonder that chicken‘s talons are
valued high in China though Westerners
cast contempt upon them due to
meagerness forsaking it as with the bones
and feather,An ancient Chinese writer Li
Liweng nicknamed himself ―a crab slave‖ for
he took much delight in savoring crabs
attentively,
Once upon a time there was a joke that
Shanghainese had spent one day and one night
on a train savoring a single crab and just
completed it upon reaching the destination,a
boastful hyperbole of the attitude toward ―savoring
taste.‖ As a proverb goes,―Little eating effects
taste.‖ So naturally savoring of delicacies is prized
a serious matter among Chinese populace,
Provided that someone is able to detect the subtle
differences between dishes,he or she will be
accorded a title ―expert of delicacies‖,the laurels
of pride,But in case of being called ―an amorous
wolf‖ he is probably despised
? Owing to the demand resulting out of artistry
emerges the public resolute attitude ―The
more soigné dishes,the better; the more
meticulous slicing skill,the better.‖ Chinese
folks may be indolent in some affairs,
however spare no efforts in culinary art to
such an extent that they have not only
invented scores of cooking recipes but
designed quite a few procedures or even
decades of procedures for single one course,
Take the common slicing workmanship,fish,
pork and other species of meat have to be
sliced into pieces or threads that are to be
stockpiled separately in fat and lean,What a
patience and perseverance it demands that
a skilled cook slices meat into pieces as thin
as silk cloth and threads as slender as silk
yarns,which are apt to be stirred up by a
slight breath! A Dream of the Red Mansion,
a classic masterpiece of Chinese literature,
exuded a description of the spiced eggplant
for Granny Liu:
eggplants are cut into cubes; lean pork is crushed
into garrulous particles; both of them are fried in
chicken oil; chicken breast,dried mushrooms,
tender bamboo shoots,mushrooms,spiced dried
soybean cakes and sorts of dried fruits are
altogether cut into cubes; all materials are
simmered in chicken oil; all the ingredients are
baked in sesame oil; they are mixed in distiller‘s
grains; they are sealed up in jars; in being served,
they are taken out and stirred with a fried chicken
talon,What trivial procedures it requires!
? Chinese ancients had early developed a series of
gastronomy,braising,boiling,and braising with
soy sauce,roasting,branding,grilling,scalding,
deep-frying,steaming,drying and salt-preserving,
The Cardinal Techniques of Subjects in Qi
Kingdom registered a number of culinary skills and
approximately one hundred descriptions of dishes
and the relevant recipes,of which the grilling skill
involved twenty kinds such as the grilling in a
bamboo pole,the grilling in mud,the grilling-
burning and the boiling-grilling,
? One course entitled ―pole grilling‖ (the grilled meat
in bamboo poles) broke fresh ground,the meat of
goose,duck,river deer,deer,pig and sheep are
sliced into pieces and pounded soft; the pieces are
mixed with seasoning,egg and flour before being
stuffed into a bamboo pole; the poles are placed
over a coal stove and grilled till the stuffing gets
tender or well done; and eventually the pole will be
cut open at dinner table when a strong fragrance
of the grilled meat coupled with a sweet scent of
bamboo assails the diners‘ nostrils,
? Having preference to gastronomy,the Chinese
became engrossed in the studies of properties
pertaining to foods,Chinese medicine contends
that foods exist in four properties,the cool,the
mild,the hot and the calm,The hot and mild foods
are positive in nature dislodging chills,generating
heat,facilitating vital energy,retaining the mean in
body and dredging arteries and veins,The calm
food falls between the hot and the cool,
? The cool food is negative in nature
maintaining human body cool,relieving
fever and nourishing vitality,Knowledge of
the properties of foods claims to be helpful
in medicine and health care,For instance,
eating mutton and dog meat in winter,which
is believed to be hot in nature,helps
dispossess chills; instead eating water
melon and green gram soup in summer
assists eaters in relieving internal heat
thanks to the cool nature.
? Different seasons induce different tastes,The
Internal Affairs from The Book of Rites recorded,
―Sour is needed in spring; bitter is needed in
summer; pungency is needed in autumn; and
saltiness is needed in winter.‖ Spring witnesses
the sprouting of plants,the vulnerable
contamination of foods by bacteria,an unstable
weather and lack of vegetables when human
savoring desire is likely to be hindered,so it
seems desirable that man imbibes some acid
things for the sake of killing bacteria and whetting
appetite.
In summer undue eating of meat will arouse
acid reaction in stomach and excessive
water consumption,and you will feel cool
and relaxed in ingesting bitter gourd or leaf
mustard soup as a cold refresher,Mild and
somewhat pungent food is moderately
welcomed in cooling-off autumn,
Winter meets a necessity of complementing
high-heat meat with an increasing amount of
salt that will be reacted with acid in stomach
to generate hydrochloric acid for digestion,
This pithy expression of tastes according to
changing seasons,as a matter of fact,is
held a scientific conclusion pregnant with
physiologic-physics and physiologic-
chemistry.
? The food-therapeutics sprang out as a queer
lustrous bloom from the soil of Chinese medicine
and cuisine,The first Chinese medical code The
Yellow Emperor‘s Canon of Internal Medicine
argued,―To cure the diseased,medicines are
needed along with an assistance of five grains,
five fruits,five meats of livestock and five
ingredients,of which the tastes match mutually
and can be digested favoring vital energy and
nurturing body fluid,‖ as is equated with another
age-old phrase ―Thirty percent of medical
treatment and seventy percent of nutriment are
equilibrated‖ The medical tonics contrived for food-
therapeutics possess two categories,
? The first genus refers to pure foods to
consolidate and embellish the non-diseased
people,for example,cherry that ―tastes
calmly sweet,regulates the mean in body
and invigorates vital energy,edible in large
amounts to adorn skin‖,tangerine and
shaddock that ―clarify ozostomia,invigorate
mind and develop a slender build in
longevity,‖ dates that ―complement the mean
in body,reinforce energy and mind to free
from vexation,edible in long duration to
develop a slender build in longevity,‖
the seeds of water melon and pumpkin that ―taste
sweet,moderately chilly in nature and not
poisonous to beautify skin,‖ bamboo shoots that
―quench thirst,foster urine and enhance strength,‖
and raw ginger that ―suspends bleeding,facilitates
sweating and dislodge rheumatism‖ and so forth,
The second genus is the product of medical herbs,
a prolonged list such as ginseng soup,donkey
hide gelatin soup,tangerine reel soup,poris cocos
ointment,peony root bark,and glutinous
rehmannia soup,emitting effectiveness that
accounts for a high percentage in the folk
prescriptions circulated from remote antiquity.
? In brief Chinese cuisine culture has grown to the
extreme of prosperity,The preference to catering
trade held by the Chinese is manifested not only in the
quality of foods,but in the quantity,At a banquet or a
family dinner a host or hostess will humbly apologize
to guests,―The dishes are not cooked so well,‖ but will
never say,―The dishes are not adequate.‖ in that
Chinese dinner tables are invariably far more
abundant with foods than stomach bears,―I am over
stuffed.‖ sounds to be a grumble of many diners
afterwards,In the Southern Song Dynasty 800
hundred years ago,Zhang Juan,a high-ranking official
of the imperial court,once entertained Emperor Gao of
Song at a sumptuous banquet catered with 102 formal
courses and 120 informal courses of desserts,
? The banquet proceeded from morning till night,
marshaled in six rounds and inserted by the serving of
trays of pickles,cakes and fruits,which,in case of the
presence of ten giant men with the elastic stomach,
could never be swallowed up on the spot,The so
called ―Manchu-Han Aggregate Banquet,‖ prevalent in
the Qing Dynasty,was actually an assembled grand
meal across the South and North covering 100
celebrated courses and 50 sorts of light refreshments
with an addition of a score of liqueurs,pickles and
fruits,and continuing through a whole day in three
relays,teased as ―a three-relay banquet.‖
Not only noble or fortunate households
boasted of luxury at tables,but some worse-
off populace organized contingently such
dinner parties that must have stuffed up
each guest! Admittedly this attitude toward
entertaining guests among Chinese people
was related to their craving for face-saving,
ostentation and extravagance; however in
the final analysis it was attributed to their
view on catering itself,
Catering is valued the top-concern business
in life,Chinese hostesses,eminent or
humble,are unexceptionally adept in
cooking a couple of favorite dishes since,
provided that man‘s stomach is satiated by
foods,in their opinion,a husband‘s mind will
be bound!
? Below comes a brief introduction to the four
major systems of cuisine,tea and wine.
I,Four Influential Cuisine
Systems
Hitherto there have been shaped
four influential local cuisine systems
(including a swarm of subdivisions,
of course),Su (Suzhou,Yangzhou
and Hangzhou) system,Yue
(Guangdong) system,Chuan
(Sichuan) system and Lu (Shandong)
system.
? A,Yue (Guangdong) Cuisine
? Yue Cuisine made its debut in Guangzhou
characteristic initially of a wide range of
ingredients in severe criterion with seafood
and game food as the first-rate courses,
Take the fowl,pigeon and francolin and
quail are frequently fetched onto tables in
addition to the common three species of
birds,Considering seafood the Cantonese
take to garoupa,pomfret,hairtail,conger eel,
turtle,prawn and swimming crab,
? Their favorite game food includes reptiles
and amphibians,giant salamander,terrapin,
pangolin,and market civet,tortoise and
snake,Yue Cuisine holds fastidious norms
in selecting ingredients,For instance,the
Tender Boiled Chicken with Soy Sauce
solely requires Qingyuan (county) chicken
and Wenchang (county) chicken; the
mouse-speckled garoupa,the silver pomfret,
the off-shore prawn,the gold-stained
tortoise and the black-mane goose are
selected as superior delicacies.
? The second characteristic is the biased taste,light,
delicious,refreshing and slippery,accompanied by
such staple recipes as steaming,saute and stir-
frying with thick gravy,as being ascribed to the
longer duration of summer and their long-run
craving for aquatic food and livestock,Instead in
winter the residents living south of the Southern
Ranges develop preference to the strong-
fragrance or the heavy-oil courses,such as the
dog‘s meat en casserole,the stewed pork chunks,
fried oyster and blood clam,braised conger eel,
braised pig‘s knuckle with soy sauce.
? The third characteristic is the plenty of supportive
vegetables,as is ascribed to the substantial scope
of local produce,In the north of Yue (Guangdong)
can be grown mushrooms in winter whereas the
wild mushrooms are clustered at the Delta of the
Pearl River all years around along with bamboo
shoots,white fungus etc,Attributed to the
favorable climate,that province abounds in rich
varieties of vegetables tender,evergreen,sweet or
crisp,supplied with seasonal fruits such as
pineapple,litchi,plum,cocoa net,banana,
Chinese chestnut,of which all can be assimilated
as flavoring into the hygiene dishes.
? The closing characteristic is the assorted types of
porridge and cakes,The long-endured summer
and the tremendous consumption of perspiration
both demand a wide diversity of meat porridge as
ideal convenient snacks,Porridge shops (including
some canteens affiliated to five or four-star hotels)
have recourse to a huge stock of base porridge
(called ―taste porridge‖)full of hen,pig‘s bones,
dried scallops and soybean rolls,which,when
being served,are transferred into small woks,
added with such already-made ingredients as fish,
shrimp,crab,frog,meat ball,pig‘s giblets,beef,
chicken and duckling as well as ginger,Chinese
onion and pepper powder,and which
consequently are compounded into many a sort of
porridge,Located at the crisscross of international
exchange,Guangzhou has amalgamated the
merits in making cakes from overseas and at
home to the effect that each teahouse or hotel has
prepared a thick brochure covering hundreds of
cakes and refreshments.
? B,Chuan (Sichuan) Cuisine
? Chuan Cuisine traces from the ancient Ba
Kingdom (modern Chongqing)and Shu
Kingdom (modern Chengdu) that is
remarkably challenged by the oily and hot
taste because of the foggy,cloudy and
damp climate in the Sichuan Basin for such
a taste (tingling and peppery,or bridged as
―mala‖ in Chinese) seems somewhat
efficacious in dispossessing dampness,
? Sichuan folks are keenly fascinated in
savoring ―Maodu‖(oxen‘s giblets,the staple
ingredient of Mala Hot Pot) and Granny Ma
Soybean Cake (tasting tingling,peppery,
oily,boiling hot,salty,tender and slippery)
and other courses stuffed with chili and wild
pepper.
? Another feature lies in artful employment of trite
materials into a number of dishes,Availing
themselves of a piece of half fat-half lean pork,
Sichuan chefs will give free rein to talents cooking
it into the salted-fried pork slices,the re-cooked
pork slices with garlic shoots(pepper),the
shredded pork in sweet pungent taste,the fried
pork cubes with peanuts,the sliced pork with rice
crust,the steamed pork chunks inserted with
mung bean pie,the steamed pork chunks in
pickles,the starch-steamed pork,the fried pork
cubes in sweet sour sauce and the cold-dish
sliced pork etc,each issuing forth a peculiar smell.
? Sichuanese are equally adroit in preparing
snacks such as the tingling-peppery oxen-
head beef,the prickly-spiced chicken cubes,
the tea-stewed duckling,the marinated
rabbit,the pickles in series,the sweet
dumplings of glutinous rice flour,and the
eight-treasure rice pudding,as being the
concluding feature.
? C,Lu (Shangdong) Cuisine
? Lu Cuisine,exactly speaking,Qi Cuisine
and Lu Cuisine,finds its birthplace in Linzi
and Qufu,the late capitals of ancient Qi
Kingdom and Lu Kingdom respectively,As a
remainder of the royal recipes it is
punctiliously exacting about the quality of
ingredients involving precious stuff,swallow
nest,shark fin,abalone,fish tripe,sea
cucumber,deer meat,mushroom,white
fungus and clam oil for tasty courses.
? On account of the cold-extended duration in
the northern China and shortage of
vegetables,the cooks in Shandong have
cultivated a unique skill in making high-heat
and high-protein dishes,which is rated the
second trait hereof illustrated by the skin-
crisp roasted duck,the nine-bend pig
intestines (a rival of the previous course),
the bone-detached braised chicken,the in-
wok-fried Yellow River carp,the braised
triton in soy sauce,and the deep-fried oyster
as choice delicacies.
? Lu masters have retained a fine tradition
that a wok of flavoring broth (with old hen
and pig trotters etc,as materials) is installed
beside the frying pan at any time,as being
sprinkled into the pan when necessary,a
substitute for gourmet powder,Also they
develop interest in milk soup; for instance,
travelers can enjoy the milk soup with some
sort of vegetable in Ji‘an city,the provincial
capital..
? D,Su Cuisine
? Su Cuisine occurred incipiently from Suzhou,a
little later from Yangzhou and Hangzhou,Its
dominant feature claims to be a miscellany of the
Southern relish and the Northern relish thanks to
the fact that this region used to be the abode of
the emperors during the Six-Dynasties and the
Southern Song Dynasty,and that the Great Canal
on which the three cities are situated bears a long-
standing fame over a millennium in navigation,
thus the region remaining as an interchange
between the South and the North,
Su chefs,on the one hand,are dexterous in
cooking the South-style courses,tasty,
refreshing and slippery; on the other they
behave well in the high-heat and high-
protein dishes as well,such as the stewed
pig knuckles with ham,the braised Lion‘s
Head and the stir-fried eel pastry,In the
menu of Su Cuisine can be ascertained
such a long listing of items that suit both the
Southerners and the Northerners.
? Plenty of lake produce and seafood
accounts for the following attribute,for
instance,the crab-yellow Lion‘s Head,the
crab-yellow swallow nest,the shark fin in
shrimp soup,the West-Lake sweet sour fish,
the steamed hilsa herring (specially of the
Fuchun River),the meat-stuffed lotus root,
the spicy Tai-Lake crucian carp soup and
the lotus-seed duck broth,as being the
prominent river-delicacy dishes of Su
Cuisine.
? With a high prestige throughout China,
exquisite cakes and snacks serve to be the
closing quality,the exemplars being the
pine-nut-crystalline-meat sweet cake,the
steamed crab-yellow-soup bread,the crab-
yellow shaomai (Chinese hot dog) and
Ninbo tangyuan (sweet dumplings of
glutinous rice flour)
Ⅱ, Tea Culture
Tea is the traditional beverage of Chinese
people who claim to be the pioneer in
planting,making and drinking tea across
the globe,An ancient maxim goes as,
―Every morn man has in mind seven ideas,
Faggot,rice,oil,salt,soy sauce,tea and
vinegar.‖ betraying an overwhelming status
of tea in the psyche of the Chinese.
? It is said that Shen Nong,,a Chinese planting
god in remote antiquity,chanced to discover tea
in wild mountains,―Shen Nong used to taste
hundreds of weeds when he encountered one
day seventy two poisonous species,With the aid
of tea he could be detoxified.‖ At the outset tea
had been solely treated as antidote before it was
found that it could be applicable in relieving
internal heat or fever and invigorating mind in
addition to the usage in medicine,Therefore
people turned to enjoy tea as a favorite drink
while mass growing and mass making of tea
were in vogue,as has been circulating over two
thousand years,
? As a matter of fact the Chinese were engrossed
in tea virtually as early as the Egyptian pyramids,
Tea had coursed through so age-long a historical
era,especially when the feudal culture was
glittering most illuminatingly that it had become
an indispensable favorite and had participated in
the complete course of Chinese feudal society
from nil to being,from the simple to the brilliant,
from the dawn to the dusk,There is no
uncertainty that tea has served to be a media to
best ascertain as well as to truly represent the
spiritual pursuit of Chinese ancient culture,an
emblem of culture in China.
? Tea,in the mind of Chinese ancients,was
endowed with ―human attributes‖,it induced
intelligence and noble character from the
clean dew of fairy mounts and the
quintessence of Heaven and Earth,It was
not surprising that they had recourse to
ostentatious interests in drinking tea,
? Firstly fastidious surroundings were exacted,
Being served indoors it should be equipped
with a clean courtyard and/or a silent hall;
being savored outdoors it should be
matched with a shining day with breeze
and/or bright moonlight at cool night,The
literati in the Ming Dynasty developed most
literary pursuits in this matter,
Wen Zhenheng declared in the Annals of
Customs & Hobbies,―A cubicle shall be built
on hillside where a young servant is held
responsible catering for tea when the host is
pleased to converse with friends day and
night for long.‖ Accordingly,he asserted it as
the business of prime importance to
―secluding men‖,Some magnates used to
employ the chatting partners at tea house
while the leisurely literati took to tea
savoring in hills and woods,as
demonstrated by:
? ―Tea‘s steaming in bamboo forest,
? And a fishing boat is moored.‖
? ―At the silent foot of Mount South,
? Tea steam is rising out of woods.‖
? From which arose a flavor of pursuing
gentility and serenity instead of fame and
wealth.
? Tea cannot do without water,No generations of
tea-sampling masters had failed to strive for
quality water,without which choice tea could not
be sampled perfectly,Lu Yu,the author of the
Canon of Tea that is claimed to be the founding
work of the kind in the world,set forth a whole
chapter for remarking on how to fetch water,He
advocated that the optimal choice was the
mountain water,specifically what had been
accumulated in a minute spring or stone tank,
excluding the rapidly-gushing cataract; the
secondary was equated with rivers; and the last
had resort to wells,The Song Dynasty saw a
lengthy list of the scholars discoursing on this
issue,
? During the Qing Dynasty wherever Emperor
Qian Long inspected he could not but order
his attendants to search for springs,then to
weigh the samples and grade them in a new
scale,In more cases the Jade Spring in
Beijing was ranked the first place,the
successive being the Yixun Spring north of
the Great Wall,the Pearl Spring in Ji‘nan,
the Gold Hill Spring by the Yangtze
River ……,The grading norm induced
nothing but activity,limpidity and
refreshment,
? Otherwise rainwater,ice,dew and snow
were unalterably fetched for infusing tea
with one intention to benefit from the
refreshing quality,and the other to scour
elegant interests,Lady Miao Yu in the
Dream of Red Mansion (a literary
masterpiece) was depicted as an expert in
savoring tea,who collected the snow flake
lingering on plum trees and embedded it
underground for five years,which could not
be served to mortals,but to celestial beings!
? The fire was not a slipshod matter,Chinese
ancients held that the water burned with
faggots tasted a slight trace of wood; the top
alternative tended to be non-smoke charcoal
burned from hard faggots that was
designated ―tea-soup friend‖ or ―active fire‖
while the bad-quality charcoal was
nicknamed ―tea evil‖ that would result in
smoke penetrating into tea soup,
So when the water was burred,the smoke in
charcoal should be repelled before a container
was placed over it,the hand fan being shaken
increasingly with a view to invigorating the flame,
Su Shi,a widely–appreciated lyrical poet of the
Song Dynasty,made mention of the method in
numerable times,―I still have kept a memory that
in the past when entertaining guests,Mr,Li
cooked for tea water with the active fire‖ (The
Infusion of Tea at Examination Academy),―Fine
tea should be infused with refreshing water.‖ (Tea
Infusing by River Water).
? Brewing tea leaves had become a superb
procedure since the Tang-Song Dynasties,The
Tang civilians had resort to fu (a sort of vessel
equivalent to pottery jar or bottle in Song) through
a vent of which the water could be observed when
boiling,a method called ―form identification‖,The
ancients retained an exacting attitude to the
boiling process as the well-boiled water produced
lack of fragrance,The state of boiling,as per Lu
Yu,could be graded into three orders,―The water
with bubbles like fish eyes and a whisper seems to
be in the first boiling; a string of foams spurting
around the edge of vessel like a chain of pearls in
the second boiling; the waves surging up in the
third boiling.‖
? Whichever order was most suitable for
brewing tea leaves varied from one to
another,In Song ―the second boiling‖ was
preferred whereas Xu Cishu in Ming
affirmed,―Upon being poured into the vessel
the water needs intense burning; at sound
the lid shall be removed so as to observe
the process; when crab eyes (ripples) are
seen it is high time to pick up the water.‖ It
sounded moderately justifiable.
