The Ming dynasty,officially the Great Ming,was an imperial dynasty of China,ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people,the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng,numerous rump regimes ruled by remnants of the Ming imperial family—collectively called the Southern Ming—survived until 1662.
The Yongle Encyclopedia or Yongle Dadian is a Chinese leishu encyclopedia commissioned by the Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty in 1403 and completed by 1408. It comprised 22,937 manuscript rolls in 11,095 volumes. Fewer than 400 volumes survive today,comprising about 800 rolls,or 3.5% of the original work.
The Wanli Emperor,also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shenzong of Ming,personal name Zhu Yijun,art name Yuzhai,was the 14th emperor of the Ming dynasty,reigning from 1572 to 1620. He succeeded his father,the Longqing Emperor. His reign of 48 years was the longest among all the Ming dynasty emperors.
The Complete Classics Collection of Ancient China is a vast encyclopedic work written in China during the reigns of the Qing dynasty emperors Kangxi and Yongzheng. It was begun in 1700 and completed in 1725. The work was headed and compiled mainly by scholar Chen Menglei (陳夢雷). Later on the Chinese painter Jiang Tingxi helped work on it as well.
Kagen (嘉元) was a Japanese era name after Kengen and before Tokuji. This period spanned the years from August 1303 through December 1306. The reigning emperor was Go-Nijō-tennō (後二条天皇).
The Siku Quanshu,literally the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries,is a Chinese encyclopedia commissioned during the Qing dynasty by the Qianlong Emperor. Commissioned in 1772 and completed in 1782,the Siku quanshu is the largest collection of books in imperial Chinese history,comprising 36,381 volumes,79,337 manuscript rolls,2.3 million pages,and about 997 million words. The complete encyclopedia contains an annotated catalogue of 10,680 titles along with a compendiums of 3,593 titles. The Siku Quanshu surpassed the 1403 Yongle Encyclopedia created by the previous Ming dynasty,which had been China's largest encyclopedia. Complete copies of the Siku Quanshu are held at the National Library of China in Beijing,the National Palace Museum in Taipei,the Gansu Library in Lanzhou,and the Zhejiang Library in Hangzhou.
The Scholars,also translated as The Unofficial History of the Scholars,is a Chinese novel written by Wu Jingzi and published in 1750 during the Qing dynasty. It is considered one of the great "Classic Chinese Novels",and is distinguished for its unusual narrative structure and acerbic wit.
Ouyang Xun,courtesy name Xinben,was a Chinese calligrapher,politician,and writer of the early Tang dynasty. He was born in Hunan,Changsha,to a family of government officials;and died in modern Anhui province.
The Collected Statutes of the Ming Dynasty or Collected Regulations of the Great Ming is a five-volume collection of regulations and procedures of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). After the original compiler,Xu Pu (1429–1499),died,the task was taken over by Li Dongyang (1447–1516) and Shen Shixing (申時行). The books took 11 years to complete and were published in 1509.
The leishu is a genre of reference books historically compiled in China and other East Asian countries. The term is generally translated as "encyclopedia",although the leishu are quite different from the modern notion of encyclopedia.
The Ming dynasty,officially the Great Ming,founded by the peasant rebel leader Zhu Yuanzhang,known as the Hongwu Emperor,was an imperial dynasty of China. It was the successor to the Yuan dynasty and the predecessor of the short-lived Shun dynasty,which was in turn succeeded by the Qing dynasty. At its height,the Ming dynasty had a population of 160 million people,while some assert the population could actually have been as large as 200 million.
Given textual and archaeological evidence,it is thought that thousands of Europeans lived in Imperial China during the Yuan dynasty. These were people from countries traditionally belonging to the lands of Christendom during the High to Late Middle Ages who visited,traded,performed Christian missionary work,or lived in China. This occurred primarily during the second half of the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century,coinciding with the rule of the Mongol Empire,which ruled over a large part of Eurasia and connected Europe with their Chinese dominion of the Yuan dynasty. Whereas the Byzantine Empire centered in Greece and Anatolia maintained rare incidences of correspondence with the Tang,Song and Ming dynasties of China,the Holy See sent several missionaries and embassies to the early Mongol Empire as well as to Khanbaliq,the capital of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China. These contacts with the West were preceded by rare interactions between the Han dynasty and Hellenistic Greeks and Romans.
The Ming dynasty considered Tibet to be part of the Western Regions. While the Ming dynasty at its height had some degree of influence in Tibet,the exact nature of their relations is under dispute by modern scholars. Analysis of the relationship is further complicated by modern political conflicts and the application of Westphalian sovereignty to a time when the concept did not exist. The Historical Status of China's Tibet,a book published by the People's Republic of China,asserts that the Ming dynasty had unquestioned sovereignty over Tibet by pointing to the Ming court's issuing of various titles to Tibetan leaders,Tibetans' full acceptance of the titles,and a renewal process for successors of these titles that involved traveling to the Ming capital. Scholars in China also argue that Tibet has been an integral part of China since the 13th century and so it was a part of the Ming Empire. However,most scholars outside China,such as Turrell V. Wylie,Melvyn C. Goldstein,and Helmut Hoffman,say that the relationship was one of suzerainty,Ming titles were only nominal,Tibet remained an independent region outside Ming control,and it simply paid tribute until the Jiajing Emperor,who ceased relations with Tibet.
Chinese encyclopedias comprise both Chinese language encyclopedias and foreign language ones about China or Chinese topics. There is a type of native Chinese reference work called leishu that is sometimes translated as "encyclopedia",but although these collections of quotations from classic texts are expansively "encyclopedic",a leishu is more accurately described as a "compendium" or "anthology". The long history of Chinese leishu encyclopedias began with the Huanglanleishu and continues with online encyclopedias such as the Baike Encyclopedia.
The tributary system of China,or Cefeng system at its height was a network of loose international relations centered around China which facilitated trade and foreign relations by acknowledging China's hegemonic role within a Sinocentric world order. It involved multiple relationships of trade,military force,diplomacy and ritual. The other states had to send a tributary envoy to China on schedule,who would kowtow to the Chinese emperor as a form of tribute,and acknowledge his superiority and precedence. The other countries followed China's formal ritual in order to keep the peace with the more powerful neighbor and be eligible for diplomatic or military help under certain conditions. Political actors within the tributary system were largely autonomous and in almost all cases virtually independent.
Shen Defu (1578–1642) was a Chinese writer and bureaucrat during the Ming Dynasty. He lived in Zhejiang.
The East Asian Library and the Gest Collection in the Princeton University Library is the university's principle collection of materials in Chinese,Japanese,and Korean languages,as well as works on Chinese,Japanese and Korean linguistics and literatures in Western languages.
The Huanglan or Imperial Mirror was one of the oldest Chinese encyclopedias or leishu "classified dictionary". Cao Pi,the first emperor of the Wei,ordered its compilation upon his accession to the throne in 220 and it was completed in 222. The purpose of the Huanglan was to provide the emperor and ministers of state with conveniently arranged summaries of all that was known at the time. Complete versions of the Huanglan existed until the Song dynasty (960-