? The tea sampling art hounded fine
apparatus,Feng Zhengqing argued in the
Remarks on Tea that each drinker should be
equipped with a pocket-sized superb tea pot,
Such a model could refrain from dispersion
of tea flagrancy for fear that it would flutter
out shortly after the cooking,On the other
hand a standard of high order was imposed
on the molding,tinge,luster and quality
regarding tea set,
Lu Yu lodged prejudiced favor of the blue glazed
ceramics manufactured in Yuezhou contending
that tea set and tea soup could be combined into a
harmonious beauty whereas Cai Xiang in the
Song Dynasty advocated that ―a light-tinge tea
soup shall be rivaled with a black set.‖ in search of
a contrasting beauty,as being aroused by diverse
aesthetic interests,At any rate exquisiteness
assumed supreme in the connoisseurship of tea
apparatus,It seems true that a tea set in the Ming
Dynasty ―cost 100,000 in cash‖,a testimony to the
public concern for that matter.
? Tea can be savored exclusively or mutually
with friends or guests,Staying alone in a
pleasing,carefree,relaxed and quiet mood
one might as well be preoccupied in sipping
tea in such an excitement that ―Mind being
sublimated,I am deeply affected at
conducting social affairs.‖ Also being in
perfect unison with friends concerning
personality and temperament,one would be
able to wallow in aromatic tea at table,Xu
Cishu specified obviously the tea-sampling
situations in On Guests from Remarks on
Tea:
in case of ―the arrival of a throng of friends or
guests‖ liqueur is served; in case of ―nodding
acquaintance‖,a tray of common fruits shall be
available; solely when ―mind-concerted‖,
magnanimous and amicable fellows came did the
host call on an attendant to light fire,boil water
and brew tea leaves,The procedure of tea
infusing depended upon the number of guests,
One pot would suffice three or less; half of a
dozen would be greeted with two pots; considering
a big party of guests,the fire shall be extinguished
and other means shall be resorted to,There was
no doubt that ―seclusion‖ and ―serenity‖ in mind
and spirit served to be the essence of Chinese
tea-sampling.
? Above all such an attitude toward tea has
exclusively been ingrained in the innermost
of Chinese nation that the elements
involving mental elegance,calm
surroundings,clear water,precious
chinaware,and bosom friends were exacted,
as by no means being interpreted simply in
a couple of phrases,The genre of Chinese
art appears to be reserved,
Even though delight and merriment had
been procured in the course of tea savoring
ostensibly,yet the true aim steeped in
Chinese tea-connoisseurs was none but the
realm of mind-awakening and psyche-
attainment,It did not seem eccentric that the
flavor of tea was not only that of tea leaves,
but that of human life,and further that
arising from the observation of universe.
Ⅲ, Wine Culture
China stands out as one of the pioneering
nations in wine brewing in the word,In concord
with Wei Kingdom Section II from Intrigues of
Warring States,the founding father of wine was
claimed to be Yi Di who lived in the Xia Dynasty;
in other occasion Yi Di and Du Kang were both
held the originators in Annotation of Characters,
That is why Chinese ancients used to substitute
Du Kuang for the designation of wine,as
manifested in a poem by Cao Cao,―How can I
relieve grief? / Solely Dukang works well.‖
? Wine was unexceptionally identified to be a
special cultural carrier profoundly infused in the
bottom of Chinese character,The misfortunate
and oppressed indulged in drinking to such an
extent that they could ―drink wine daily like soup,‖
―Host‘s shamed greeting guests with no wine,‖
and ―Countless wives help drunken husbands
return.‖ The noble and well-off might wallow in it
until ―Wine tank drained,drunkards are limping;‖
and ―Meat becomes rotten and wine overspills in
the tycoons‘ red mansions.‖ No weighty incidents
failed to testify its presence ranging from troop‘s
march on expeditions to festivity of military feats,
from wedding or longevity parties to conclusion
of bilateral treaties,
On the Tomb-Sweeping Festival wine was
spattered at the front and top of tombs in honor
of the deceased,Wine was otherwise sprinkled
as a sign of reverence in some sacred occasions
such as the performing divination in remote
antiquity,the rituals of praying for rainfall in
farming-dominated societies,and the folk
festivals in greeting deities and sending off
ghosts,Even to the prisoners scheduled to be
executed was offered a bowl of wine as a symbol
of judicial magnanimity,It had elbowed its way
through the millennia of Chinese history,charged
with the unequaled national sentiment and
collective identification.
? Wine abounds in categories,In terms of
brewing time there are spring wine,hundred-
day wine and overnight wine etc; respecting
ingredients come relentlessly rice wine,wheat
or oats wine,red sorghum wine,wild pepper
wine,grape wine,chrysanthemum wine,plum
wine,osmanthus flower wine,elm wine,and
horse-milk wine,Grape wine was transferred
into the Central China from the Western
Territory,People in different regions have
developed a varied fondness toward wine,
Having occupied a wide area in the
south of China,the yellow wine claims to
be the exclusive invention of Chinese
nation and to be inscribed onto the list of
the most ancient liqueurs across the
globe,which dates back to the Xia-Shang
Dynasties and is otherwise entitled the
old wine with the Shaoxin Yellow Wine
preponderating over the remainders,
However the north of China is the traditional
domain of the white wine,As per fermentation it
is categorized into the solid-fermented liqueur,
the liquid-fermented and the semi-solid-
fermented,For yeast composition it induces the
grand-yeast liqueur,the minute-yeast and the
bran-yeast,In view of fragrance it registers the
faint-scent type,the heavy-scent,the soy-paste-
scent,the rice-scent,and the miscellaneous
types,The Northerners have dedicated most
tribute to red sorghum wine as an emblem of
fortitude and valiancy.
Standing out in the family of Chinese wine,
the medical liqueur bears a long-run history,
Wine itself cures diseases,As asserted in a
decree promulgated by Emperor Wang
Mang toward the decline of the Western
Han Dynasty,which was quoted from On
Effectiveness from Treatise of Drinking Wine,
―Wine works as the principal of hundreds of
medicines,which,therefore,was wielded to
cure the diseases by the Yellow Emperor.‖
Wine tastes so effective in promoting
blood circulation and dislodging
rheumatism that Yuan Yang,who
served the prince Liu Bi as the prime
minister of Wu Manor in the Western
Han Dynasty,was persuaded by his
nephew to ―drink an appropriate
amount of wine everyday.‖
? In performing surgical operation,Hua Tuo
required the patient to gulp the anesthetic
powder with wine so as to reduce pain,Chinese
folks have a liking in admixing medicine into wine
for strengthening and nourishing body,For
example,the snake wine for expelling
rheumatism,the ginseng wine for postponing
human aging,the three-genital (of deer,ox and
horse) wine for consolidating masculinity,the
tiger-bone wine for bone injuries and vitality,
The Syllabus of Medical Herbs was packed by
scores of medical wine prescriptions covering a
wide range of rare medical herbs or objects,a
queer trait in the global wine trade.
? As early as in the Han Dynasty there had been
found wine streets or markets in cities,The
Biography of Knight-Errant from the History of
Han Dynasty presented an account,―The two
merchants Zhao Jundu and Jia Ziguang in the
wine street were subject to the grievance and
assassination by the despotic gentry in
Chang‘an,‖ witnessing the very existence of
wine street within the metropolis,A more
distinct record can work as a testimony in
Fayun Temple from The Records of Luoyang
Jialan,―West of the city there are two lanes
called respectively the Wine-Selling Lane and
the Wine-Cup Lane wherein the residents more
often than not undertook wine-brewing as their
profession.‖
The drinking establishments,to solicit customers,
hung a red or yellow triangular flag with a king-
size character ―酒” (wine) in the center,The
classic Master Han Fei written in the Pre-Chin
period portrayed,―The wine seller in Song
Kingdom hung high a flag‖,as being the earliest
advertisement,―Lu‖ was the counter for placing
wine jars,There prevailed during the ancient
days a romantic legendary story ―Beauties at Lu‖
(denoting the saleswomen standing at counter in
service),in which the ancients hankered after
matching delicious wine with beautiful women,
such as ―Madam Zhuo Wenjun at Lu‖ and ―Lady
Hu at Counter.‖
? Wine is of dual nature,On the one hand it
plays a heroic role on the stage of human
life,full of forthright and entrepreneurial air,
as described in a Tang poem,―In luminous
glass grape wine sweet / I haven‘t drunk till
press me war steeds.‖ On the other hand it
renders drinkers pessimistic and down cast,
furnishing to the sober-minded cynics
transient lethargy,as citted popularly in
―Infused in wine,grief grows in mind.‖
What is more,excessive drinking results in
quarrels,conflicts and even demise,
Chinese ancients cast censure on the four
cardinal vices in human life,wine,
amorousness,avarice and arrogance,the
alcohol being ranked the first place,Those
wallowing in wine and amorous conduct
were despised as the wine and amorous
bastards.
? In spite of being aware that drunkenness will
induce buffoonery in dilapidated postures
and sheer nonsense,Chinese populace
obstinately adhere to guests getting drunk at
dinner table,as contrasts to Western
courtesy in taking to wine in more cases for
savoring,an intriguing phenomenon imbued
in two connotations:
? A,The generosity and hospitality of the host
or hostess,In common circumstances
drinking wine is accompanied by some
dishes,and not all people are accorded an
opportunity to drink every day,So naturally
they deduce that the more extravagant
drinking with dishes a host or hostess can
provide,the more zest and hospitality he or
she manifests to guests,In normal times
Chinese folks exercise frugality in
expenditure; however their dissipation at
dinner might as well be counted as a
rebellion of their normal behavior.
? B,There is a restriction to drinking wine,
beyond which one will get drunk,Chinese
populace who are preoccupied in refined
etiquette ordinarily live in peace and quiet,
but at dinner table they become elated or
intoxicated in the finger-guessing game and
other tricks giving vent to the roar and outcry
arising therein,as if it were another
interpretation of their life.
? Then by what means can they drink as
much as they please? We are reminded
of an epigram that goes like ―Refuse a
toast only to drink a forfeit submit to
one‘s pressure after first turning down
his request‖,satirizing or disdaining one
who is constrained to perform what one
has declined before hand,Nevertheless
the case seems different at dinner table,
? Chinese folks have ever invented a great
variety of forfeit games in the purpose of
persuading guests drink wine in amounts,
Provided that there existed no forfeit
induction and moralized bond on drinking,the
ardency permeated at dinner table will find no
outlet to dredge whereas the ostensibly-
compulsory forfeit bond on drinking is truly
steeped in host‘s amicableness and sincerity,
Admittedly in this peculiar cultural
phenomenon is concealed the potential
element of crack jokes and pleasant
sensation of games.
The forfeiting methods to liven up drinking
contain a wide range,occasionally
appearing gentle and witty,such as
―practising wine orders‖,It is practised as
below,one of drinkers is recommended as
the commander who is entitled to issue
orders when the remainders,highbrow or
humble,are obliged to abide by the orders
inclusive of composing poems alternatively
or playing other games,
? The participators who fail in it due to
shortage of knowledge or intelligence will be
penalized to drink,This game was prevalent
among the high-rank officials and noble
families,as assumed by those talented
young ladies in The Dream of Red Mansion.
? Some forfeit methods seem coarse and
unconstrained,such as ―finger-guessing game‖,
It is an exclusive invention of Chinese nation,
which is allegedly reported to be available in
Japan as well,an imported product from Cathay
centuries ago according to certain textual
research,The passwords enclosed therein have
varied in times and places,nonetheless have
consistently clung to the numerals from one to
ten,In the course of the game both parties are
equally required to shout out numerals while
offering the fingers out of each one‘s fist,
? In case that the fingers of party A and that
of party B chance to be equivalent to the
numeral shouted by party B,then B wins
and A fails who is fined to drink a mouthful
or a cup of wine,At the scene of such
event both parties are rashly wielding fists,
constantly adjusting fingers and thumbs,
shouting out numerals unceasingly while
fixing eyes upon the rival‘s
gestures and numerals in the company of
roaring shouts or seeming quarrels,as is
not intended to convey malice,The
consequence will be such that the winning
party acquires mirth and satisfaction and
the losing party dodges in an attempt the
mock and jeer from the partners that claim
to be nothing but a divulgation of
trustworthy friendliness as well as the glee
of pastimes.
? On other occasions the forfeit bond is
subjected to Heaven,It seems to be of
Chinese fatalism that man‘s gain or loss
hinges upon fortuity,the wine games being
a vindication hereof,Take two games ―the
drifting-bowl-in-curved-tank‖ and ―the
beating-drum & passing-flower‖,the bowl is
pushed and drifted by the current in tank,
and nobody ascertains when and where it
ceases;
? whoever faces up to it at rest shall accept
fine; in the second case players are passing
on a bundle of flower in a circle in the
company of the drumbeats,and when the
beating stops abruptly and whoever takes
hold of the bundle shall never evade
drinking,Uncertain of the outcome,the
interested parties must be exceptionally
anxious and eager,as arouses exhilaration
at dinner table.
? In conclusion tea and wine virtually divulge all the
ideals and pursuits infused in Chinese populace,
Wine panders to and titillates man‘s secular
desires and tea deprives him of them,Wine
relates to primal chaos and rash mind and tea
seduces man to a sober-minded realm; the
forthright drinking of wine reminds man of the
scholar-officials‘ ambition in ―break up new ground
to rejuvenate the state‖ and the calm constrained
savoring of tea exudes the literati‘s helplessness
embodied in ―Though poverty-stricken,I‘ll adhere
to prudence.‖
? Lingering beside a tea cup the Chinese
naturally behave in a reserved,submissive
and genteel manner; holding up a wine
glass in hand they will be loaded with
piquancy and valiant demeanor.
CHAPTER 13 Pragmatic-
Oriented Inventions
----- Unprecedented Inventions of
the Ancient Chinese
? During the fifteen centuries starting from the
Chin Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty Chinese
science and technology had ever taken an
overwhelming lead over the world in the
long run,making a crucial contribution to the
progress of human civilization,An English
science historian Bernard said that China
―has for centuries served as one of the
immense centers of human civilization and
science.‖
Another contemporary English science historian
Joseph Needham pointed out that ―In many a
ultimate field the Chinese had preceded those
legendary figures who created well-known｀
hopeful miracles‘ thanks to their inventions on
science and technology and had kept abreast with
the Arabs who were in possession of the total
cultural achievements pertaining to the ancient
Western world,And from 3rd century to 13th
century they had retained a level of scientific
knowledge too superior for the West to catch up
with.‖ Hereafter is presented a brief introduction to
this theme.
Ⅰ, Features of Ancient Chinese
Science and Technology
As a subdivison of traditional Chinese
culture,the ancient Chinese science
and technology was imprinted with the
idiosyncrasy distinguishing itself from
the counterparts in the other
civilizations,
Chinese nation held an exacting gusto toward
―pragmatic value‖ in daily things and
consequently the scientific matter was no
exception,Preponderate was the attainment
of astronomy in that the monarchs in a string
of the dynasties contended that their throne
was ―authorized by Heaven‖ and must have
been rendered in compliance with nature;
henceforward ―calendar functions as an
overriding affair of a state.‖
Each dynasty found an official institution
responsible for observing celestial
phenomena and revising calendar; and
so was the case in the turmoil of the
Wei-Jin-Northern-Southern Dynasties
Even such minority sovereignties as the
Pre-Chin Dynasty,the Pre-Yan Dynasty
and the Northern Wei Dynasty had
likewise set up an entity ―prestigious for
prophesying Heaven.‖
It does not sound eccentric that there has
been an infinite stockpile of the ancient
records of celestial phenomena and an
ever-improving calendar,Agriculture had
scaled a fairly high degree with over 300
publications on husbandry and the
technique of land measurement and atlas
drawing predominant,as was attributed to
the policy ―state based upon farming‖
adopted in the dynasties,
Owing to a vast territory the unification and
stability of the empire hinged on the reinforced
administration to such a degree that flocks of
officials,even prime ministers such as Li Linfu in
the Tang Dynasty,paid tribute to land allotment,
civilians‘ subsistence and local economic
situations,thus prompting a giant-step
advancement in physics,There followed up the
world-reputed ―Four Great Inventions‖,the result
of Chinese ―pragmatic value‖,of which paper
making,compass and letterpress came into being
as a communication means in the centralized state;
gunpowder,linked with alchemy,was invented as
an applicable technique for the sake of military
campaigns.
? The ancient pragmatic-oriented Chinese
science and technology was pervaded into
disciplines of learning,So prominent was
ancient Chinese mathematics in solving
pragmatic problems,For instance,the Nine-
Chapter Arithmetic arrayed nine chapters
ranging in such aspects as square fields,
grains,fraction,profit and loss,equations
and right triangle,totaling 246 applied
problems interrelated intently with social
production,
The Ming Dynasty saw a large library of compiled
arithmetic works; however,―those not applicable in
government and civilian business,though handed
down from the Nine-Chapter Arithmetic,have
been discarded.‖ It articulated a strong flavor of
pragmatism,Besides,geodesy was implemented
so that ―sovereigns can hold a panorama of the
empire;‖ astronomy was affiliated to calendar; and
biology was virtually imbued in agriculture and
medicine or pharmacy,the ―pragmatic value‖
specifying the orientation of diverse subjects.
? It was pragmatism that had enabled China
to stand in the forefront of the ancient world
for an elongated duration partly because the
pragmatic needs of the state rendered such
a tremendous favor to the monarchs that
they ―could assume the sovereign power
and mobilize the social resources‖ to spur
the evolution of science and technology,
? The ancient Greece,medieval Europe and
Muslim empires showing due concern in
science,chanced to meet a community of
scholars summoned up by the monarchs to
be engaged in scientific research,which
appeared to be a private conduct in more
cases and expired upon the advocators
getting bogged down in disgrace or
deceased,
? By contrast in China there had been early
established the royal observatory,imperial
hospitals and other specialized institutions for
science and technology while the professional elite
in colossal quantities were enlisted by the state
and marshaled for studies involving astronomy,
mathematics,medicine,pharmacy,technique and
handicraft,Take an example,the historical records
of astronomical phenomena and the medical
treatises and pharmacopeias issued since the
Tang Dynasty were none other than the
accomplishment by a massive army of officially-
organized scientists in collaboration,
? Despite the vicissitudes of the feudal
dynasties in China,this tradition had been
sustained over millennia,which had made
no debut in Europe prior to modern times,
and which,in the light of the global cultural
history,is rated a curious phenomenon,
Concurrently the social and individual needs,
in turn,could not but extend general
concern to the scientific development,
? For another matter this feature became an
obstacle to its furtherance,The evolving
course of science and technology has led to
the inspiration that all the frame work
embedded in a great scientific theory did not
arise from a pragmatic or concrete aim,but
under most circumstances from a super-
pragmatic curiosity,Greek mathematician
Euclid developed nausea against
pragmatism,Once upon a time when one of
his disciples asked what was the use of
geometry,he immediately told a slave
attendant to offer the guy a gold coin and
dismiss him,
Euclid had devoted all his energies in exploring the
noumenon of the world by means of the research
in geometrical figures,His least pragmatic theory,
after Renaissance,had been alloyed with algebra
into a brand new mathematical model that laid
down a staunch basis for the gigantic leap of
Western science and technology sprouting in
modern times,However,the pragmatic-oriented
value in China hindered the distillation of Chinese
thought,having predestined that Chinese science
and technology could fail to scale the higher strata
of nature‘s paradise,a sorrowful aspect hereof.
? Another feature was infused in ―experiences‖
or empiricism,During a lengthy age of
laboring practice Chinese ancients had
obtained a reservoir of experiences and
inventions,yet the relevant conclusions
mostly being inspired directly or described in
an audiovisual manner from experiences,
falling short of probing into scientific theories,
Take astronomical observation for instance,
the records in question appeared delicate
and conscientious,of which the minute
details remained far more superior to the
rivals of the ancient or medieval Europe,
and which,none the less,had not been
analyzed,induced and conduced into laws,
Even though Chinese history witnessed
thirty one records concerning the advent of
certain comet,but it was Halley,a British
astronomer in the seventeenth century,who
worked out its average cycle,
The three masterpieces The Syllabus of Medical
Herbs,Encyclopedia of Farming,and Heavenly
Wonders completed in the Ming Dynasty claimed
to be the zenith of ancient Chinese medicine and
pharmacy,agriculture and technology,which were
yet constrained within the recording and inducing
phases of production experiences,deficient in
theoretical generalization and sublimation,It is not
astonishing that although Chinese ancients ―had
put forward some ingenious ideas and foreseen
some forthcoming discoveries,‖ then they had
constantly lingered on the sweeping audiovisual
level of ―stating what it is and not inquiring into
why it is,‖ not having constituted a complete
system of scientific theories,
The vital elements in science advancement-
the spirit of analyzing and positivism failed
to scour the nutriment for its germination in
the ―empirical‖ soil of ancient Chinese
science and technology,Henceforth the
―empirical dream‖,which had ever
embraced China with a magnificent
biography,did obstruct itself from further
proceeding.
? Notwithstanding the ―pragmatic-oriented‖
and ―empirical-focused‖ trait,Chinese
scientists and technicians had definitely
reaped the harvest of wisdom,So far the
meticulousness,artfulness and beauty
incarnated in ancient Chinese inventions
have been acclaimed as a marvel,As
proclaimed by the renowned modern
scientist Albert Einstein:
―The advancement of Western sciences has
been established upon two great
achievements,i.e,the system of formal logic
invented by Greek philosophy (conceived in
Euclid‘s geometry) and the approach that by
systematic experiments the cause-effect
relationship could be found (in Renaissance
Age),In my opinion,it is not surprising that
Chinese sages did not take these two steps,
but it ought to be astounding that these
discoveries had been completely made (in
China).‖
? At the turn between the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries when Jesuits landed
on Chinese continent,they became
thoroughly amazed at the radiance of
ancient Chinese science and technology so
as to exclaim with a heartfelt sigh that
―Chinese ancients were great creators.‖ Also
the ingenuity of Chinese nation was
implanted in the countless inventions.
Ⅱ, A Crystallization of Ancient
Chinese Wisdom
Robert Temple,a British scholar,stated in his
masterpiece China--A Nation of Discoveries
and Inventions,Among the essential
discoveries and inventions on which the
modern world has been constituted,at least
over 50% may have originated from Cathay; in
addition to the widely-appreciated Great Four
Inventions (compass,gunpowder,letterpress
and paper) can equally be enrolled into an
elongated list of Chinese pioneering
discoveries or inventions:
? modern husbandry,navigation,petroleum
industry,meteorological observation,music,
decimal mathematics,paper cash,
multistage rocket,submarine torpedo,
poisonous gas,guns and cannons,
parachute,on-man plane,brandy,whisky,
and even the core design of steam engine,
as being the crystallization of ancient
Chinese wisdom glistening in the ancient
civilized hemisphere.
? A,The Confidential of Navigation
? Chinese nation comes within those experts
in navigation,having sparked in the age-
long period of the ocean-going experience
as a preeminent wit in piloting boats and
ships,At the outset they created the
peerless propelling tool---scull that had
been transformed from paddle,equipped
with the function of rudder and oar or
paddle as well as a higher propelling
efficiency than oar,As a proverb goes,
―One scull is equivalent to three oars.‖
It proved to be a fruit of the systematic
intelligence that the capability of an integral
body is greater that the sum of components;
that is,the simplest tool was exploited to
control the most complicated movement,
Scull made its maiden occurrence
exclusively in China,which is prized by
Westerner scholars as ―the most scientific
one of all Chinese inventions.‖
? All the more Chinese geniuses in
shipbuilding overwhelmed in the long run
her peers in the world,inventing a large
quantity of constructions and implements
like scull,brimming with creative wit and
poetic association,
They invented the earliest water-proof
compartments of ship that,in case of hull
wreck,could ensure that most other
compartments were safe so that the sailors
could win time to dredge and repair it in a
single broken hold,whereupon upgrading to
a great degree the resisting-shipwreck
capability,As early as fourteen centuries
ago the Chinese had mastered such knack
whereas Westerners had not wielded this
technique until the eighteenth century,
They admitted they had derived the
confidence from Chinese ships,In turn
Chinese ship makers flashed out such an
idea from the grain barns at home,
Furthermore the earliest axial rudder at
stern was also ascribed to the Chinese,At
the stern of an Eastern-Han pottery ship
model unearthed in Guangzhou is found a
rudder fastened at central axis,which is
claimed to be a transitional device from the
paddle rudder to the axial-revolving rudder,
Roughly between the second and fourth
centuries the Chinese had availed
themselves of the genuine axial-revolving
rudder,an event of vital importance to
operation performance of ships,In the
twelfth century it was diffused westward to
the Mediterranean via the Indian Ocean as
had the water-proof compartment,The
balance rudder and punched rudder were
available in Cathay in the eleventh century
while they had not been intelligible to
Europeans till the eighteenth century.
? Around the third century Chinese sailing
ships were equipped with the sails of the
most intelligent order,In the West the use of
sails had been invariably esteemed the
magnificent feat of superior wisdom created
by heroic gods,There is a legendary story
that when a Babylonian hero Jiljiameish
endeavored to cross the Dead Sea,he was
advised by a ferryman to fabricate a 18-foot
long bunt pole,
One hundred and twenty poles of such size
being joined together,however,they failed
to reach the abyss of the sea,Then the hero
flashed out an expedient to take off his
clothes as a sail and hold up two arms as
masts before the boat sailed along,Instead
Fu Xi,a Chinese god,took a pragmatic
stand,As early as the third century,multiple
masts had been installed on Chinese sailing
ships in an interlocking design and the main
mast tilted toward stern.
? On the contrary,Europe did not see the
three-mast sails until the fifteenth century,
and did not know the interlocked masts and
the tilted-backward main mast,which could
make more effective use of wind power,until
as late as the nineteenth century,Even the
sail design of modern racing boats is none
but a product of the traditional Oriental wit
steeped in sails,
? One of Chinese traditional sails was the
wing-type sail matched with multiple
horizontal supports and a complex cable
operation mechanism,which could take
advantaged of wind power blowing in
various directions with a view to generating
maximum thrust,Prior to the arrival of
modern racing boats,Western ships had by
no means been equipped with such a highly
efficient sail.
? Due to the assistance of sails the Song
Dynasty (10th-12th centuries) was marked
by the adeptness in piloting ships in adverse
wind,In order to overcome the horizontal
drifting of ships and their deviation from
courses incurred in a zigzag route by
adverse wind,Chinese ship makers
invented ―water mantle‖ that was mounted
on a ship‘s sides,shaped like shark‘s fin,
? and could be cast down into water when a
ship navigated in adverse wind,thus
enhancing the horizontal resistance and
preventing it from toppling and horizontal
drifting,As late as the sixteenth century
European sailing ships embarked upon
adopting some device of the like.
? In addition to the aforesaid,the Chinese
were the first to apply wheels into ship
propeller mechanism,and the ship so
equipped was called ―chariot ship‖ in ancient
times,In the fifth century,Zu Chongzhi ever
succeeded in building a ―thousand-li ship‖ (A
li is equated with half kilometer.) propelled
by wheels and traveling more than 100 li a
day,In the eighth century of Tang,a
governor in Hubei province Li Gao ordered a
pedal ship be manufactured,which ―is
driven swiftly by two wheels as if hung with
a sail.‖
Moreover the Song Dynasty witnessed the
24-wheel ―chariot ship.‖ Europe inaugurated
to be engaged in studying wheel paddle in
the fourteenth century and their ―chariot ship‖
came into existence in Spain by the
sixteenth century.
? The delicate propelling mechanisms
mentioned above evince the superlative
wisdom of Chinese ancients in simulating
natural things,somewhat revealing an age-
old poetic air.
? B,The First Distance-Recorded Chariot in
the World
? Dating back to 1,500 years ago,the
Chinese engineers assembled the first
distance-recorded chariot--- Li-Recorded
Drum Chariot whose mechanical principle
happened to be outright in compliance with
that of modern odometers.
? The earliest record of the Li-Recorded Drum
Chariot is found in The Chronicle of Chariots &
Clothing from The History of Jin Kingdom,―(On the
chariot) there stands a wooden figure holding a
mallet over a drum,which strikes the drum once
whenever the chariot travels a li.‖ And the History
of the Song Dynasty and The History of the Sui
Dynasty had approximately registered the similar
story as before,Solely in the Annotations to the
General Code can be detected a further
supplement (as quoted from The Annotations to
the Ancient and Contemporary Works compiled by
Cui Bao in the Jin Dynasty):
? ―The big-frame chariot is capable of
recording distance,spread from the
western capital and otherwise named
the li-recorded cart,It is structured in
two strata separately equipped with
wooden figures; when it travels a li,the
lower-stratum figure strikes the drum;
when it reaches ten li,the upper-stratum
figure beats the gong.‖
? As a matter of fact the exquisite knack
therein lies in the crafty utilization of
wheels and gears,Inside the chariot were
mounted two coaxial foot wheels with a
diameter of six chi (in ancient
measurement); on the left foot wheel was
affixed a 18-tooth vertical wheel,At right
angle with the two foot wheels were joined
the 54-tooth lower flat wheels,Over the
lower flat wheels in co-axle was a 3-tooth
revolving wheel joined with the right large
flat wheel,Over the 100-tooth large flat
wheel was installed in co-axle a pair of iron
revolvers,
? When the large wheel rotated a cycle,the
revolvers moved once which was combined to a
hand of the wooden figures by means of a pulley
block and ropes,The consecutive motion
between the wheels and the years in the Li-
Recorded Chariot induced the conversion of the
moving distance in the known proportion,100
cycles of the foot wheels were equated with 300
human paces or a li while the large flat wheel
was revolving sharply to such a extent that the
wooden figure struck the drum once,a sound
signal of a li connoting one cycle that the spatial
element in distance was converted to a sound or
sensational signal had been fulfilled.
? In a word the mastery of length conception
therein was paralleled by an extremely high
degree of abstract generalizing capability,
by which the measurement signal of length
was severed from length itself and the visual
information was transformed by motion into
the audio information,This complete
distance-recorded system served to be a
harmonious modulation of such intelligent
elements as spatial sense,mechanical
movement and perceptional conversion,the
most successful paragon in applying the
gear deceleration principle in ancient times
over the history of science.
? C,The Inventions Triggered by Wooden
Bars
? To meet pragmatic purposes Chinese
ancients exhibited a highly conscious
observation and abstract wisdom in respect
of economizing labor by simulating natural
things,First of all they made balance by
common objects.
? The most antique weighing apparatus in
China was designated ―heng‖ that was
suspended at the central point of a stick with
an object at an end and stones at the other,
The stones in different sizes were called
―quan‖,By replacing the stones at one end,
the stick could be maintained balanced,
consequently the weight of an object
measured,
? The Canon of Master Mo edited in the fourth
century B.C contemplated upon lever
principle putting forward the proposition
―Balance objects must induce a balanced
stick‖,and nominating the sliding weight
―quan‖,the object ―Zhong‖,the side between
the balance pivot and the object ―ben‖,the
other side between the balance pivot and
the sliding weight ―biao‖,
? Master Mo and his disciples had pointed out,
―When extra weight is added to a side of
balanced scale,it must incline,The sliding
weight and object shall be equivalent in
quality,In case of a short ben and and a
longer biao,the two ends shall still be
balanced as long as different weight is
reduced from ben; if biao is to lean,it must
gain extra weight……The longer side with
the same object will droop; the short side
with the same object will be warped.‖
? Obviously these remarks had disclosed the
affirmation that lever balance can be
subdued not only by the amount of strength
or weight,but also by the distance starting
from the balance pivot to each end,The
rudimentary law of making balance
embodied in the image of a wooden stick
was in overall conformity with the lever
principle detected by Archimedes,Actually
the Chinese had invented scales and taken
advantage of lever from remote antiquity in
a far more advanced situation than The
Canon of Master Mo registered.
? The Chinese-model scale was composed of
a bamboo beam,a pivot tie of silk thread
and two copper trays being hung at each
end of the beam,matched with a set of
graduated ring-shape golden ornaments as
weights (called ring quan in ancient days),
The precision belonging to this mini-scale
could amount to 6/10,000 of one jin (half
kilogram),
The weight of ring quan increased by
multiple,respectively being one zhu (0.6
gram),two zhu,three zhu,six zhu,twelve
zhu,one liang (twenty four zhu),two liang,
four liang,half jin (eight liang),one jin
(sixteen liang,or 500 grams),What a
miraculous precision it should be acclaimed
to!
? D,Astronomical Observation Apparatus
? The Meridian Apparatus was rated the
astronomical observation apparatus of prime
momentousness in ancient China,Simulated
as seen from a human eye,it was shaped like
a celestial sphere and molded into multi-tier
concentric rings,The outer tier was forged by
two same-sized rings,perpendicular to each
other and welded together,one entitled the
equator-parallel ring corresponding to the
equator,the other the meridian ring vertical
with the former one,Each pair of the rings had
been graduated with readings and positions as
a reading panel,
? Within the plane of the equator-parallel
ring was mounted a revolving peep-tube
that could be targeted at any point in
space on being revolved along with the
ring,thus the point being located in the
equatorial coordinates pertaining to the
pairs of rings hereof,In 323 B.C,Kong
Ting,a historian of Zhao Kingdom,had
already manufactured such meridian
apparatus,relying upon which Chinese
ancients had early observed some weighty
stars such as the twenty eight star
constellations and the coordinates of the
sun and the moon with high-precision data.
? Preceded by the meridian instrument,
further improvements were accrued in the
successive centuries,Some astronomers
furnished an ecliptic ring to survey the
bilateral relationship between stars and the
sun whereas some supplied the moon-path
ring to scrutinize the interrelation of stars
and the moon,Guo Shoujin,a highly-
venerated scientist in the Yuan Dynasty,
updated the traditional meridian apparatus
into the Simplified Instrument,having
maintained a record high of human
astronomical observation throughout the
world for a couple of centuries.
? Guo Shoujin had severed the equatorial ring
away from the horizontal ring and then
lowered the meridian ring from the middle of
the equatorial ring to the bottom,whereupon
the meridian ring being saved and the
observation rendered tremendously
convenient,Its equator-type mechanism
was not only in agreement with the modern
equator-type telescope in principle,but fairly
resembled the latter in visible features,
? At present time the overwhelming majority of
celestial telescopes across the globe have
unanimously adopted the equator-type
mechanism,whose instrumentation is
outright competent in measuring directly the
longitude and latitude of celestial bodies,
furthermore in pursuing the orbits of them by
means of the instrument-transferred clock.
But traditionally Western gastronomists
availed themselves of the ecliptic
coordinates,that is,the plane of the orbit
by which the earth rotates around the sun
as a datum plane,between which and the
equatorial plane lies an included angle
measured at 23‖ 27｀,
The ancient Greek,Arabic and the medieval
European astronomers did not abandon the
ecliptic-type instrumentation until the close of the
sixteenth century when the prominent Danish
astronomer Digu turned to take interest in the
equator-type,which was prized one of the
marked advancements in European astronomy
during Renaissance,and which should have
been three centuries later than the Simplified
Instrument upgraded by Guo Shoujin!
? The thinking style Guo had epitomized in the
innovation regarding the Meridian
Instrument was surely claimed to be typical
of Chinese wisdom,He had inherited
Chinese traditional observation apparatus---
the peep-tube telescope that was actually a
double-ring hollow copper cylinder with a
spiral line inside; the spacing between the
two rings worked to help locate the longitude
precision,
In introducing the Simplified Instrument to
the West,Matteo Ricci could never have
apprehended the significant value
underlying the fact that the Chinese had
substituted the equatorial coordinates for the
ecliptic coordinates,but he was aware that
Chinese astronomers had resolved what
had remained puzzling to their rivals in
Greece,Muslim circle and Europe,―All the
succeeding astronomical research failed to
deviate from the wit triggered out of the
equator-type instrumentation.‖
? E,The Earliest Gas Turbine
? ―Pocket horses throng in revolving
moves / Causing dream of giant chariots
of Cao Cao.‖ This is the description of a
peculiar ingenious product in
thermodynamics in ancient China–--
―trotting- horse lamp‖ by Jinang Kui,a
lyric poet in the Southern Song
Dynasty—exactly the gas lamp that had
been staged in Song.
? The structure of the ―trotting-horse lamp ―seemed
simple,At the tope of main shaft was horizontally
affixed a vane wheel; at the bottom of the shaft was
laid a candle base; at the middle of the shaft were
installed four iron wires horizontally as well,which
were covered with the paper cuttings painted in the
shapes of horses and men,When the candle was
ignited the hot air rose to rotate the vane wheel and
hence the paper men and paper horses appeared to
―be revolving as if flying,‖ The wit embedded hereof
proved to be of two functions,① lighting and ② a
source of power driving the lamp round,having
formulated an embryo of ―gas turbine‖ though applied
exclusively in a toy.
? Joseph Needham reckoned that this fact
presents a demonstration that the
Chinese pioneered in thinking of cinema
principle.
? F,The Usage of Abacus
? In the light of science history the birth and
dissemination of abacus traced from the
concluding years of the Eastern Han
Dynasty (around 190 A.D).The Records of
Arithmetic written by Xu Yue at the time
issued a statement that ―Calculation by
abacus subdues four seasons and relates to
talents in three respects,‖ as commutated
Chinese-type comprehension of Chinese
wisdom ingrained in abacus.
?
? Peculiarity of ancient Chinese algorithm was
pregnant with and grew under the influence
of Chinese culture,whose wit ultimately lay
in the calculation by images and the
theorems by graphs,The ancient calculating
sticks and the arrays of graphs directly
enlightened algorithm thinking,as being the
cultural background for the presence of
abacus.
? Suanchou was an antique calculating tool
made of regular three or four-inch long
bamboo bars (sticks) by which graphs any
calculation could occur,bearing
resemblance to abacus reckoning,By
means of the bamboo sticks could be
performed not only addition and subtraction
but multiplication and division,A Pithy
formula of ―nine-nine chart‖ (multiplication
table) had gained popularity by the Spring-
Autumn-Warring-States Period,
? Till the thriving economical phase of the feudal
society the calculation by the bamboo sticks was
severely menaced by the commercial activities
outdoors,During Yuan and Ming an army of the
bamboo sticks was frequently employed so as to
occupy increasingly large patches of land; What is
more,the accelerated calculation would result in
errors in graphs,As early as the Han Dynasty
onwards,in reality,Chinese ancients had
embarked upon innovating computation tools,and
eventually at that time ascended a brand-new
calculating-by- graph implement--- abacus.
? The construction and operation of Chinese abacus
was perfectly simplified and convenient,concurrently
taking a lead among a host of nations,It could be
adroitly applied in addition,substation,multiplication,
division,square root and cube root while Arabic
abacus and Greek abacus were solely able to
compute addition and subtraction; ancient Roman
abacus,short of the counting-by-position algorithm
and characteristic of the bi-decimal system,had been
eliminated at the earliest; and ancient Russian abacus,
still in effect,was equipped with ten beads on one
column,a complex object at hand,Boastful of the
matured decimal system,the audio-visual feature and
convenience,Chinese abacus has been unalterably
prevailing in China,Japan and other regions,
The intelligence steeped in Chinese
abacus,in addition to the foregoing
merits,even had triggered an impetus to
the invention of mechanic computers,
since the most remarkable advantage
thereof was embodied in the fact that
every spatial graph on the abacus face
was vested with a connotation and
figures were programmed,
? G,The Initial Aerial Exploration
? The ―aerial exploration‖ of Chinese nation
dates back to the Warring States Period,
? ―Master Gong Shu sharpened bamboo and wood,
and fitted them into a device shaped as a magpie,
which was driven to fly insistently three days,and
which he deemed the most meticulous
mechanism.‖ This is an account in Queries of Lu
Kingdom from Book of Master Mo,Master Gong
Shu was referred to as Lu Ban,an ancient
Chinese master of carpentry,Also in the Book of
Master Han Fei was registered the wooden eagle,
That was the earliest time when aerial models
occurred.
? We are not certain nowadays if the wooden
magpie assembled by Lu Ban was a glider,but
make sure that the wooden eagle was definitely a
glider in concord with the historical literature,The
glider was a mechanism that could,with two fixed
wings,―fly‖ with the aid of lifting power,Having
observed eagles gliding with wings in the air,Ge
Hong,a scholar in the Eastern Jin Dynasty,
conceived of an idea of building a ―flying chariot‖,
which sounded worthwhile for he had realized man
possessed the same desire to fly as eagles,but
which seemed impossible in that the essence of
flight lies in taking advantage of air buoyancy,
To utilize it Chinese ancients set out by imitating
the ―image‖ of hawks,Toward the decline of the
Western Han Dynasty Emperor Wang Mang ever
ordered ―men be clad in feathers and furnished
with eagle wings,who were then pushed along the
way and flew hundreds of paces before crushing
down.‖ Emperor Wen Xuan of the Northern Qi
Dynasty (1,500 years ago) also called for an
experiment of flight with men in kites,wherein over
sixty men crushed down to death at one time and
only one glided safely out of the city.
? Chinese folks had invented many a
scientific-oriented aircraft,The bamboo
dragonfly,an ancient toy,in view of both
image and principle in flight,bore sharp
resemblance to the modern aircraft propeller,
Zhang Heng,a scientist in the Eastern Han
Dynasty,was the first to equip a wooden
vulture with mechanic power so that ―it is
said that the wooden vulture could fly a
couple of li away.‖ The ―Confucius Lantern‖
was a hot-air balloon,but no man attempted
to ride it into the sky,
The most solemn and stirring aerial disaster
happened to Wan Fu,a forerunner of modern jet
plane,Wan Fu was seated on a big chair tied with
forty seven largest-size firecrackers (the rocket-
like crackers),his hands holding two fans; then he
ordered the swarm of firecrackers ignited
simultaneously with a view to flying high by the
power of ―rockets‖ and fans,With a thunderous
bang Wan Fu passed away,Despite the failure,
the rudimentary principle incarnated in the
experiment rendered possibilities for modern jet
planes to fly into the sky.
? H,Fetching Fire for Sun God
? The gathering of fire by Chinese ancients
proceeded in such a sequence as the
preservation of natural fire,gathering fire by
friction,gathering fire by knocking flint and
further gathering fire by ―solar flint‖,As recorded
in the Annotations to Ancient and Contemporary
Classics compiled by Cui Bao; ―Yangsui (solar
flint) is made of copper and shaped like a mirror,
It reflects objects in the shadow and generates
fire in the sunlight that can be fetched with moxa
cone.‖ It proved true that the ―solar flint‖ was
nothing but an ancient invention by which
Chinese ancients obtained fire by use of the
focal point in a concave mirror placed in the
sunlight,
Specifically there were two methods for applying
it,the metal bottom-pointed cup with moxa velvet
at the bottom and the copper-made concave
mirror,It looked as if a glittering pearl in the
reservoir of Chinese wisdom,transforming light
energy into heat energy in an object,which had
been established on the prerequisite regarding
the intelligent recognition of concave mirror and
the essential grasp of focalization and kindling
point of materials,an evidence that Chinese
ancients had given free reign to generation and
utilization of fire.
? The light of wit never ceased to glow to such
an extent that Chinese folks had invented
another way of gathering fire,The
Polytechnic Remarks of Huainan written in
the second century B.C registered a
statement that ―A block of ice is sharpened
round and turned toward the sun; when the
shadow is touched by a moxa cone,fire is
ignited.‖
? This claims to be the earliest registration in
controlling light by the optical property of
lens,There is no uncertainty that ―the
shadow‖ in this case is meant the focus,A
Chinese proverb goes as ―Ice and fire are
never compatible‖,however it was Chinese
ancestors who had gone so far as to fetch
fire out of ice!
Ⅲ, Great Four Inventions
Compass,paper making,gunpowder and
letterpress were the greatest
technological achievements that Chinese
nation had dedicated to the globe,having
altered the evolving course of all human
beings as well as having reflected and
represented the brilliance and prosperity
of ancient Chinese civilization.
? Paper making marked a preeminent invention by
ancient Chinese laboring people,Prior to this
wonderful event,Egyptians wielded papyri for
writing and Europeans turned to sheep skin
whereas the Chinese had ever had recourse to
tortoise shells,bamboo,wood and even silk cloth,
The Western Han Dynasty witnessed the dawn
of paper making that silk wadding was
processed into thin pieces,called the wadding
paper,Owing to the austere supply of precious
silk the Chinese preferred to weave linen fabric
into thin pieces,that is,the plant fabric paper,
? Toward the Eastern Han Dynasty (the
beginning of the second century A.D),Cai
Lun,having assimilated the experiences of
making paper in the preceding times and
having gone through repeated experiments,
eventually invented a new genus of plant
fabric paper by making full use of scrap
materials including bark,linen ties,worn
cloth and fishing net etc,which enlarged
the origins of paper raw materials and
reduced the cost remarkably,whereupon
in no time was diffused across the country,
Henceforth Cai Lun came to be the
historically-eulogized inventor of paper,By
the Jin Dynasty paper had become a daily
article,having substituted bamboo chunks
and silk cloth as the principal writing stuff,
During the sixth century this technique was
spread to Korea,Vietnam and Japan,As
late as 1150 A.D there was founded the
first European paper factory in Spain,as
lagging over 1,000 years behind Cai Lun‘s
invention.
? ―The influence that paper had exerted upon
the whole succeeding progress of Western
civilization could never be too measured.‖
(The History of Chinese Westward-Spread
Articles written by Decker Purdon) In the
medieval Europe there predominantly
prevailed parchment as the carrier of
information,
? According to statistics a copy of the Bible at
least required more than 300 pieces of
sheep skin,thus prodigiously retarding the
dissemination of culture due to the meager
source of the raw material,However
amassed production of paper had forwarded
a tremendously favorable condition to
facilitate the thriving education,politics,
commerce and so on in Europe at that time,
In this sense ―The world has been more
favored by Lord Cai Lun than by throngs of
more prestigious celebrities.‖ (ibid)
? Typography or letterpress,nicknamed ―the
mother of civilization,‖ was claimed to be
another great invention pertaining to
Chinese nation,Ahead of this technique
the wood-block printing derived from the
ancient stone engraving or seal carving
had gained momentum,At the incipient
reign of the Sui Dynasty (the early seventh
century) Chinese folks had produced
quantities of religious pictures by the
wood-block printing,
? In 1900 at the Thousand-Buddha Cave of
Dunhuang was unfolded a scroll of Vajra
Canon,533-centimeter long,glued
together with seven sheets and printed in
Xiantong 9,during the throne of Emperor
Yi of the Tang Dynasty (868 A.D),Carved
in a superb skill and printed distinct,the
scroll has been preserved as the earliest
product of printing in the present day,In
Europe the earliest wood-block printing
work bearing the exact date sustained
hitherto is the portrait St,
? Christopher stored in the south of
Germany,which had been 600 years later
than the Chinese counterpart,During the
Five Dynasties the prime minister of the
Later Tang Dynasty,Feng Dao,proposed
a petition to the emperor that the Nine
Classics be reproduced marking an era of
the wood-block printing for Confucian
classics under the authorization of imperial
court; accordingly it surged on in an
extensive scope,
But on account of the higher charges respecting
labor and material cost therein,it dawned on the
printing industry that the technique should have
been upgraded,In Qingli reign of Emperor Ren
of the Song Dynasty (the middle eleventh
century),a character carver,Bi Shen invented
letterpress by which a single character was
carved with clay and burned as a matrix before
being arrayed for printing,the dawning of
typesetting,Preceded by him,new character
matrixes of tin and copper gradually came into
being.
? Before long,letterpress was transmitted to Japan,
Korea and Vietnam,then to Europe via Muslim
Empire,The technique of typography emancipated
education and learning out of Christian abbeys
and convents,as stated by Frederic Engles,―The
invention of typography and the critical need
occurring from commercial development not only
modified the situation wherein exclusively
clergymen were endowed with the opportunity of
reading and writing,but also transmuted the one
that solely theocracy was entitled to embrace
higher education.‖
(The Complete Works of Carl Marx and
Frederic Engles) From then on the learning
centers of Europe had been shifted from
abbeys and convents to the universities
clustered in varied cities,Typography rose
to be a powerful weapon furnished for the
religious Reformation and anti-feudalism
campaign in the existing Europe,exercising
a gigantic impact upon the establishment of
capitalist production mode and the
communication and dissemination of
ideology and culture.
? China gave birth to alchemy,The invention
of gunpowder was ascribed to the long-
standing alchemist‘s activities as alchemy
was originally intended to make elixir or
panacea by means of some raw materials;
however,to great surprise,it chanced to
compound the mixture into a world-amazed
explosive matter,Gunpowder was chiefly
applied in fireworks and crackers to
entertain Chinese populace,
By the Five Dynasties it had been
incorporated into military purposes,The
Chronicles of Nine Kingdoms compiled by
Lu Zhen (904) recorded,General Yang
Xingmi once besieged the city of Nanchang
ordering his inferior general Zhen Fan ―to
project the flying fire to burn the city-gate
tower so that Zhen led soldiers breaking
through it on the scorching battlefield.‖ The
―flying fire‖ was meant the weapon charged
with gunpowder,
? The Song Dynasty saw the popularization of
gunpowder in battles and in the Summary of
War Works edited by Zen Gongliang was
registered many a gunpowder-charged
weapon,the thorn-plant fire ball,the smoke
ball and the cannon etc,Toward the closing
phase of the Northern Song Dynasty there
had been forged such powerful weapons as
―thunderbolt cannon‖ and ―quake-skylight‖,
of which the latter had conformed to the
standard of modern iron cannons,
? Besides the tube-shape weapons such as
the fire gun,and the fast-fire gun exerted a
formidable force on battlefields in Song,The
―string-bead gun‖,invented in Ming and
capable of shooting consecutively twenty
eight bullets,proved to be the forerunner of
modern machine guns,The Chinese
tradition that ―apparatus and arms shall be
concealed at home‖,it is pitiful,made the
promising weaponry sink into oblivion.
? After the thirteenth century gunpowder was
by degrees diffused to Arabia,further to
Europe,assuming a colossal impetus on the
progress of European history,The invention
of gunpowder connoted a far-reaching
technological revolution that man had been
gifted with the capability of transforming
heat energy into mechanic energy or power,
momentous to the course of the global
civilization.
? The invention of compass was rated an
epoch-making event in the world navigation
industry,As per the historic literature
concerned,the Chinese had recognized in
the Warring States that natural magnet
could work to indicate directions,The Book
of Master Han Fei said,―The ancestral kings
set up sinan so as to specify the location of
the imperial palace.‖ The so called ―sinan‖
signified the compass,A highly-prestigious
scholar in the Eastern Han Dynasty,Wang
Chong afforded the instruction of making a
compass in Applied Matters from On
Equilibrium:
natural magnet was ground and polished into a
shape of spoon,then placed on a platform,the
handle hereof turning to the south automatically,It
had already been employed in navigation in Song,
as affirmed by Zhu Yu in the Travels in Pingzhou,
he used to watch the ―ship masters‖ in Guangzhou
to locate courses by observing stars at night,
exploiting sunlight in day time and availing
themselves of compass in cloudy days,‖ a maiden
record concerning the usage of compass in the
history of global navigation.
? Compass was disseminated into Arabic
world in the twelfth century,revered as a
―friend of sailors‖,Later on being passed
into Europe,it took effect immediately in
ocean navigation,accelerating the paces of
human civilization,Under no circumstances
of the invention and application of compass,
such epoch-making events could never be
conceived as Zhen He‘s voyage to the
―western ocean‖ in seven times,da Gama‘s
oceanic navigation to India,Christopher
Columbus‘ discovery of the Western
Hemisphere,and Magallanes‘ earth-round
travel.
? At the present time the cultural value steeped in the
four great inventions is undoubtedly acknowledged
throughout the world,Decker Hyde,an American
scholar,remarked,―If there had been no paper and
typography we would still be living in the medieval
times; in no case of gunpowder the world might have
incurred a little less agony,but on the other hand the
knights in helmet and armor belonging to the medieval
Europe could still be acting like an overlord,
insufferably arrogant,within their moat-surrounded
castles whereas our society would be equally
subjugated to the oppression of feudal system,
In the ultimate analysis,without compass the era of
the great geographical discovery would never have
arrived,which did provoke Europeans‘ material and
cultural life having brought knowledge to the world yet
unknown to people,including our America.‖ Carl Marx
made an even more incisive assertion,―Gunpowder,
compass and typography － the three great inventions
prophesying the arrival of capitalist society,
Gunpowder blasted chivalry to pieces and compass
opened up the global market and founded colonies
while typography became a tool of Protestantism,
generally speaking,a means of science revival and
the most powerful thrust to create an imperative
presupposition for spiritual development.‖
? At any rate it should be ascertained that
owing to the bogged-down feudal economy,
the constrained cultural conceptions and the
empiric / pragmatic-oriented value regarding
science and technology,these remarkable
inventions charged with sparks of wisdom
had failed to effect revolutionizing
consequences on the native land,instead
emerging of themselves and perishing of
themselves,as surely being an introspective
historic phenomenon.
CHAPTER 14 Splendid
Culture & Majestic Landscape
---A Glimpse of China‘s World
Heritages
? China is situated on a vast territory
abundant in natural resources and
susceptible of scores of historic relics and
sightseeing resorts,of which the cream has
been inscribed on the World Heritage List,a
glory and a pride of the whole Chinese
nation,
? Since 1986 Chinese government has many
times submitted applications to the United
Nations Educational,Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) for the ratification
of some historic relics and scenic spots as
the World Heritage entries,So far the twenty
three of them have been inscribed on the
World Heritage List by the World Heritage
Committee affiliated to UNESCO
(UNESCOWHC),as shown hereinafter:
1,The World Cultural Heritage---the Great
Wall,the Imperial Palace of the Ming and
Qing Dynasties,The Site of Peking Man at
Zhoukoudian,the Mausoleum of the First
Emperor of China and the Terracotta
Warriors,Mogao Grottoes at Dunhuang
(ratified in 1987); Chengde Summer Villa
with the Adjoining Eight Outer Temples,
the Tri-Con in Qufu (Confucian Mansion,
Confucian Temple and Confucian Grove),
Mount Wudang Ancient Architectural
Complex,Lhasa Potala Palace (1994); the
Site of the Ancient Lijiang Town,the Site of
Ancient Pingyao Town,the Classic Gardens
in Suzhou (1997); the Summer Palace in
Beijing and the Heavenly Temple in Beijing
(1998) and Dazu Grottoes (1999).
2,The World Natural Heritage---Wulingyuan
Natural Resort,Jiuzhaigou Natural Resort
and Huanglong Natural Resort (1992).
3,The World Cultural & Natural Heritage---
Mount Tai Natural Resort (1987),Mount
Huang Natural Resort (1990),Mount Lu
Natural Resort and Mount Emei-Leshan
Giant Buddhist Statue (1996),and Mount
Wuyi Natural Resort (1999).
? All these natural resorts and cultural relics
are esteemed the invaluable resources or
highlights of Chinese tourist industry,
pertaining to both Chinese nation and all
humanity.
Ⅰ, Cultural Heritage
Of the world cultural relics the Imperial
Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in
Beijing stands among the earlier batch to
have been inscribed on the World
Heritage List,
As the Forbidden City in the feudal society,
it is located in the center of Beijing proper
with a 590 plus-year history,a city inside the
city,which was in the past dismembered
from Chinese multitude by the yellow-
glazed-tile roof,the blue moat and the red
enclosure wall.
? The Imperial Palace was commenced to be
executed in Yongle 4,the Ming Dynasty
(1406) and completed fourteen years later,
occupying an area of 720,000 square
meters equipped with 9999.5 rooms and
halls,the 3,400 meter-long wall and the 52
meter-wide city moat,as being rated the
largest-size and the most complete ancient
palace architectural complex available
currently in the world,wherein the fourteen
emperors in Ming and ten emperors in Qing
lived as the abode,
? Pursuant to the Chinese palace layout
tradition that the official hall should be
arranged in the front and the bedroom at the
rear while the ancestral temple should be
planned on the left side and the social
temple on the right,the Forbidden City
inclusive of all structures was constructed in
axis in strict conformity with the symmetry
principle,The Heavenly-Purity Gateway
works as a boundary therein,
In the front or the Outer Court are erected in an
array Supreme Hall of Supreme Harmony,Hall of
Central Harmony and Hall of Preserving Harmony
as the center with Hall of Liberal Splendor and Hall
of Marshal Feats as the two wings in which the
emperors held majestic ceremonies,interviewed
ministers,and listened to briefings,In the rear or
the Inner Court are clustered Heavenly-Purity
Gateway,the six palaces on the east and the west
and the buildings attached therein wherein the
emperors issued edicts and conducted routine
affairs while the empresses,concubines,princes
and princesses lived,strolled around and paid
homage to the gods.
? The Forbidden city was fancied to be the same
layout as ―Heavenly Palace‖,Hall of Supreme
Harmony (Hall of Imperial Throne) resting on a
high white marble base as the majestic prestige of
the emperors,Palace of Heaven Purity and Palace
of Earthly Tranquility as an emblem of Earth and
Heaven,Sun-Quintessence Gateway and Moon-
Splendor Gateway as a sign of the sun and the
moon,the twelve palaces in the east and the west
as a symbol of the twelve stars,the halls and
pavilions affiliated behind denoting a constellation
circling the sun,and the city moat flowing from
northwest to southeast as the Milk Way.
? The primacy of the Forbidden City was
embodied in numerals as well,All the
palaces,halls and gateways in axis wielded
directly by the emperors were
unexceptionally built with the nine-partition
front and the five-entrance depth,―Nine‖ in
ancient China was deemed ―the highest
numeral on Earth starting from one and
ending at nine.‖ It is scarcely astounding
that ―nine and five‖ connoted the almighty
imperial throne,and so is the remainders
hereof.
? In order to reinforce the idea of emperors
being ―the genuine dragon and the son of
Heaven,‖ the sovereigns over history
ordered that the design of dragon be
exclusively shared by emperors,There is no
wonder that the buildings,furniture,daily
articles and handicrafts in the Imperial
Palace were invariably decorated with the
designs of dragon and phoenix (the emblem
of empress),
? Moreover the emperors wore the dragon
gown and seated on the dragon chair
holding the imperial seal carved in the
shape of dragon,It is confidently estimated
that provided each roof therein contains six
dragons,there are virtually 60,000 dragons
on the buildings; added to with those in the
decors and royal daily utensils,the
Forbidden City houses ten million dragons,
an outright world of dragons and phoenixes.
? The Summer Palace in Beijing,lying
westward 10 kilometers away from Beijing
proper,is ranked the first place among
Chinese classic gardens,coming under the
global preeminent gardens,which was in
1998 inscribed on the World Heritage List by
UNESCOWHC.
? It used to be a sojourn-palace garden of
Qing,completed in Qianlong 15 (1750) by
an army of talented engineers and skilled
craftsmen who had been summoned up
nationwide for such an architectural wonder,
In Xianfeng 10 (1860) it was burned down
by the British-French allied troops; in
Guangxu 14 (1888) it was resumed and
renamed the Mirth-Harmony Park (Summer
Palace) by Cixi Empress Dowager who had
embezzled the proceeds for Chinese navy
expansion,
An area of 2,900,000 square meters,the Palace
embraces primarily the Imperial Court Area,the
Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake whereas over
3,000 rooms in rich varieties are melted in a
superb manner into the background of the West
Hill and the Jade Spring Hill,none but a paragon
of Chinese gardening art,It was divided into three
circles,the administrative circle centered round
Benevolence-Longevity Hall,the recreational circle
for empresses and concubines clustered around
the Jade-Ripples Hall and the Happiness-
Longevity Hall,and the sightseeing circle
composed of the Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake.
? The architectural complex lying on the
terraced front of the Longevity Hill claims to
be high lighted in the whole Palace,Built in
axis,the Cloud-Dispelling Hall,the Buddha-
Fragrance Pavilion and the Wisdom-Sea
Temple are flanked by the Reincarnation-
Tripitaka Temple,the Pentagon Pavilion and
the Triratna-Cloud Pavilion,overriding the
remaining scenic spots,The Buddha-
Fragrance Pavilion,resting on a 20-meter
high stone base,towers in a 41-meter height
as the emblem of the Summer Palace,
A group of the palace-style buildings centered
round the Cloud-Dispelling Hall used to be the
place where Cixi Empress Dowager received
congratulations and benediction on her birthday
and where a number of overwhelming historic
incidents occurred,a close tie to the modern
history of China,In the northeast lies the Concord-
Delight Park mimicking the peers in the South of
the Yangtze River Delta,in which pavilions are
bridged with galleries while brooks trickle between
trimmed trees and rockeries,Upon entering it
visitors may feel pleasant as though they were
sauntering about in the South.
? The Summer Palace is prized the
monumental work in the millennia-long
Chinese gardening history.
? The Heavenly Temple in Beijing stands bolt
upright as the largest altar-model structure
in China,inscribed on the World Cultural
Heritage List by UNESCOWHC in 1998,
Executed in Yongle 18,the Ming Dynasty
(1420) as concurrently as the Forbidden City,
it is situated in the southern end of Beijing
proper with a floor space of 2,700,000
square meters,a holy arena where a bench
of the emperors in Ming and Qing held
sacrificial rites to Heaven and Earth and
prayed for bumper harvests.
? The enclosure wall thereof is built in the
shape of a Chinese character ―回”,round
in the north and square in the south,
connoting ―round Heaven and square Earth‖,
The layout,structure and décor concealed in
the Heavenly Temple are highly valued over
the history of world architecture as well as
Chinese architecture,
It is separated into the Inner Temple and the
Outer Temple,the cardinal buildings being
within the Inner Temple challenged by the
Round Mound Altar and the Imperial
Heavenly Vault in the south,and the
Fortune-Prayed Hall,the Imperial Heaven
Hall and the Fortune-Prayed Gateway in the
north.
? The Bumper-Harvest-Prayed Hall appears
tall and upstanding as the chief structure
therein where the emperors used to pray for
bumper crops,Constructed in a rotunda it
bears a 32-meter diameter and a 38-meter
height with the three-tier eaves and the blue
glazed-tile roof,All the weight is upheld by
28 king-size redwood pillars signifying
diverse tokens:
the four central pillars nicknamed the Towering-
Into-Heaven Pillars symbolizing four seasons,the
twelve gold-tinged pillars in the inner circle
standing for twelve months,the twelve eaves-
sustained pillars in the outer circle representing
the twelve two-hour periods,the addition of the
inner circle and the outer circle denoting the 24
solar terms in traditional Chinese calendar,the
total 28 pillars of the three circles implying 28
datum stars,the 28 pillars plus 8 top pillars
indicating 36 orders of Heavenly gale,and the
Thunder-Lord Pillar under the apex as the imperial
sovereignty over the world.
? The Round Mound Altar is a three-stratum
round stone altar in the open air wherein the
emperors dedicated sacrificial offerings to
Heaven on the Winter Solstice,The
numerals governing the guardrails,the poles
and the flight of steps in the three strata
coincide with the multiple of nine in
compliance with the conception of ―nine and
five‖ (the imperial primacy),
When speaking at the round stone installed
on the top layer the emperors did not bother
to be strenuous in doing so and the echo
would sound sonorous,for the principle of
sound-wave reflection had artfully been
applied therein thus adding to the sacred
atmosphere permeated in the ceremonies
and rites.
? The Great Wall is claimed to be the sign of
Chinese nation,winding its 6,700-kilometer
way alongside the previous northern border
of China,generally recognized ―the ten-
thousand li Great Wall‖ (A li is equated with
half kilometer),a rare ancient military
defense project in the architectural history,
As early as 1987 it was inscribed on the
World Cultural Heritage List by
UNESCOWHC.
? The massive engineering works of the Great
Wall had sustained over two thousand years,
Inaugurating from the ―square town‖ in Chu
Kingdom in the seventh century B.C and
closing in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644),
more than a score of kingdoms and
dynasties had earlier or later participated in
the works,among which the Chin Dynasty,
the Han Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty
witnessed respectively the 5,000 plus-
kilometer length thereof,
The total length constructed in different
dynasties amounts outright up to 50,000
kilometers,Provided that the bricks,stones
and clay applied in the Great Wall were built
into a one-meter thick and five-meter high
wall,it could circumscribe the earth in more
than one cycle.
? The Great Wall has remained as a titanic
uncovered museum with the bulky body
elbowing its way alongside the summits of
ridges,sketching the zigzag profile of the
maintain terrain,something like a leaping
giant dragon symbolizing the unremitting
spirit of Chinese nation.
? On this world-famed wonder there are
distributed hundreds of passes and beacon
towers that,in the light of both architecture
and history,retain an infinite glamour of art,
Badaling,a segment of the Great Wall,built
on a solid base and preserved in unimpaired
condition,appears to be the optimum
location to appreciate the marvelous
achievement,especially in winter when
―Mountains dance as if silver snake /
Plateaux dash like wax elephants‖ ( a
stanza by Chairman Mao Zedong) betraying
a soul-shocked historic sense and a solemn
masculine charm,
Next to it stretch long and unbroken
Jinshanling segment,Mutianyu segment,
Simatai segment,Gubeikou segment,
Huanghuacheng segment,Juyongguan
Pass,Shanhaiguan Pass,Jiayuguan Pass,
looking like a lengthy silver necklace inlaid
on the blue globe if observed afar from the
space.
? As a fascinating resort,the Great Wall
cements the friendships between Chinese
people and those peoples throughout the
world.
? Located in Dunhuang city of Gansu province,
a gateway to the West-of-the-Yellow-River
Corridor and a glistening pearl on the
ancient Silk Route,Mogao Grottoes of
Dunhuang was inscribed on the World
Cultural heritage List in 1987 by
UNESCOWHC as one of the three
predominant Chinese stone grottoes.
? Mogao Grottoes,nicknamed the Thousand-
Buddha Cave,functions as the prototype
therein that was chiseled on the eastern
escarpment of Mount Minsha in five layers
extending 1,600 meters in the north-south
course,Commenced to be under execution
in Jianyuan 2,the Previous-Chin Dynasty
(366 A.D),there are available currently 492
grottoes sustained from 16 dynasties,of
which 32 grottoes were excavated in the
Northern Wei-Western Wei Dynasties,
110 grottoes in the Sui Dynasty,247 grottoes
in the Tang Dynasty,36 grottoes in the Five
Dynasties,45 grottoes in the Song Dynasty
and 8 grottoes in the Yuan Dynasty,
otherwise paralleled with the 45,000 m2
mural paintings,2,415 colored sculptures,5
wooden-framed temples in Tang and 50,000
pieces of calligraphic scrolls and other
cultural relics,as serving to be the most
mammoth treasure of Chinese classic art.
? Clay sculptures and frescos comprise the
overwhelming majority of Mogao Grottoes,in the
center of which is seated the giant statue of
Maitreya (a Buddhist god) with a 33-meter height,
flanked by the Holy Disciples,Bodhisattvas
(Buddhist images),Four Devarajas (Heavenly
guardians) and two Ferocious Herculean
Guardians whereas there are minute-size
statuettes as short as 10 centimeters,The
statues are made in single-image sculptures and
multi-image sculptures,In respect of artistry can
be found the statues in the round sculpture
technique,the high sculpture,the shadow
sculpture,the mural sculpture; eventually against
the background of the frescos occur the
amalgamation of sculptures and paintings,a
marked trait therein,
In case of being arrayed in a 2 meter-high
exhibition line,the exquisite and soigné
frescoes would constitute a 25 kilometer-
long art gallery,in which there is a vivid
manifestation of the laboring and social life
scenes,clothing and personal adornment,
architectural styles,music,dance,
acrobatics and so on so forth in the
preceding times,furnishing a library of
invaluable information regarding the
ancient Chinese society and Sino-foreign
cultural exchange between the fourth and
the fourteenth centuries.
? The Mausoleum of the First Emperor of the
Chin Dynasty Attached with the Terracotta
Warriors has survived as the cemetery
belonging to the founding emperor over the
Chinese history,inscribed on the World
Cultural Heritage List in 1987 by
UNESCOWHC.
? The Mausoleum is situated at the northern
foot of Mount Li south of Lintong county in
Shaanxi province,where ―There is so
immense a reserve of jade on the southern
side that the First Emperor admired it to
such an effect that he demanded he be
buried there after demise.‖ As registered in
the Records of the Historian,in 246 B.C
when ascending the throne of Chin Kingdom,
Yin Zhen inaugurated the execution of his
mausoleum at Mount Li,In 221 B.C as he
had conquered all other six kingdoms and
attained the primacy over China,then
700,000 captives and prisoners were
banished to resume the project,which had
not been completed at his decease and was
continued another three years under the
superintendence of the Second Emperor of
Chin,Hu Hai,To sum up,the tomb yard had
gone through thirty nine years under
construction.
? The Mausoleum is ranked the top of the kind
throughout the world,Having incurred 2,200 years
of erosion and wash-out by wind and rain,it today
still looks like a mound with a 76-meter height
compared to the original 166-meter height,
Located in the east-west course it is circumscribed
by a wall with the main gateway opened to the
east,as being outright different from the case of
most Chinese cemeteries along the north-south
course,evincing the First Emperor‘s supreme
dignity by which he,stationed in the west,had
swept across the other six eastern kingdoms and
brought them into subjection.
? The scope pertaining to the Mausoleum and
the accompanying pits extends as wide as
7.5 kilometers in four directions,amounting
to a total area of 56 square kilometers,The
Mausoleum solely occupies 8 square
kilometers that was classified as the Outer
City,an oblong with a 6,242-meter
circumference,and the Inner City,a square
with a perimeter of 2525 meters while the
tomb mound lies in the Inner City trending in
the west-east course.
? The ―bedroom‖ of the First Emperor of Chin is earthed
behind the mound,Between the Inner City and the
Outer City in the west of the Mausoleum there are 17
burial pits of horses,17 pits of precious animals,14
pits of pottery figurines,a huge cluster of
accompanying tombs or pits and a cemetery path
buried with wooden and copper horse-driven chariots,
In the north there are seven accompanying tombs and
attached cubicles,the underground imperial palace
and an underground path to the coffin; in the east
there are three underground paths,Beyond the
enclosure of the Mausoleum lies the accompanying-pit
area in which so far have been unearthed three pits of
the Terracotta Warriors,three pits of stables,17 pits of
horses and 17 pits of prisoners,
The underground palace symbolized the
city of XianYang,the capital of Chin
Empire,The Mausoleum indulged in an
excessive luxury wherein ―Mercury was
poured in as the rivers and seas on
earth; all kinds of things in Heaven and
Earth were illuminated with the long-
enduring human-oil lamps‖,―All orders
of jewelry,articles and rare animals
were stuffed and stored there.‖
Otherwise mechanic arrows and bows
were devised in order to prevent it from
being pillaged,In 209 B.C when the
corpse of the First Emperor was
transferred in,the Second Emperor,
fearing for the news being divulged secret,
issued a cruel order that all the
concubines bearing no offspring and all
the craftsmen toiling within the
Mausoleum be sealed and buried therein,
? The Terracotta Warriors are confidently believed
to be the garrison troops earthed beyond the
eastern gateway,arrayed in the reversed ―品”
formation along the west-east course,Those in
No.1 Pit were infantry; those in No.2 Pit were
multi-service army of cavalry,chariots,infantry
and arrow throwers; and in No.3 Pit in the shape
of ―凹” was the headquarters of commanders and
staff attaché governing the former two pits,In the
aggregate the three large pits cradled a colossal
throng of 7,000 plus terracotta warriors,100
chariots,400 terracotta horses and thousands of
hundreds of weapons.
? In No.1 Pit can be seen the main formation of the
armored Terracotta Warriors paraded in 11 aisles
in the west-east course and in 38 columns facing
the east inserted by six chariots,in front of which
are arrayed three rows of 210 arrow-thrower
Terracotta Warriors as the vanguard,and on the
other three sides of which there is each a queue of
the unarmed Terracotta Warriors facing south,
north and west as the flank or rear guards,The
Terracotta Warriors clad in amour or robe holding
spears,or arrows with valiant complexion together
with the military line-up served to be the miniature
of Chin army,worthwhile in the military history.
? The Terracotta Warriors are the mimicries of
real men as tall as 1.8 meter (virtually six
feet) and real horses,sculpted in fine
workmanship,The varied facial expressions,
postures and armors reflected their
character,experience,The terracotta horses
are all the more mimicked true to life in
myriad variations in appearance conforming
to the principle of anatomy,as being
ascribed to the tradition of raising horses
among Chin natives in addition to the
superb artistic skills,
? The unearthed chromium-plated swords are
still shining today with a seemingly-new
blade,The two sets of copper chariots
entertain an amazing attention,each set is
equipped with a chariot,four horses,a driver,
a roof with hollowed-out windows and a
saddle gilded with gold and silver threads,
Manufactured in true size,the copper
chariots exuded the consummate casting
and assembly technique in the Chin Dynasty.
? The Site of Peking Man at Zhoukoudian is
definitely rated among the mammoth
dedication to the scrutiny of human
evolution in archaeological history,as was
inscribed on the World Cultural Heritage List
in 1987.
? The Site is located at the foot of the West
Hill at Zhoukoudian village of Fangshan
district under Beijing,In 1920s Chinese
archaeologists undertook the excavation
there and unearthed a complete skull of an
ape man who was confidently believed to
live 600,000 years ago,and designated it
Peking Ape Man,Later on the Dragon-
Skeleton Hill were discovered some
primitive stone tools and five relics used by
Peking Ape Man,
Pursuant to the examination of the fossils
and remains,Peking Ape Man was
reaffirmed to be the hominid homo erectus
living 690,000 years ago in the Paleolithic
Age,who found shelter in caves and
subsisted on hunting,able to chisel and use
coarse tools,having learned how to ignite
fire for heating and cooking food.
? In the accumulative layers on the spot was
spontaneously excavated a stone awl,which
claimed to be a new-type production
implement,and some bone objects,The
animals‘ fossils and ashes displayed in the
Museum of the Site of Peking Man at
Zhoukoudian are authentic samples,the
rarities in the world,
? Chengde Summer Villa with the Adjoining
Eight Outer Temples was in 1994 inscribed
on the World Cultural Heritage List.
? Chengde Summer Villa,re-nominated
Chengde Sojourn Palace or Rehe Sojourn
Palace,is lying to the north of Chengde city
proper,wherein the emperors in the Qing
Dynasty idled away their summer holidays
while administering state affairs,
Commenced in Kangxi 42 (1703),the
Summer Resort was finalized in Qianlong 57
(1792)
occupying an aggregate area of 5,640,000
square meters with a construction floor
space of 100,000 square meters distributed
in 110 structural buildings and comprising a
concourse of 184 scenic spots inclusive of
the 36 resorts entitled by Emperor Kangxi
and the 36 resorts nominated by Emperor
Qianlong,skirted by a 10-kilometer
enclosure wall,the paramount imperial
garden available currently in China,
? As the mimicry of both the classic gardening
prevalent in the South of the Yangtze River
Delta and that match north of the Great Wall,
the mammoth-scale imperial Resort
assumes a light air of mountainous villages
and wild landscape,Not painted red,the
wall was built up of the local ripraps; the
palaces and halls were structured in
quadrangle,the civilian dwelling shelter in
the northern China; and the white lime
plaster was inserted in bricks and tile seams,
as contrasting to the pompous décor of the
Forbidden City in Beijing.
? Chengde Summer Villa is divided into the
palace section and the scenic section,The
palace section dots four clusters of buildings,
the Main Hall,―Pine-Crane Assembly‖,
―Numerous Precipices Full of Pine and
Wind‖,and Eastern Hall,The scenic section
is sub-divided into the lake area,the plain
area and the hilly area,
In the lake area are scattered islets and
stand-bars planted with willows along the
banks,marked by the feature belonging to
the South of the Yangtze River Delta; at the
northeast corner erupts a spring,namely,
the highly-reputed Rehe Spring; in the west
of the plain area stretches a patch of the
Mongolia-style prairie and in the east can be
seen a tract of the Greater-Xing‘an-Range-
style luxuriant forest.
? At the foot of the hills east and north of
the Summer Villa is adjoined a string of
imposing temples designated as the Eight
Outer Temples,which were erected
between Kangxi 52 (1713) and Qianlong
45 (1780).This architectural complex is
primarily paralleled by the General-
Happiness Temple,the General-Serenity
Temple and the Maitreya-Fortune-
Longevity Temple,
The cardinal structure within the General-
Happiness Temple is the Dawn-Light Pavilion
bearing the multi-eaves and a vault in an
elegant manner,resembling the Bumper-
Harvest-Prayed Hall in Beijing,The Mahayana
Pavilion in the General-Serenity Temple is
challenged by a statue of the Thousand-Hand
Thousand-Eye Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva
(Guanyin Bodhisattva or Goddess of Mercy in
Buddhism) as high as 23.51 meters weighing
110 metrical tons,the most colossal wooden
Buddhist statue in the world,
The Maitreya-Fortune-Longevity Temple used to be
the arena where Banchan VI (the leader of Tibetan
Lamaism) expounded the texts of Buddhism,and
where the principal Acuteness Solemn Hall was
structured in such a majestic manner that on each of
the four roof ridges leap two gold-tinged dragons,
Samantabhadra Temple was erected as the mimicry of
Potala Palace in Lhasa (the capital of Tibet
Autonomous Region),nicknamed the Lesser Potala
Palace,Assimilated in the artistic features of the Han
nationality-style palaces,the Eight Outer Temples
created the diverse but unanimous style of Chinese
religious buildings.
? Qufu municipality in the southwest of
Shandong province used to be the capital of
Lu Kingdom thriving in the Spring-Autumn
Period (770 B.C-476 B.C) as well as the
native town of Confucius,the world-
renowned founder of Confucianism,
educationist and ideologist,Confucian
Mansion,Confucian Temple and Confucian
Grove therein,abridged as the ―Tri-Con‖,
deserve a well-ranging prestige as one of
the entries on the World Cultural Heritage
List.
? Confucian Mansion was the habitual
residence of Confucius‘ posterity (the eldest
son and the eldest grandson),namely,the
Sage-Offspring Mansion,A floor area of
160,000 square meters,it is framed in a
nine-entrance yard in three columns
trending from north to south,furnished with
a total of 463 rooms and halls,
The middle column serves to be the principal body,
the front halls being applicable as administrative
offices,the central as the dwelling place with a
garden at the rear,In the Mansion there exist over
9,000 dossiers of the archives well preserved from
Jiajin 13 (1534) to 1948 in addition to a gigantic
hoard of costly historic relics,Particularly it is
marked by of thousands of gowns,crowns,boots,
shoes and daily utensils,a visible evidence for
scrutinizing the evolution of Chinese garments.
? Confucian Temple was availed to hold sacrificial
ceremonies or rituals to Master Confucius,Since
the founding of the Western Han Dynasty it had
embraced the incessant improvement works from
various dynasties or emperors,eventually having
been turned into a stately classic architectural
block,Skirted by a wall matched with a watch
tower at each corner,the Temple occupies an
area of 2,221,000 square meters and a 1,120-
meter length along the north-south course,framed
in three columns in a nine-entrance yard with 466
rooms and halls,
Everywhere therein are planted age-old pine
and cypress trees,The central column is
paralleled by the Constellation-Culture
Pavilion,the 13-Imperial-Inscription Pavilion,
the Apricot Altar,the Great- Achievement
Hall,the Bedroom Hall,and the Sacred-
Canon Hall; all the more the Great
Achievement Hall stands out as the cardinal
location for holding sacrificial rites in honor
of Confucius,
? Calculated as per the quantity of steles
stocked at one spot,the 17 steles carved in
the Han Dynasty within Confucian Temple
are ranked the first place in China,Another
swarm of 100 plus steles is on exhibition in
the Museum of Han-Dynasty Calligraphy,
Paintings and Carvings,Also in the Jade
Rainbow Pavilion have been sustained 584
tablets from the Jin and Tang Dynasties,a
rare treasure of calligraphic art in China.
? Confucian Grove,otherwise called the
Perfect Saint Grove,lies 1.5 Kilometer
north of Qufu proper as the exclusive
cemetery of Confucius and his
descendents,With a tract of 1,998,000
square meters,it is enclosed by a 7-
kilometer long wall and stuffed with over
20,000 towering aged trees,an ancient
artificial garden where are hidden the halls,
pavilions,steles and other stone carvings
accomplished in various times,
Across Zhushui Bridge lies the cemetery
preserved since the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (prior
to 256 B.C) which beholds the tombs of
Confucius,Kong Li (Confucius ?son) and Kong Ji
(Confucius‘ grandson),The mausoleum to
Confucius is mounded 6.20 meter high in a 88-
meter circumscription,southeast of which there
exist the three watch-towers erected in the reign
of Emperor Zheng of the Song Dynasty,Emperor
Kangxi and Emperor Qianlong of the Qing
Dynasty.
? The Ancient Architectural Complex in
Mount Wudang was inscribed on the
World Cultural Heritage List in 1994
by UNESCOWHC.
? Mount Wudang,renamed Mount Supreme-
Harmony,is located within the domain of
Danjiangkou municipality in the northwest of
Hubei province,With the back against
Shennongjia Forest and facing Danjiangkou
Reservoir,it is esteemed the famous Daoist
resort and the authentic source of Wudong
Boxing with a territory of 4,000 square kilometers
covering 72 peaks,36 escarpments,24 brooks,
nine springs,eight palaces and two Daoist
temples,the cardinal peak---the Heaven Pillar
Peak with a 1,612-meter height being conferred
upon a laudatory title of ―A Pillar Holding Up the
Sky‖,
The talisman of the scenery is claimed to be a
conglomerate of the imposing Mount Tai,the
perilous Mount Hua,the fantastic Mount Heng,
the secluded Mount Jiuhua and the evergreen
Mount Emei,There has been retained a
reservoir of thousands of historic relics handed
down from Yuan,Ming and Qing as well as the
formidable Daoist architectural complex framed
in symmetry and in clusters,of which the Golden
Palace and the Violet Cloud Hall are inscribed on
China National Key Relics Protection List.
? Falling within the well-preserved buildings in
Mount Wudang and lying at the foot of the
Flag-Waving Peak northeast of the Heaven-
Pillar Peak,the Violet Cloud Hall was
constructed in Yongle 11,the Ming Dynasty
(1413) on a three-layer terrace bearing the
five-partition front,the green-glazed-tile roof,
the red-painted wall and the nine-multiple
eaves; besides hereto are matched with
inscriptions,brackets,courtyards,engraved
flowers and birds,paintings and an Eight-
Diagram chart offering a superb flavor,
The Golden Palace,nicknamed the Golden
Summit,resting on the culmination of the
Heaven-Pillar Peak,was erected in Yongle
14,the Ming Dynasty (1416) characteristic
of a 5.54-meter height,a 5.8-meter width
and a 4.2-meter depth in a wood-counterfeit
framework,as being the masterpiece of
casting,assembly and gold galvanization in
ancient China and one of the most
preeminent and representative Daoist
structures in Mount Wudang.
? Potala Palace,located at 3,700-
meter-above-seal-level Mount Red in
Lhasa city of Tibet,was inscribed on
the World Cultural Heritage List in
1994 by UNESCOWHC.
? In the seventh century when Songzanganbu,a
chieftain of Tibetan clans,greeted and married
Prince Wencheng from the Tang Empire,he
ordered that a giant castle-design palace
including 999 rooms and halls be built up
alongside the terrain of Mount Red,a tract of
410,000 square meters packed with a floor
space of 130,000 square meters,A
quintessence of Tibetan ancient architecture,
Potala Palace is divided as the White Palace and
the Red Palace,challenged by the chief hall as
high as 115,703 meters in 13 storeys,The roofs
of the five halls mantled with the gold-plated
copper tiles,appraised as the Plateau Saint
Palace,
Taking into account the sunshine on the
Highland,the walls thereof are constructed in
great thickness with a network of underground
tunnels and vents,The rooms and halls are
supported by pilasters,brackets,beams and
rafters while the ground and most roofs are
paved with ―argo‖,a sort of hard clay,The
ceilings are equipped with skylights so as to let
in fresh air and sunlight; the pilasters and beams
are engraved in rich patterns and the walls are
blanketed with colorful murals amounting to
2,500 square meters,a tradition cherished by
Tibetans since the early age.
? In the Palace is maintained a hoard of
religious and everyday implements smelted
from iron,copper,gold and silver coupled
with a treasure of offerings,leather,textiles,
paper ceramics,jewel,jade,armors and
weapons,Notably it is rivaled by the gold-
galvanic mandate certificates,official seals,
and title commissions conferred upon Dalai
Lamas by the emperors in multiple Chinese
dynasties.
? The Site of Ancient Pingyao Town originated
from the Zhou Dynasty wasinscribed on the
World Cultural Heritage List in 1997,Built up
in a massive square,it is circumscribed by a
6.4-kilometer wall that can be counted as
the largest ancient city wall of the genus
present in China.
? The Wall was executed in the early stage of
the Ming Dynasty,12-meter high and 5-
meter wide on average,stuffed with clay
and tamped solid inside the body,The
surface hereof is laid with bricks and so is
the top pavement to drain rainwater,There
are erected crenels on the Wall that is
encompassed by a 4-meter deep / wide
moat,and is inserted with six gateways,one
each in the north and south,two each in the
east and west,
? Every gateway is projected out with two
gates in the shape of a jar,There comes a
legendary story that the two gateways in the
north and south are the head and tail of a
mammoth fairy tortoise,and the four
gateways in the east and west are its four
feet,It happens that there exist two wells
outside the southern gateway,as being an
allegory of the tortoise‘s eyes,Viewed from
high,the Town looks like a crawling tortoise.
? In addition the six gateways are equipped by
upright battlements and the Town is
inarched with four 7-meter high towers on
the four corners while each 50-meter
segment of the Wall is grafted by a platform
(nicknamed ―horse face‖),A prolonged
string of 72 watch towers on the Wall and
3,000 crenels on the parapet were ever
fancied to be the emblem of Confucius‘ 72
sagacious talents and 3,000 disciples,
Over the past centuries it has played a
gigantic role in military defense and flood-
dredge,Within the Town are well conserved
the ancient streets,town council,wood-
framed buildings,shops and civilian houses,
an optimum sample for the research into
Chinese towns of the Ming Dynasty.
? The Site of Ancient Lijiang Town was
inscribed on the World Cultural Heritage List
in 1997.
? The Site of Ancient Lijiang Town,alias
Dayan Town,lies in Lijiang Basin of Yunnan
province with a patch of 1.5 square meters,
an age-long town of Naxi nationality being
nicknamed ―Venice in the East‖ and
accordingly rivaled with such Western
ancient cities as Acropolis (in Athens),Paris,
Pizza and Venice.
? During the Ming Dynasty there lived 1,000
plus households and the local hereditary
chieftain the Mu family dwelled in a dignified
and magnificent palace,Lying westward to
the Lion Hill,eastward to the Elephant Hill
and the Golden Rainbow Hill,Lijiang Town
is fortunate adequately to be relieved of the
northwest cold current while enjoying the
mild breeze blowing through a vast expanse
of fertile fields in the southeast,
The limpid Jade Spring is channeled in three
routes into the streets or lanes and between
civilian houses,forming the scene of ―Every
family makes use of a brook,every house is
surrounded by willows.‖ For centuries the
native residents have abided by a habitual
rule,the incipient route of the Spring is
scooped for drinking,the second route for
cleaning vegetables and the third route for
laundering clothes.
? Lijiang Frescoes pertain to the product of
the painters from such nationalities as Han,
Tibet and Naxi employed by the Mu-family
chieftains in the Ming Dynasty,
Owing to the aged history they are solely
preserved in the Great-Treasure-
Accumulation Palace,the Glazed-Tile Hall,
the Great- Treasure Pavilion and the
Coming-Stream-Great-Awakening Palace,
totaling 55 patches of 139.22 square meters,
of which the largest one is measured 2.07
meters cross 4.48 meters enveloping a
swarm of 600 figures,Soaked in religious
themes and hued with a soigné touch,the
murals are prized the treasure of Chinese
folk art,
? Entitled ―Oriental water city‖,Suzhou is
located in the South of the Yangtze River
Delta,westward to the Tai Lake and
eastward to Shanghai,at the crisscross of
the Great Canal and Suzhou River,Suzhou
Classic Gardens were in 1997 authorized to
be inscribed on the World Cultural Heritage
List,an aggregate highlight of over 200
former private gardens sustained from Song,
Yuan,Ming and Qing Dynasties,the
influential entries being the Waver-Surging
Pavilion,the Lion Grove,the Humble-
Administrator Garden and the Lingering
Garden.
? The Eastern Mausoleums to the Qing
Dynasty,situated in Malan Gorge thirty
kilometers northwest of Zunhua city in Hebei
province,was honored to be inscribed on
the World cultural Heritage List in 2001.
? The Eastern Mausoleums is bounded by
Beijing in the west 150 kilometers away,
Tangshan in the south 100 kilometers away
and Chengde in the north 100 kilometers
afar.
Skirted by a consecutive range of hills,it lies in a
40-square-kilometer basin in which extends a fan-
shape terrain in the north,the Yellow-Flower Hill in
the west and a chain of undulating country in the
east; the Heavenly Rostrum Hill and the Chimney
Hill in the right south jointly form an opening of 50
minus-meter-width,nicknamed the Dragon
Gateway which serves to be a drainage passage
in summer,and from which visitors can appreciate,
looking northward,a vast perspective of the
ancient stately palaces and pavilions roofed with
red and blue glazed tiles scattered among green
hills.
? The Eastern Mausoleums remain as the
titanic royal cemetery belonging to the Qing
Dynasty---the last feudal dynasty in China,
besides which there rest Yong Mausoleum,
Fu Mausoleum and Zhao Mausoleum in the
northeast China and the Western
Mausoleum in Yi county of Hebei province,
Thousands of Chinese laborers had been
conscripted for the duration of 240 years to have
built up 15 mausoleums in multiple sizes
composed of 217 single-unit structures occupying
a floor space of 1,130,000 square meters---even
100,000 square meters spatial than the Forbidden
City in Beijing,There are buried five emperors
(Shun Zhi,Kang Xi,Qian Long,Xian Feng and
Tong Zhi),fourteen empresses including Ci Xi
Empress Dowager) and 113 imperial concubines.
? Regarding the construction layout,the Mausoleum
to Emperor Shun Zhi (the founding emperor and
his two empresses) is centered therein,
whereupon a 3.6 zhang-wide and 11-kilometer
long brick Holy Pathway (1 zhang is equivalent to
3 meters) as an axis askew at 15 degrees ranging
from the Golden Image Hill in the south to the
Brightness Pavilion Capped with a Golden Spire at
the foot of Peak Changrui in the north,threading a
string of auxiliary buildings such as the Upper
Stone Archway,the Great Stele Pavilion,the
Stone Men and Stone Beasts,the Dragon &
Phoenix Gateway,the Seven-Arched Bridge,the
Five-Arched Bridge and the Devine Tablet Pavilion,
? East of the axis lie in succession,Xiaodong
Mausoleum (to Empress Xiao Hui of
Emperor Shun Zhi and his twenty eight
concubines),Jin Concubine Mausoleum (to
the forty eight concubines of Emperor Kang
Xi),Jin Mausoleum (to Emperor Kang Xi,his
four empresses and one top-ranking
imperial concubine) and Jinshuang
Mausoleum (to the two top-ranking imperial
concubines of Emperor Kang Xi),
West of the axis are arrayed in sequence,Yu
Mausoleum (to Emperor Qian Long,his two
empresses and three top-ranking concubines),
Yulinyuan Mausoleum (to the thirty six concubines
of Emperor Qian Long),Dingdong Mausoleum (to
Ci Xi and Ci An Empresses Dowagers),Dingfei
Mausoleum (to the fifteen concubines of Emperor
Xian Feng) and Ding Mausoleum (to Emperor Xian
Feng and Empress Xiao De),All of the
mausoleums are confronted to the Golden Image
Hill,linked by the subsidiaries of the main Holy
Pathway forming an intact system.
? Out of the system are situated Zhaoxi
Mausoleum east of the Giant Red Gateway
beyond the enclosure wall of the Eastern
Mausoleum (to Empress Ji Te,the mother of
Emperor Shun Zhi) and Hui Mausoleum and
Huifei Mausoleum in the south thereof four
kilometers far away from the Holy Pathway
(to Emperor Tong Zhi,Empress Xiao Zhe
and four concubines).
Ⅱ, Natural Heritage
Wulingyuan Natural Resort in the territory
of Zhangjiajie municipality northwest of
Hunan province was accorded the honor
to be inscribed on the World Natural
Heritage List by the World Heritage
Committee under UNESCO.
? Stretching afar and unbroken in the Wuling
Ridges and twined by the Wan River and
the Li River,the Resort covers a gross area
of 23,490.18 square kilometers,the central
scenic sites hereof comprising a 396-km2
expanse of Zhangjiajie,the Hawser-Stream
Gully and the Heavenly-Son Mount,a
natural zoo and plant garden as well as a
geological park featuring queer-looking
peaks,deep serene caves,translucent
streams and thick forest.
? Zhangjiajie,located in the center of
Wulingyuan Natural Resort with a
tract of 13,34 square kilometers,is
claimed to be the incipient national
forest park in China,where the
summits and boulders in bizarre
shapes,springs and cataracts,
secluded woods,grotesque trees and
rare animals make up an intriguing
panorama,Subdivided further,it
cradles five scenic spots:
? ⑴, The Yellow-Stone Village,the marrow
of Zhangjiajie,esteemed as ―the cream of
attractions‖ including the Heavenly-Book-
Hung-High Rock,the Holy-Sea-Needle
Rock and the Liberal-Star Rock; (2).The
Golden-Whip Stream characteristic of an
uninterrupted range of stone summits,the
pouring-down cataracts and the Golden-
Whip Rock;
? (3).The Kidney Stronghold isolated by
the surrounding precipices as if
soaring aloft into the sky,suitable for
adventurers to scramble; (4).The
Sand-Knife Ravine twined by primitive
woods and odd-shaped cliffs,a
wilderness kingdom;
? (5).The Pipa Brook Glen full of
densely-grown trees and eccentric-
formed peaks,spotted with the Nine-
Tier Fairy Pavilion,the Heaven-
Prayed Daoist Temple and The
Watching-Husband Peak which
betrays in varied angles the three life
periods of a fairy lady,girlhood,
middle-aged woman and aged granny,
? The Hawser-Stream Gully is situated west of
Cili county covering a 200-km2 area,The
Hawser Stream,shaped like a giant hawser,
winds its way throughout the whole scenic
spot from west to east,Thanks to the
eccentric geological topography,it is
commended a ―natural bonsai‖,where in the
lower strata lies the yellow-green or dark-
green shale and in the upper strata is
stretched the 600 meters-thick violet or
grey-white quartzite blended with a trace of
sand shale,
On account of geological strength there has
been forged the sharply-cleft gully
topography as represented by the
spectacular Yellow-Dragon Cave and the
Four-Stratum Cave Complex.
? A 93-m2 patch,the Heavenly-Son Mount lies
within the border of Sangzhi county,the
cardinal Kunlun Peak towering 1,262 meters
above sea level,On the mountainous side
are distributed the waterfalls,the stone
overbridge,Khast or limestone caves,rock
summits and rock forest,At 900 meters
above sea level copious minute springs
seep out of the rock cracks into brooks or
cataracts against the background of red
sand rocks,glistening and twinkling,
There have been opened up six sub-scenic
spots,the Shi-Family Eaves,the Tea-Tray
Pagoda,the Old-Farm House,the Phoenix-
Sojourn Hill,the Yellow-Dragon Spring and
the Kunlun Peak,matched with 84 scenery-
observing platforms,Fog,shining days,the
moon-lit night and winter snow are enrolled
among the four natural wonders whereas
there is an exuberant expanse of subtropical
evergreen broadleaf forest with colorful
flowers and rare animals dotted anywhere.
? Jiuzhaigou Natural Resort (Nine-Village
Gorge Natural Resort),lying in Nanping
county under Aba Tibetan and Qiang
nationalities prefecture of Sichuan province,
was inscribed on the World Natural Heritage
List in 1992.
? Four hundred kilometers north of Chengdu,
the capital of Sichuan,it stretches 80
kilometers long dominating the landscape of
60,000 hectares indicative of six scenic
spots,the Long-Sea Lake,the Sword Rock,
Nuorihang Cataract,Shuzheng Lakes,
Zharu Lakes and the Black-Sea Lake,
featuring such peerless miracles as the
blue-water lakes,rows of cataracts,colored
forest,snow-capped peaks and Tibetan
flavor.
? Spectacular,primitive and natural,
Jiuzhaigou Natural Resort is prized the
―Fairy Land on Earth.‖ The immense
mountainous bulks,imposing and peculiar,
tower aloft 1,980-3,100 meters above sea
level that are blanketed with a rich
vegetation of coniferous and broadleaf trees,
Fantastic scenes can be observed in each
season,especially in autumn when an
ocean of colored trees mantles the banks
and mountainsides along the 80-kilometer
long ravine,
The waters,lakes,springs,rivers and shoals
are strung jointly as jewelry beads in
gorgeous color,A cluster of cataracts strewn
at random leaps and sings while an army of
lakes reflects the inverted images of red
flowers,green trees,white-snow-capped
peaks and azure sky,The brooks babble
forward between the trees whereas the
trees blossom in the midst of the water.
? A patch of three square kilometers,Shuzhen
Lakes appear to be a handful of 40 lakes
(barrier lakes) as the epitome of Jiuzhaigou
Natural Resort,extending a five-kilometer
long distance,Due to the discrepancies in
depth,background and sediments the Lakes
are widely diversified in tint,
The Reed-Sea Lake seems to be a paradise
of birds; Shuzhen Cataract trickles between
clusters of trees in tiers; the Spark-Sea Lake
feel warm and charming; the Dragon-
Sleeping Lake and the Rhinoceros Lake
look as azure as sapphire,suitable for
boating and raft-rowing.
? Nuorilang Cataract occupies three square
meters,320-meter wide with a 20-meter
drop,pouring down water in immensity,the
widest mountain waterfall in China as the
sign of Jiuzhaigou Natural Resort,The
Mirror-Sea Lake appears as smooth as a
mirror offering the inverted image of the
forest on the bank,elegant and tranquil,
The Pearl-Shoal Cataract falls from a 310-
meter wide shoal as if a reservoir of peals
rolling round in the titanic tray,the most
striking one of the order,And the Five-Color
Lake displays a brilliant aquatic park through
the transparent water,something like a
peacock in full wings.
? A tract of one square kilometer,the Sword
Rock features the Swan Lake,the Sword
Rock,the snow-crowned summit,primeval
forest and contingent arrival of pandas,
Zechawa Glen stretches 17.8 kilometers,
the longest and highest one therein,at the
end of which reposes the 8-kilometer long
Long Lake,iced up as thick as 60
centimeters in winter season,in the most
giant size of all,Most splendid,the Five-Hue
Pond is hidden in the dense forest.
? Huanglong Natural Resort in Songpan
county of Sichuan province was inscribed on
the World Natural Heritage List in 1992.
? Shining as a pearl on the plateau of
northwestern Sichuan,the Resort is made
up of Huanglong scenic spot and Munigou
scenic spot within a 700-km2 territory,
characterized by the colorful calcified ponds
and shoals on the earth surface in a
massive scale and multiple patterns,which,
interwoven with mountains,gullies,snow-
capped summits,cataracts,lakes and the
ocean of forest,disclose the scrolls of
curiosity,grandeur,precipitousness and
wilderness.
? The Yellow-Dragon Ravine,a chief scenic spot at
the foot of the Snow Apex---the dominant peak of
Mount Min,stretches 3.6 kilometers in a 30-170
meter width in a model of a wide glen,The terrain
rises from 3,160 meters above sea level at the
entrance (Fuyuan Bridge) to 3,574 meters high at
the top (the Jade Bathing Pond),strewn with a
thick coating of amber calcified earth,as if a titanic
yellow dragon were wriggling in the midst of the
mountains and forest.
? In the Ravine can be detected the
calcification scenery in varied shapes,the
calcified ponds,calcified shoals,calcified
cataracts,calcified caves,calcified
embankments,of which the most bewitching
ought to be ascribed to a reservoir of 3,400
resplendent calcified ponds in eight clusters.
Ⅲ, Cultural-Natural
Double Heritages
? Mount Tai Resort was conferred upon the honor to be
inscribed on the World Cultural-Natural Double Heritage List
in 1987 by the World Heritage Committee under UNESCO.
? Situated in the center of Shangdong province,Mount Tai,
historically named Mount Dai or Daizong,ranges between
Jinan (the capital of the province),Taian,Licheng and
Changqing occupying an area of 426 square meters with a
80-kilometer circumference,the cardinal peak---the Jade-
Emperor Summit being north of Taishan municipality,1,545
meters above sea level.
? Mount Tai is challenged by the mighty 72 peaks,
the flying cataracts,murmuring springs,
exuberating age-old pine and elm trees,and
fantastic rocks and gullies,The Resort is
classified into five tourist regions,There are
available two scrambling routes respectively in
the east and the west that converge at the
Central Heaven Gateway before reaching the
summit,a total distance of nine kilometers with a
flight of 6,293 steps (claiming to be 7,000 steps).
Among the scenic spots are arrayed the Dragon-
Pond Reservoir,the Central Heavenly Gateway,
the Five-Scholar Pine,the Couple-Pine Hill,the
Eighteen Bends,the Southern Heavenly
Gateway,the Azure-Cloud Temple,
the Watching-Lu-Kingdom Platform,the Observing-Sun
Peak,and the Observing-Moon Peak,Lingering at the
summit of Mount Tai,visitors can appreciate such four
principal spectacles as the Dawning at East,the Golden
Belt of the Yellow River,the Twilight at Dusk and the Jade
Tray in the Sea of Clouds,
? ―The most perilous on Mount Tai / Is ascribed to the
Eighteen Bends.‖ A segment of the trail between the foot of
the Couple-Pine Hill and the summit (the Southern Heaven
Gateway) is analogized as the Sky-Scraping Cloud Ladder,
otherwise nicknamed the Eighteen Bends,winding 1,000
plus meters in a 400-meter perpendicular height with 1,594
stairs of the local brown schist,So far the cable cars have
been reclaimed from the Central Heavenly Gateway to the
Watching-Home Hill in the vicinity of the summit.
? Mount Tai stands out not only as one of Chinese
mountainous parks,but as a natural historic and
art museum,Exclusively along the sightseeing
route in axis have so far been preserved over
1,800 blocks of stone carvings,in which are
enrolled the sumptuous rarity the Carved Rock in
the Chin Dynasty,the forerunner of the big regular
script Vajra Canon of Jinshi Gully,the eternal
riddle Non-Character Tablet,and the gold-tinged
Epigraph of Mount Tai on an escarpment
completed in the Tang Dynasty,The Heaven-
Blessing Hall at Dai Temple on Mount Tai is
ranked among the three most preeminent halls in
China (the other two being the Hall of Supreme
Harmony in Beijing and the Hall of Great
Achievement in Qufu),
wherein is hung a prodigious mural entitled
the Lords of Mount Tai that is supposed to
have been fulfilled in the Song Dynasty as a
mimicry of the feudal emperors hunting and
praying before Buddha,and that is contrived
in strict and grandiose layout and paralleled
by elegant calligraphy and meticulous
patterns,At the Thousand-Buddha Hall of
the Soul-Rock Temple repose forty statues
of Arhats (or Buddhist saints) molded true to
life,a manifestation of ancient Chinese
elaborate techniques in engraving,
calligraphy and sculpture.
? Mount Huang Resort was in 1990 inscribed on the
World Cultural-Natural Double Heritage List,Lying
across Huangshan district,Huizhou district,She
county,Yi County and Xiunin county of
Huangshan municipality of Anhui province,the
Resort stretches 40 kilometers along the north-
south course and 30 kilometers along the east-
west course embracing 1,200 square kilometers
with a scenic kernel of 154 square meters as a
national key tourist resort,The Mount is marked by
a dazzling preeminence of steep precipices,36
giant peaks and 36 minor peaks rising one higher
than another,among which stand upright seventy
seven 1,000 plus-meter high apexes whereas the
Lotus-Bloom Summit,the Heaven-Capital Summit
and the Brightness Apex roar aloft over 1,800
meters above sea level.
? Mount Huang is highly renowned for such ―four
miracles‖ as grotesque pine trees,queer-looking
rocks,cloud seas and springs,As an independent
species of botany,the Mount-Huang-Pine trees
take roots into and stick out of the fissures and
cliffs,their unyielding vitality assuming the lead of
the ―four miracles‖,There have grown thousands
of hundreds of century-old pine trees,the most
prominent being suggestive of thirty one as
represented by the Greeting-Guest Pine,the
Sending-off-Guest Pine and the Sleeping-Dragon
Pine,The queer-looking rocks are scattered
everywhere in the shapes of forest,bamboo or
gourmet handicrafts,
and at least 120 rocks are definitely
nominated,such as the Golden Rooster
Calling at Heavenly Gateway,the Squirrel
Jumping onto the Heavenly Capital,and the
Monkey Watching Sea,Rivaled with
precipitous escarpments,deep valleys,
densely-grown woods and ample
precipitation,Mount Huang deposits a
drifting sea of clouds and purified springs.
? Mount Huang equally stays as a natural zoo
and plant park bearing the forest coverage
56%,vegetation coverage 82.6%,1,452
species of protophytes and a flock of 552
animals.
? In addition it serves to be a museum of
cultural sediments with over 200 relics of
temples,pavilions,stone stairs,bridges and
rock carvings dotted anywhere,At the foot
of the Mount lie She county and Tunxi city,a
cluster of historic sites reputed for the
classical architecture of the Anhui province
in the Ming Dynasty.
? Mount Emei-Leshan Giant Buddhist Statue
was inscribed on the World Cultural-Natural
Double Heritage List in 1996.
? Situated seven kilometers southwest of Emeishan
municipality of Sichuan province,Mount Emei is
revered one of China‘s four predominant Buddhist
resorts,consisting of the Giant E Mount,the
Second E Mount,the Third E Mount and the
Fourth E Mount,ranging over 200 kilometers with
the dominant summit The Ten-Thousand-Buddha
Pinnacle towering 3,099 meters above sea level,
bestowed upon such prestige as ―Mount Emei
appears the most grandiose on Earth‖,The
Eastern Han Dynasty (1,900 years ago) saw some
early temples on the Mount,After the
dissemination of Buddhism into China in the Jin
Dynasty,a mighty tide of constructing Buddhist
temples had been surging from Jin and Tang to
Ming and Qing; especially the latter phase testified
the existence of 150 temples wherein
Samantabhadra Bodhisattva (God of General
Virtues) was enshrined in most cases,Available
currently are the dominating scenic spots,the
Requiting-State Temple,the Eternity Temple,the
Tiger-in-Ambush Temple,the Tranquil-Music
Pavilion,the Plank Trail alongside the Black-
Dragon Brook,the Hongchun-Lawn Temple,the
Fairy-Peak Temple,the Elephant-Bathed Pond,
and the Golden Apex,Thanks to the enormous
height in topography,the climate ranges
substantially from the sub-tropical zone
in the lower area through the temperate zone on
the mountainside to the sub-frigid zone in the
upper one with a 15-degree temperature
difference between the foot and the culmination,
The plants are distributed in a perpendicular
manner amounting up to 3,000 species coupled
with 2,000 genera of animals,It is scarcely
amazing that the alias ―natural museum‖ is
conferred upon the Mount Emei.
? The Requiting-State Temple is located at the foot
of the Mount as the starting spot of the tourist
route; fifteen kilometers upward is the Eternity
Temple as one of the cardinal temples,which was
erected in the throne of Emperor Long
An in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (1,600 years ago)
and originally entitled Samantabhadra Temple with
two halls,one being a beamless hall where stands
upright a copper statue of Samantabhadra
Bodhisattva riding a six-tusk white elephant,which,
weighing 62 tons with a 7.3-meter height,was
founded in Taiping 5,the Northern Song Dynasty
(980).
? The Fairy-Peak Temple is set off beneath the
Nine-Veteran Peak,on the right side is hidden the
unfathomable Nine-Veteran Cave; and in the
proximity droves of monkeys perch and play as
the habitat,The Tiger-in-Ambush Temple is
at the foot of the Tiger-in-Ambush Ridge,one
kilometer west of the Requiting-State Temple,
cradling a floor space of 13,000 square meters as
one of the major temples hereof.
? The Golden Apex,3,065 meters above sea level,
was put up in the Eastern Han Dynasty,incipiently
designated the Illuminating-All Hall,It has
repeatedly incurred from thunderbolts and
lightening over the history,Viewed there,it is
challenged by four wonders,sunrise,ocean of
clouds,―Buddhist Halo‖ and ―Sacred Lamp‖;
more strikingly,around three o‘clock in the
afternoon when the sunlight penetrating the vapor
in the air effects diffraction,consequently
generates a beautiful ring of light,so called
―Buddhist Halo at the Golden Apex.‖
? Leshan Giant Buddhist Statue is seated on the
eastern bank of the Min River and in the western
escarpment of the Linyun Hill,where the Min River,
the Black-Clothes River and the Dadu River
converge,Chiseled in the precipice,it is claimed to
be the largest rock-carved sitting Buddhist statue
in China,70.7-meter high and 24-meter wide
(shoulder to shoulder) in a well-proportioned
immensity,supplied with a drainage system on the
statue for the sake of alleviating aquatic erosion
and weathering,
? Commenced in Kaiyuan 1,the reign of
Emperor Xian of the Tang Dynasty (713)
and completed ninety years later in
Zhenyuan 19,the reign of Emperor De of
Tang (803),the Giant Buddhist Statue was
incipiently painted red and equipped with a
60 meter-high protective pavilion,a 7-storey
13 tier-eaves framework; on its right side
spirals a perilous flight of plank stairs
leading to the foothold,called ―the nine-bend
plank trail‖.
? Mount Wuyi Natural Resort was inscribed on
the World Cultural & Natural Heritage List on
December 1st,1999.
? Lying 15 kilometers southwest of Wuyishan
city of Fujian province and 750 meters
above sea level,it covers a 2,500-square-
kilometer territory,formed in red sand
conglomerate.
? The Resort is chiefly marked by the nine-
bend stream,the thirty six peaks,the
grotesque ninety nine cliffs,the ruins of the
Han-Dynasty towns and the Song-Dynasty
ceramic kilns……
? There is passed down a legendary story that
toward the concluding years of the Shang
Dynasty,Ancestor Peng,the ancestor of
human longevity,ascended the Mount and
was profoundly fascinated in the scenery
while spending all his life there,who had
bred two sons respectively named Wu and
Yi,as being the origin of Mount Wuyi.
? Mount Wuyi is situated within the mid-
subtropical zone,skirted by ridges over
ridges of mountains in the east,west and
north; a chain of undulating hills is disclosed
in the central south,The terraced terrain tilts
down from the northwest to the southeast,
the culmination Huanggang Peak being 2,158
meters above sea level and the lowest location
Xingtian town being 165 meters (the river bed 160
meters) above sea level,geographically
nicknamed ―the Roof of East China.‖ Therein
reposes the overwhelming portion of the Mount
Wuyi Natural Resort and the Mount Wuyi Nature
Reserve,which favors Wuyi municipality in a great
variety.
? Pursuant to statistics concerned the Nature
Reserve has sustained an army of over 3,000
species of plants; in zoology it is granted the title
―the Kingdom of Snakes‖ and ―the Zoo of
Subtropical Zone‖.
? Mount Lu,counted into China‘s famous
mountainous resorts,was in 1996 inscribed on the
World Cultural-Natural Heritage List,which towers
aloft south of Jiujiang municipality of Jiangxi
province in the neighborhood of Poyang Lake,
occupying an area of 300 square kilometers with
the Greater Hangyang Peak as the pinnacle (1474
meters above sea level),Mount Lu is rivaled by
the imposing peaks,the whimsical ocean of clouds,
the surging springs,the magnificent cataracts and
the age-long historic sites.
? Among the predominant scenic spots are
transcribed the Five-Senior Peak,the Three-Tier
Spring Cataract,the Peeping-at-Poyang-Lake
Pass,
? the Reed-Forest Lake,the Greater Heavenly Pond,
the Flower Passageway,the Qin-Like Lake,the
Brocade Gully,the Fairy-Man Cave,the Lesser
Heavenly Pond,the Eastern-Forest Temple,the
White-Deer-Cave Academy,the Mount Lu Botanic
Park and the Mount Lu Museum.
? Extending a few kilometers in the southeast,the Five-
Senior Peak,steep and upright,looks as if five senior
men were seated together,The Peeping-at-Poyang-
Lake Pass inlaid between the Five-Senior Peak and
the Nine-Wonder Peak rises 1,211 meters above sea
level as though a herculean mouth to imbibe the water
from the Lake down there,from which visitors can
scan a broad expanse of Poyang Lake dotted with sail
boats,The Peeping-at-Poyang-Lake Pavilion serves to
be a satisfactory location to watch dawning.
? East of the Five-Senior Peak,the Three-Tier-Spring
Cataract falls on a huge boulder before streaming down,a
rainbow glittering in a 300-meter drop height,The Eastern-
Forest Temple,at the northwestern foot of Mount Lu,
remains as the birthplace of Buddhist Sukhavati (Pure
Land) Sect,In the ravine below the Five-Senior Peak lies
the White-Deer-Cave Academy that is claimed to be
among China‘s pioneering institutions of higher learning,
wherein Li Bo,a distinguished scholar in the Tang Dynasty,
lingered in seclusion (785 A.D) raising a flock of white deer
for pastime,who was venerated Mr,White Deer,and the
former site of his study was alias the White-Deer Cave,
The site was reconstructed into a royal academy in the
later Tang and employed as an academy of classical
learning in the early Song,The remainder at present was
renovated in the reign of Emperor Dao Guang of the Qing
Dynasty (1821-1850),The Greater Heavenly Pond and the
Lesser Heavenly Pond,full of stagnant water all years
around,rest as the twin resorts,
on the greater of which visitors can immensely
appreciate the sunset‘s glow and retain a
panoramic sight of the bulky Yangtze River,and
on the lesser of which they can peep at Poyang
Lake,The Mount Lu Museum is concealed in a
grove on the northern bank of the Lu-Grove Lake
where are on exhibition the broze objects,ceramic
and pottery handicrafts,the authentic scrolls of the
calligraphers and painters in Tang,Song,Ming
and Qing,In the Eastern Glen 1,000-1,300 meters
above sea level was founded the Mount Lu
Botanic Park in 1934 as a China‘s sub-high-
altitudes plant garden in a tract of three square
kilometers,where is currently available a colossal
reserve of 3,400 species of plants and 100,000
specimens collected at home and overseas.
CHAPTER 15
Meticulous Handicrafts
Over the historic course of
Chinese antique culture,the
handicraft,as a jewel,twinkled
as the luster of the sagacity of
Chinese ancients,and even has
been equally glinting to the
present day,Having occurred in
great antiquity,Chinese
handicraft has attained a
considerable progress with
extraordinary trophy.
I,Jade Crafts
? Dating to the Neolithic Age,jade
processing technique has
survived for a lengthy phase of
roughly 10,000 years as the most
aged craftsmanship.
? China is enrolled among the
dominant producers of jade,
taking advantage of the
elongated history in mining and
the titanic reserve in a well-
ranging territory,As unfolded in
the Canon of Mountains and
Seas,
there had been no less than 200 sites for
jade excavation,Hetian county in Xinjiang
Uygur Autonomous Region preponderating
over the top-quality jade in richest varieties
and greatest quantities which had served as
the staple source of the royal jade ware,In
addition,the jade prospected from Jiuquan
in Gansu province,Lantian in Shaanxi
province,Dushan and Mixian in Henan
province and the cave-rock jade in Liaoning
province had unexceptionally been exploited
in daily life.
? It should be ascertained that the jade in view of
Chinese culture embraced a wider scope of
intension than itself,Xu Shen,a philologist in the
Han Dynasty,advocated in the Annotation of
Characters that the beauty of jade was involved in
five attributes,In conformity to the criterion all the
jewels bearing hardness,radiant sheen,compact
transparent composition and pleasing sound was
bound to fall within jade,which,accordingly in the
eyes of Chinese ancients,referred to not only the
genuine jade (hornblende),but also serpentine,
turquoise,malachite,agate,crystal,amber,ruby,
emerald and so on,
? As early as 7,000 years ago the primitives
subsisting on Hemudu Culture in the south of
China drew open the curtain of Chinese jade
culture by embellishing themselves deliberately
with the nice-looking jewels during the course of
selecting and making stone tools,Till the middle or
later period of the Neolithic Age (4,000-5,000
years ago) the jade craftsmanship had gradually
matured to such a degree that jade chiseling had
been severed from stone-tool making as an
independent handicraft trade while there had
emerged a rich variety of jade ware comprising not
only sword,dagger-axe and spear,but shovel,axe,
knife,comb,hollowing-ear spoon and other daily
utensils,
Of all the wearing jade ware,most ample in
quantity and perfect in artistry,came to be the
priority of the jade craftsmanship at that time,such
as those in shapes of dragon,phoenix,tiger and
human figurines while the etiquette jade ware was
treated the necessity in sacrificial rites,royal
meetings and awarding ceremonies as well as the
emblem of sovereignty,such as gui (an elongated
jade tablet) showing off the wearer‘s noble status,
bi (a round flat piece of jade with a bore in the
center) applicable in praying for Heaven,and cong
(a square column of jade with a bore in the center)
held in praying for Earth,as revealed the mystical
atmosphere pervaded in Chinese jade ware from
the very incipiency,
Liangzhu Jade Ware and Hongshan Jade Ware
are highly valued the elite of the order,the
preceding one characteristic of the large-size body,
balanced proportion in symmetry,shallow relief
and especially the so soigné thread carving that
the later jade ware was rendered too inferior to
bear comparison with it,the succeeding one
susceptible of lifelike figurines in meticulousness.
? The Shang Dynasty marked the arrival of the
green / black-jade goblet mimicking the bronze
goblet wielded in drinking wine,and the increasing
stock of jade ware in the shapes of dragon,
phoenix,parrot and human creatures
superfluously surpassed the geometrical-style jade
ware,
The earliest handsome ware---jade tortoise came in
existence at this time,It was the most admiring and
successful that the enormous amount of round-shape
jade ware made its debut,accompanied by the double
parallel concave lines (nicknamed the double-
delineated lines) so that the two concave lines and
the newly-inserted convex line could enhance the
stereoscopic sense of patterns and eradicate the
monotonousness in case of sheer concave lines.
? The gloss of the soigné jade ware during the Spring-
Autumn-Warring-States Period could be compared
with the concurrent rivals of ancient Greece and Rome
far away in the Mediterranean sphere,Every Chinese
scholar-official therein wore a series of jade ware from
head to toe that,streamlined in ―s‖ image,were
preferably polished in shapes of dragon,
phoenix and tiger,being full of typified Chinese national
manners and flavor,Also there occurred the vague convex
veins packed with the hollow-out skill whereas on the
background was applied the single or parallel concave
threads,as seemed plump and harmonious,Unearthed out
of the No.2 tomb belonging to Prince Zen in Hubei province
and another tomb at Guwei village of Huixian city in Henan
province were the multi-segment wearing jade sets
embodying a high degree of craftsmanship.
? Proceeding with the peer in the Warring States Period,the
jade ware in the Han-Dynasty had forged the rudimentary
setup of Chinese jade culture,which was sub-categorized
into the etiquette jade ware,the funeral jade ware,the
decoration jade ware and the display jade ware,the
second and the fourth genera being paramount in artistry,
The funeral jade ware consisted of the jade garment,
the nine-aperture plugs,the in-mouth jade ball and the
in-hand jade chunk; the jade garment was stranded
respectively with gold threads,silver threads and
copper threads depending upon the identity or status
of the deceased; the nine-aperture plugs were used to
stuff or cover the nine human apertures (ears,eyes,
mouth,nostrils,anus and genital) in the purpose of
refraining from ―essence gas‖ leaking out and the
corpse rotting,The display jade ware was carved in a
round-carving or high-relief manner,a sign of the bold
and uninhibited artistic genre at the time,Recently
from the tomb pertaining to the king of the Southern
Yue Kingdom under the Han Dynasty in modern
Guangdong province have been excavated a
considerable batch of display jade ware,in which the
dragon-tiger jade belt hook and the hollowed-out
dragon-phoenix-veins jade ring set are prized the rare
national treasures.
? The jade ware in the Tang Dynasty,despite its
moderate quantity,all were elites,which had been
nourished by the painting,sculpture and the art
disseminated from the West Territory,an embodiment
of the thriving Tang,Those in Song,Liao and
Churcheng were marked by the ―playful‖ flavor rather
than the ―ritual‖ air,pressing close to the secular life,
And the typified jade ware in Yuan was the Dushan
Big-Jade-Sea looking as if a sea-beast god swimming
in surging waves,susceptible of heroic mettle of Yuan
nomadic rulers.
? The Ming and Qing Dynasties witnessed the
unprecedented heyday of Chinese jade ware in
respect of raw material,craftsmanship,variety,
quantity and application,The emperors and the royal
members became engrossed in jade;
all the more Emperor Qian Long of Qing spared no
efforts to advocate it in such a fervent manner that he
had endeavored to search for the theoretical testimony
for his addictive behavior,The jade bowls unearthed out
of the Ding Mausoleum of the Ming emperors,the
chrysanthemum-petal-shape jade trays and the servant-
maiden-in-parasol-shadow jade statuette of Qing were
none other than the royal articles,Unalterably Chinese
folks were keen on jade ware; for instance the jade
processing center was situated in Jizhu Lane of Shuzhou
in Jiangsu province,as quoted in ―Though superb jade is
piled in Capital / First-rate craftsmen gather in Suzhou
city‖,Ming and Qing were challenged by the jade ware of
distinctive genres,the majority being the mimicries of the
wine cups,tea cups,miniature stoves for burning
incense,vases,tripods or quadripods prevalent in Shang,
Zhou and Warring State Period with the contemporary
craftsmanship,On the other hand the jade ware was
increasingly incorporated into social cultural life,
When writing or painting,the scholars availed themselves
of jade utensils for washing,placing and supporting the
writing brush or paper; otherwise they would display jade
ware in study rooms as the genteel décor,Gifted with the
techniques applicable in painting,sculpture and craft work
(specifically,convex and concave grains,relief and niche,
hollow-out,cubism,tingeing and soldering etc.),the jade
ware of Ming and Qing had approached the acme of
professional proficiency.
? Having progressed in the long run and having been
annotated and embellished by both the rite-scholars and
the skilled craftsmen,Chinese jade ware has virtually
become something supernatural,omnipotent and
omnipresent,a spiritual necessity which,staking out its
own course,sheds luster upon the cultural treasury of the
world.
II,Bronze Casting
? The bronze casting that loomed
up three millennia ago,weighs
tremendously over the history of
Chinese and the global craft
artistry,marking the zenith of
Chinese handicrafts in the
slavery system and its incessant
development into the feudal
society,
? Bronze was alloyed with copper
and tin,occasionally with some
content of lead as requested,as
could be cast into craft articles,
The alloy proportion varied from one usage to
another,In the Records of Craft Work edited in the
fifth century B.C was conceived the statement of
―six components‖ involving bronze technology,
The bronze inclusive of admixture of tin was prone
to generate sheen and fine veins in addition to
higher hardness and lower melting point,
? During the course of bronze casting,the slave
craftsmen exerted their creative talents to such
and extent that they had mastered the adeptness
in mining,ore dressing,die set and casting,and
had founded the vessels in a medley of
complicated images,such as those bearing
resemblance to birds and beasts,
Take an example of ―the Cross-Apertures Quadripod‖
manufactured in the Shang Dynasty,which is
nowadays collected in the Palace Museum (in the
Forbidden City),it possesses four ―windows‖ in the
four walls,supplied with movable handles on the
shoulders,an astonishing masterpiece of superb skills
despite some demerits in pragmatic value,
? Another paragon shall be attributed to ―Simuwu Giant
Quadripod‖ of Shang,measured 110 cm x 137 cm x
78 cm,weighing 875 kilograms,In compliance with the
existing technology,a crucible furnace could hold no
more than 12.5 kilograms of melted copper each time;
consequently the 875-kilogram weigh quadripod
required the simultaneous operation of 70—80
crucible furnaces to meet the instant die casting or
else fissures would occur;
that is to say,a host of 100—200 skilled slave workers
should have been working concurrently (exclusive of
auxiliary laborers) on the spot,a grand sight of
collaboration.
? The decorative patterns impressed on bronze objects
were approximately categorized into three genres,the
geometrical patterns comprising of dots,lines,circles,
squares and triangles typical of strings,cloud-thunder
veins and sliding threads; the animal patterns,
sometimes abstracted or transformed,in the shapes of
ox,sheep,elephant,tiger,horse,birds,crow,snake,
silkworm and cicada etc; and the bizarre-looking
imaginary animal patterns as evinced by the taotie veins,
kui veins and dragon veins,which were fancied by
Chinese ancients to exude a ―savage beauty‖ (as quoted
from Li Zehou,a contemporary Chinese philosopher and
aesthetician),symbolizing an auspicious connotation of
―coordinating Heaven and Earth,‖ hence a mystical
charisma.
? As regards the decorative means,the whole-body
vein was followed by the three-tier vein (base vein,
prime vein and overlapped vein) and reflected
stereoscopically in the taotie vein and the cloud-
thunder vein so as to produce the primary-
secondary efficacy,There were some designs
connecting and / or symmetrizing sequential
groups of patterns in search of regularity or
stability; in the meantime relief device was
extensively employed in harmony with the three-
dimension bronze objects.
? The later stage of bronze crafts work induced the
innovated techniques---the gold-silver marquetry
and the gold tinting,Regarding the marquetry,
grooves had to be chiseled on the bronze surface
before gold or silver threads were inlaid,therefore
hammered and rolled into the grooves,
which shone with grandeur exercising a marked
impact on the contemporary and succeeding and
other sorts of handicrafts,The gold-marquetry kui-
vein copper bean unearthed from a tomb in the
Warring States Period in Changzhi city of Shanxi
province serves to be a sample of this technological
process,The gold tinting was rivaled by the ―gold-
tinted copper lantern of Changxin Palace‖ and the
gold-tinted copper kettle excavated from Mancheng
county of Hebei province,the favorite apparatus in
the Han Dynasty.
? In conclusion the genres of Chinese bronze objects
varied from sedateness in the early stage through
pragmatic simplicity in the middle to intricacy in the
later,as represented by the bronze wine cup
unearthed in Hunyuan county of Shanxi province.
? Compared with the contemporaries in other
civilizations,Chinese bronze implements were
exclusively paralleled by the epigraphs,otherwise
defined as ―Metal Script‖ or ―Clock-Quadripod Script,‖
which had been carried forward from the Tortoise-
Shell Script,dignified and clear-cut,functioning as a
forerunner of the successive Seal Script,Official Script
and Regular Script,a stupendous hoard of Chinese
calligraphy,The 499-character Lord Mao Quadripod is
allegedly appraised to rival the Book of Documents as
the earliest and most elegant literary piece of
sacrificial rites in the human history; the 357-character
San-Family Bronze Plate is prized the pioneering
diplomatic peace treaty available currently in China,
and the 284-character bronze History-Wall Plate the
saga of the Wei family,which is believed to be cast in
the reign of the legendary King Gong.
Ⅲ, Chinaware
? Chinaware shines as the
unique genre and aesthetic
objective in the treasury of
China art.
? As is known to all,
earthenware or pottery was
ever a commonplace
phenomenon occurring in
the pre-history age whereas
chinaware is claimed to
be an unequaled achievement effected from the
long-standing development of Chinese ancient
civilization,Originated in China,chinaware along
with the relevant aesthetic sentiment is challenged
by the unprecedented historic tradition and the
distingue coherence.
? The endless one and half millennium between the
Shang and the Eastern Han Dynasties is
designated the generating period and the pottery
hereof the ―primitive porcelain‖ which,coming
within the product of furnace like bronze---the
emblem of slave owners‘ prestige,
power and will,was so naturally entitled with the
latter ―pottery and casting‖ (陶铸 ),From the Tang
Dynasty onwards it had scaled the height of a
brand-new historic era when a wide variety of daily
articles such as tea set,tableware,stationery,toys,
musical instruments and some ornaments were
unexceptionally made up of chinaware,The
porcelain of Tang looked plump,delicate and
majestic,Yue Kiln in the southern China and Xin
Kiln in the northern China shared a high degree of
reputation,The product in Yue Kiln looked as pure
as jadeite,durable and translucent,esteemed
―quasi-jade‖ and ―quasi-ice‖ by Lu Yu in his Tea
Canon,
In the tomb pertaining to Li Shuang in the regn of
Emperor Gao of Tang (668) was unearthed a vase
of blue glazed porcelain,a product of Yue Kiln,so
crystal-clear as to illuminate human faces,Xin Kiln
was located in Xintai country of Hebei province,
engaged in baking white glazed ceramics,―as
bright as jade.‖ Besides the Chinese folks had
equally baked the ceramic utensils---black-glazed,
the yellow-glazed,the brown-glazed and dark-
yellow-glazed,which seemed coarse but plain,
imbued with the local flavor,In terms of decorative
devices,there came a series of such processes as
imprinting,delineating,cutting,piling-up and
kneading,The theme of flowers and birds began
to set in on a greater scale,
? The Song Dynasty saw the fully-fledged baking
and decoration methods as well as a swarm of
kilns scattered across the country,among which
the most prestigious were rated,
① Ru Kiln,in the domain of Linru country of Henan
province,was reputed for deep grey roughcast
and crystal plump glaze coating with the white-
blue glazed porcelain being of top quality,
② Guan Kiln produced the moonlight-white,the
white-blue and the deep-green-glazed ceramics
with the deep grey or violet roughcast and the
lubricating glaze fluid.
③ Longquan Kiln appeared soft-glazed,affording the light-
blue,the light-green and the white-blue ceramics,The
kiln was alias the ―Elder Brother Kiln‖ and ―Younger
Brother Kiln‖ for a couple of brothers,named Zhang First
and Zhang Second,were running the kilns in the
Southern Song Dynasty,Availing themselves of the
discrepancies incurring from the expansion coefficients
of the roughcast and the glaze,the dexterous workers
were able to make such patterns as ―Hundred-Fragment
Heap‖ and ―Fish-Roe Veins‖ applicable for an effective
décor,
④ Ding Kiln baked white glazed porcelain by applying the
decorative skills of cutting,delineating and impressing
patterns in an amazingly artful manner,The impressed
patterns looked exaggerated,transformed and compact
while the cut patterns seemed lively,charming and
refined,
⑤ Jindezhen Kiln predominated as a noted porcelain
capital in China,The laborers thereof had boasted of
their talents in creating the ―Shadow-Blue Apparatus‖
by mixing a minute content of iron powder with the
translucent glaze,which looked dainty in quality,thin
in roughcast,regular in molding and limpid in glazing,
⑥ Making much use of painting directly the roughcast
with iron glaze,Cizhou Kiln devoted the white-
glazed-black-grain chinaware,as allowed more
margin for the artists to give free reign to their
geniuses,paving the way for the ceramic-painting
innovation from the pure patterns to the semi-
painting and full-painting technique,In addition,
Cizhou Kiln adopted the decoration approaches
such as the semi-cutting & semi-painting,
the multi-color vein carving,the grain-cutting &
color-filling,and the dot-stamping-as-pearls; the
already-made product presented the white
patterns contrasting with the black background,
This type of porcelain was extensively baked in
Hebei,Henan,Shandong,Shanxi and Shaanxi,
unanimously designated as ―Cizhou Kiln Type,‖
which,for centuries,has been prevailing in the
northern China until the present day,
? Jian Kiln was renowned for black-glazed
porcelain as often as not offering ―rabbit hair‖,
―francolin stripes‖ and silver-star speckles.‖
⑧ Jizhou Kiln furnished not only the glazed
―hawksbill-stripe‖ or ―oil-drop speck‖ articles but
the elementary blue-white glazed apparatus,
toys and figurines by means of the wooden-leaf
gluing and the cutting-paper gluing techniques.
⑧ Jun Kiln featured the ―kiln-transformed‖ ceramics
in the prose violet,the flowering-crab-apple red,
the moonlight white and azure.
? During the Tang and Song Dynasties,the ―Tang-
Tri-Tint‖ porcelain,derived from the low-
temperature-glazed-pottery technique in the Han
Dynasty,had gradually emitted gloss in the mix
of yellow,green,white,brown and a slight
amount of blue as the precious color,a giant
progress from the mono-color glazing to the poly-color
kind,The Tang-Tri-Tint figurines excavated in the
tombs belonging to Tang served as a testimony of
advanced artistry in painting and glazing; especially
the horse and camel-shaped statuettes were
manufactured true to life,not only in appropriate
proportion but in compliance with anatomy.
? Yuan,Ming and Qing were doomed to be the
concluding phase of the four-millennium earthenware
and chinaware artistry in China,The products hereof
had not only assimilated all optimal achievements
involving the baking technique of blue and white
roughcast and glazing,but also substantially
employed the low-temperature-color-glazing skill into
the color-painting and the color-baking technological
processes,
The blue-white-glazed-in-red ceramics baked in
Jindezhen Kiln in Yuan was acclaimed an epoch-
making invention at the time,The pure white
―sweet-white apparatus‖ in the rule of Emperor
Yong Le of Ming surmounted the defect incurred in
the former white-glazed porcelain scantly mingled
with yellowish or bluish tint,favoring preferably the
successive color-glazed ceramics,Ming and Qing
witnessed a rich range of glazing colors; bright red,
rainbow red,ruby red,crimson red (or string-bean-
seed red),azure,sapphire blue,peacock blue,
light yellow,fish-roe yellow,finless-eel yellow,
eggplant-skin purple and so forth;
until the reign of Emperor Qian Long the spectrum
had amounted up to fifty seven hues,The gold-
coated ceramics,starting from Yuan and digesting
the gold plating in lacquer ware,proceeded
through Ming to Qing in even more soigné
manners--- the ―gold-plastered‖ and ―silver-
plastered‖ techniques.
? Apart from the well-reputed Jindezhen chinaware,
China witnessed a host of ceramic treasures; the
age-long blue glazed porcelain of Longquan in
Zhejiang province,the white glazed product of
Dehua in Fujian province,the purple-sand
earthenware of Yixing in Jiangsu province,the
deep-color-thick-glaze ―clay apparatus‖ of
Guangdong province and Taiwan province,
the streaked pattern-stuck enamelware of Shanxi
province,the black-glazed-pattern-painted
porcelain of Hebei and Hennan provinces,the
pattern-carved glazed earthenware of Jieshou in
Anhui province,the crimson earthenware of Zibo
in Shangdong province,the green-glazed
earthenware of Tongguan in Hunan province,the
hollowed-out glazed earthenware and pots of
Congqing and Rongchang in Sichan province,and
the natural-hue earthenware of Gianshui in
Yunnan province an of Tianshui in Gansu province.
? To sum up,Chinese chinaware serves not only as
the pragmatic implements,but as an artistic hoard
of high-degree aesthetic sentiment and
connoisseurship in regard to molding,sheen and
décor,none other than a paragon of daily use and
sightseeing as well as technology and artistry,
Ⅳ, Engraved Stones & Bricks
? Competing with other genres in handicrafts,
ancient Chinese engraved stones and bricks had
radiated gloriously as well,which have been
circulating over centuries and unearthed in
quantities,and some of which are enrolled among
the national treasury,
? The ancient
engraved stones
and bricks
displayed in the
museums,on
account of some
historic reasons,were on the whole affiliated to
tombs,religious temples and secular buildings
while the works exclusive for ornaments have
scarcely been discovered,The carvings
subordinated to tombs were marked by funerary
articles,the decorations of coffin chambers,and
the human or animal figurines lined up alongside
the ground tomb pathways,The works subject to
religion were chiefly exhibited by the statues
adorned at temples and civilian houses
elementarily concerning Confucianism,Buddhism
and Daoism,And those falling within architecture
were embodied in building components and
interior décor,
? The funerary articles or ―the neither-world
apparatus‖ were the buried-with-the–deceased
objects solely in ancient China,which appeared to
be the mimicries of ritual appliances,human or
animal images,daily articles,laboring tools,
weaponry,chariots,ships,furniture and buildings
etc,and which were in most cases made of pottery,
porcelain,wood and stone,Of all the pottery
figurines,the Terracotta Warriors buried in the
proximity of the Mausoleum to First Emperor of the
Chin Dynasty were held paramount in delicacy,as
were sculpted in full size as real soldiers in gallant
air having endured as the largest army of human-
looking pottery figurines hitherto excavated,
esteemed the rarity of humanity,
The Han-Dynasty pottery figurines,portrayed
innocent and unaffected,retained the top artistic
quality of the genre,The Tang-Dynasty pottery
figurines,notably the Tang-Tri-Tint figurines in
vivid manners,scaled another height,Those
during the Five-Dynasties-Song-Yuan period were
represented by the brick-engraved tomb
unearthed in Houma city of Shanxi province,in
which the walls of the coffin chamber were lined
up with engraved bricks involving the figurines of
men,everyday supplies,housing,theatres and
clowns,an invaluable souvenirs of the order,
Moreover the engraved-stone works disclosed
from the tomb of Wang Jian,the king of the
Former Shu Kingdom are well worthy of a mention,
In that tomb was mounted a seat-type stone coffin
bed circumscribed by a relief sculpture of actors
and actresses,
a set of consequential reference materials for the
search into music history; on either side of the
coffin bed were arrayed a dozen of solemn-looking
god busts,helmeted (or crowned) and armored;
on a stone bed in the rear chamber was erected
the sitting-posture statue of the king wearing a
crown and a round-collar gown with bushy
eyebrows,thin-lips and hanging ears,conforming
to the description in the historic records,a lifelike
masterpiece in the ancient times.
? The engravings subordinated to the décor in the
coffin chamber were mainly ascribed to the portrait
stones or bricks that had shed brilliance in
varieties between the Western-Eastern Han and
the Southern-Northern Dynasties,
At the outset most of them had been painted with
colors,called ―drawings‖ having touched upon a vivid
sketch of social activities which varied among farming,
hunting,official career of the dead,greeting,
sightseeing,banquets,gateways,pavilions,guards
and soldiers; which recounted the historic stories
concerning loyal administers,filial sons,chaste
women and ancient sages in addition to the legends
regarding God East and Goddess West,God Fu Xi
and Goddess Nu Wa (the first man and woman in
Chinese legends),other deities or holy beasts; and
which,in the last analysis,unveiled the astronomical-
phenomena charts,auspicious objects and plenty of
patterns and grains,serving as a precious data bank
for scrutinizing the contemporary politics,economy
and culture,The artistic styles therein ranged
extensively,delicate,grandiose,
compact or imposing,A large brick-inlaid painting
entitled ―the Seven Scholars in Bamboo Forest
and Rong Qizhao,‖ unearthed from a tomb
belonging to the Southern Dynasty at Xishanqiao
in Nanjing of Jiangsui province,afforded a true-to-
life portrait of human figures in such a style that
highly resembled the counterpart of the facsimile
of the original painting bearing the same title
handed down from the Jin Dynasty,of which the
scenario was supposed to be fulfilled by Gu Kaizhi
or Dai Lu,the masters of Chinese painting.
? The ground stone carvings subject to tombs were
characterized by the statues of human and animal
figures lined up along the tomb pathway,The
stone works in front of the tombs stood not only as
the guards of the owners,
but as a sign of his or her life-time prestige,
reputation and merits,The earliest engraved stone
complex conserved presently in intact condition is
attributed to that pertaining to the tomb of General
Hao Qubing in the Western Han Dynasty,which
totals sixteen blocks in the shapes of elephant; ox,
horse,fish,pig,tiger,sheep,―monster swallowing
sheep,‖ ―man wrestling with bear,‖ and ―horse
striding Huns‖,composed in simplicity and
vividness,and which ccould solely be matched
with another complex belonging to the tombs of
the Southern Dynasty in the vicinity of Nanjing,
The complex has maintained a stockpile of stone
beasts,stone pillars and stone tablets in massive
size,intricacy and grandeur,What has been
mentioned above is prized the peerless art
treasures.Based upon the accomplishments in the
preceding ages,
the stone carvings of the eighteen tombs of Tang
with relief,rounded or lined carvings cannot but be
inscribed on the listing of Chinese national
treasury,of which the ―Six Horses at Zhao
Mausoleum,‖ engraved in precision adroitness,are
venerated a of summit art works,
? The stone or brick carvings subject to religious
temples abounded tremendously in the forms of
Buddhist grottoes and the statues adored in Daoist
and Confucian temples,The grotto-temples were
distributed in a well-ranging scope,as paralleled
by Yungang grottoes,Longmen grottoes,Binjun
Temple grottoes,Qingyang North & South
grottoes,Gongxian grottoes,Mount Heaven-
Dragon grottoes,
Ten-Thousand-Buddha Temple Grottos in Yi
county,the stone clocks and grottoes in Jianchun
county along with Dazu grottoes,the Flying-in
Peak statues and Mount Xixia carvings,Besides
the Authentic Daoist grottoes excavated at Mount
Dragon in the thirteenth century and the three-
religion grottos (referring to Confucianism,Daoism
and Buddhism) of Dazu in Chougqing municipality
executed in the eleventh century unexceptionally
induced a fame of prodigy.
? The technique of manifestation governing the
engraved stones and bricks applied to religious
services was complete and advanced in round
carving,relief sculpture and hollow-out engraving,
some pieces in such size as the Leshan Giant
Buddha Statue and others in less-than-inch
carvings,
which formed a reservoir of Chinese engraving
expertise assuming an unrivalled influence on the
development of Chinese ancient arts,and which
has hitherto drawn public astonishment.
? The carvings affiliated to architecture were
impressively exhibited in the doorways,gateways,
bridges,platforms,pathways,fences,pillars,
pilasters,brackets,ceilings and roofs etc,as
shown by the stone portrait at Wuliang Temple,
the passageway and memorial columns at the
Forbidden City in Beijing and the stone pillars at
the Great-Achievement Hall of Confucian Temple
in Qufu,
Ⅴ,Textile and
Embroidery
China pioneered in silkworm breeding,
silk reeling,weaving,dyeing,printing
and embroidery throughout the globe,
being renowned as ―the silk country‖ in
ancient days,The soigné Chinese
textiles and brocade used to clothe many
nations during a long course of history,
one of the artful gems of ancient
Chinese culture,As early as the fifth
century B.C Chinese textiles,dyed or
printed silk and embroideries had been
diffused to Europe and Africa by way of
the Silk Route crossing Eurasian
Continent,winning over the eulogy of
those peoples and dedicating a great
share to the human textile industry,Up to
the present day traditional Chinese silk
and embroideries have invariably been
well reputed across the world.
? The technique in view of weaving,dyeing,embroidery
and clothing traced back to over 7,000 years ago when
the Chinese claimed to be the predecessor to be
conscious of adorning their life by means of textiles,In
Xia---the founding dynasty in Chinese civilization,there
had already been an ample supply of textiles,It was
recorded that Yiyin,the prime minister in Shang
Kingdom had exchanged brocade to Jie,the last king of
Xia Dynasty for 100 sacks of millet,The Shang Dynasty
saw a cluster of benefices and towns engaged in
weaving,dyeing and embroidery,such as Bo,Chaoge
(the capital of Xia),Xiang,Lu and Qi,and some tribes
specialized in weaving textiles,
? The Han Dynasty marked a ponderous gait in
respect of the variety and quality of brocade,At
that time ―zengbo‖ bore the general reference to
silk works,as could be sub-divided into ―zhi,yi,
qian,di,yiu,mang,qi,su,lian,lin,juan,hu,gao,
luo,jin,sha,xiu‖……,denoting a medley of
processing artistry,The brocade specimens
pertaining to the Han Dynasty were attributed to
the hoard of over 100 pieces of clothing,quilts,
silks and other daily brocade unearthed from a
Western-Han-Dynasty tomb at Mawangdui of
Changsha municipality in Hunan province,which
had been weaved in decades of tinges such as
bright red,crimson,brownish violet,dark green,
light brown,yellow,blue,brown,grey,white and
black,
The processing techniques governing the patterns
and grains involved the pattern-weaving,the
pattern-embroidering,the clay-gold-inlaid- pattern-
printing,and the pattern-printing-tingeing,In
addition to the traditional rhombus pattern were
further assimilated into the brocade the
transformed images of animals,the cloud veins,
the grass-folded veins,dots and lines,A white-silk
gown buried therein was measured 160-
centimeter long with a 195-centimeter length of
sleeves weighing solely 48 grams,so light and so
thin that it looked like cicada‘s wings embodying
the extremely advanced proficiency of Chinese silk
reeling and weaving techniques two millennia ago,
Technically,the ―velvet jin‖ resulting from an order
of the silk works simultaneously symbolized the
crystallization of the first-rate textiles in the Han
Dynasty,which was weaved into the warp-four-tier
tissue of the velvet rings
mixed from three warp-woof jacquards,requiring
fairly sophisticated installations for jacquard and
velvet weaving,As registered in the Miscellanies
in Western Capital,Cheng Guangbao and his
family completed ―weaving one bolt of lin silk
within sixty days.‖ What an expertise and resource
it had summoned up！
? Embroidery had gained popularity in Han,as
stated by Wang Chongn,a prominent philosopher
in Materials and Handicrafts Section from On
Equilibrium,―Qi area has been engrossed in
embroidery for ages and no married woman fails
to undertake it.‖ There had been found many a
needling skill such as the horizontal needling,the
horizontal needlework with velvet unfolded,
the braid needlework and the T-model needlework,
Moreover the ―silk-patch-glued-with-velvet‖
technique came under an invention in the
embroidering and weaving process,Such a
prodigious development had been effected in
printing and dyeing technology that the clay-gold-
silver printed silk and the printed-silk-with-hue silk
stood out as the already-known pioneer in the
history of Chinese printing and dyeing,The first
brocade was printed with the carved relief plate in
a clear compact pattern (at the intermission of less
than one millimeter between grains) without
broken veins or stains; the latter brocade was
firstly based on the printed pattern before being
tinged with red,black,silver grey,white etc,both
looking uniform in continuity,
? The unique silk pattern in the
Tang Dynasty was reflected in
a miscellany of things,flowers
and birds being the favorite
theme,Birds and animals were
arranged in pairs while flowers
and twigs were clustered in
bold tints; meanwhile the
symbolic image of Buddhism---
lotus bloom and other religious
patterns gained momentum,
breaking open a new horizon
of Chinese brocade patterns
and stamping an impressive
footprint upon the forthcoming
centuries,
? The jacquard silk in Song shifted the brilliant style
of Tang to the light elegance with a flat compact
surface,Ke Silk,the first-class brocade hereof,
was weaved in the ―through-warp sporadic-woof
technique‖ that warps had been compelled to be
hung before woofs of different shades were to be
mingled by means of pocket shuttles pursuant to
already-made patterns,which,desiring strenuous
drudgery,had been capable of ―mimicking at will
flowers and animals at will,‖ a superb expertise of
the craftsmen,The starched-vein silk and the
purple-speck silk hallmarked the updated printing
and dyeing process.The tremendous success of
the brocade during the concluding stage of
Chinese feudal system was paralleled by a greater
diversity of veins matched with abundant hues and
compact bright patterns,
Exclusively from the brocade styles for mounting
the Tripitaka (Buddhist Texts) in the Ming Dynasty
could be disclosed approximately 1,000 patterns,,
a galaxy of the brocade,In accord to the Records
of Iceberg of Tianshui only the satin accounted for
144 clans; the Dream of the Red Mansion made
mention of hundreds of tinges of gauze; and the
Decoration Section from Heavenly Wonders
maintained as many as fifty colors dyed for
brocade and cotton whereas blue cotton print had
been prevailing in the company of the poly-shade
ones.
? There had been massive changes in wool weaving,
embroidery and silk processing,Wool weaving
was disseminated into the central China in Ming
and prospered in Qing with an increasing volume
of carpets exported overseas,Embroidery was
categorized
into both the gracious
genre being ―embroidered
painting‖ and
―embroidered characters‖
based upon the original
versions of master
painters or calligraphers,
and the freelance genre
being the costume and
household adornments,as
typified by Su Embroidery
(Jiangsu),Guang
Embroidery (Guangdong)
and Shu Embroidery
(Sichan),particularly by
Gu Embroidery (the Gu
family),
springing from Ming,the most prestigious genus of all,
Exploiting the traditional process of Song,the ke silk in
Ming had attained the acme by containing 280 yarns
within a cun of woof while the counterpart in Qing by
containing even more compact 120 yarns and 300
yarns respectively within a cun of warp and woof,
(1 cun is equivalent to 3.3 centimeters)
Ⅵ,Plaiting
? Exploiting the abundance of raw materials scattered across
the vast territory,Chinese laboring masses have over
millennia plaited a reservoir of splendid handicrafts with a view
to embellishing life and making fortunes,The plaiting craftwork
has been in remote antiquity,probably earlier than
earthenware,Viewed from the unearthed relics,the bamboo
articles in the Warring States Period and the tinted baskets in
the Han Dynasty had been considerably meticulous,
According to the History of the Tang Dynasty,the origins for
straw mattresses had outnumbered those for metallurgy while
the rattan objects in Fujian and Guangdong provinces,the
wicker suitcase and the wheat-straw fans from Cangzhou and
Puzhou in the northern China had been in vogue.
A,Bamboo Crochets
? Bamboo crochets are availed of for
furniture and daily utensils.
? The styles varied from place to place,
The bamboo product in Zhejiang
province was braided in a graceful
manner with fine bamboo threads for the
body and the wide piece for handles,
firm and durable,the distinctive degrees
of gloss and size reflecting a diversity of
art glamour,The product in Fujian was
fabricated into decades of designs such
as the cross pattern and the flowering-
crabapple pattern,more often than not
tinged with lacquer,looking delicate,
Recently the native craftsmen have
created the crochets in the shapes of
chicken,elephant and other animals as
both vessels and ornaments,
The bamboo fabrics in Sichuan province enjoyed a
marked reputation of tenuous and exquisite
plaiting as exhibited by the bamboo gossamer
scroll painting and the bamboo gossamer fan,as
flimsy as a cicada‘s wing and as slippery as silk,
The bamboo mattress in Shucheng country of
Anhui province was entitled ―Shu mattress‖ and
the bamboo-fragment decoration by scraping and
carving in Zhangshuiquan of Hubei province was
imbued in a unique trait.
? The bamboo huang (pith) has being circulated as
a special product for long,Boiled and pressed,it
takes on the quality and hue of ivory and can be
carved or assembled into stationery or
adornments,for which Shaoyang in Hunan
province,Huangyan in Zhejiang province,Jiang‘an
in Sichan -rovince and Mount Jinggang in Jiangxi
province have been well known.
B,Straw Braiding
? There is a rich variety of straw materials for
braiding,such as yellow grass,leaf of cattail,
saltwater grass,Chinese alpine rush and
gold-vein grass,The different origins of
materials had forged the various braiding
styles,Take instance,the wheat-straw hats
came into being initially in the northern China
due to the mass production of wheat there,as
had been exported in large volumes long ago,
The braiding of Chinese alpine rush (Pu grass) in Hebei
and Shandong had been extremely age-long,as
demonstrated by Li Bai,the greatest Chinese romantic
poet living in the Tang Dynasty,―Pu grows at Yi islet in
early frost / Can be crocheted into jade-like mats.‖
Furthermore,the yellow-grass plating in Jiading of
Zhejiagn province and the saltwater-grass knitting in
Guangdong province were delicately colored in so many
models as hand baskets,box set,shoes,hats,cup
cushions,suitcases,mattresses,toys and decorative
articles.
C,Rattan Plaiting
? Rattans exuberated in the southern provinces
covering pear liana,grey rattan,white and black
vine,winding-mountain cane and so on,the top
quality of the genus being ascribed to the most
durable one with a golden sheen rooted in Hainan
Island,Rattans or vines are prone to be processed
into various clans of threads,for instance,the
―combined thread‖ with bladed sides for knitting
mattresses,the ―sandy thread‖ with flattened sides
for plaiting furniture;
and the elastic and tenacious
―pear rind‖ for crocheting
handles,The rattans can be
plaited into a medley of
designs such as baskets,lamp
covers,vases,lanterns,birds,
animals and toys apart from
furniture,Also among most
illustrious orders were the coir
vine product in Xinfan country
of Sichan,the wickerwork in
Hebei and Jiangsu,the rattan
work,cattail leaf fans,Chinese
fan palm and awn crochets in
Guangdong and Guangxi,and
the newly-developed maize
peel plaits in the northern
China.
? In such a mighty ocean of
Chinese handicrafts,which is
not permitted to be elaborated
here,can solely be extracted a
couple of noteworthy samples
to meet readers‘ curiosity,
Take the engraving skill,
woodwork,ivory carving,clay
sculpture are equally reputable
with the exception of engraved
bricks and stones,The
hollowed-out ivory ball set
(comprising a series of
movable concentric balls with
decorative veins on ball walls)
was prized the ornate rarity of
the genre,
alias the ―uncanny ball,‖ a
virtual conglomeration of
Chinese engraving artistry,
The classical furniture was
in most situations
equipped with superlative
woodcarvings,Even
walnuts could be carved
into miniatures,The
Record of A Walnut Boat,,
an essay by Wei Xueyi,a
scholar in the Ming
Dynasty,narrated a folk
artist who had engraved
on a 1 inch-minus-
diameter walnut the
figures and the scenario
portrayed by Su Shi,the
greatest lyric poet in his
remarkable piece The Red
cliff.
? Moreover the soigné folk toys and paper
cuttings deserve public appreciation as well.
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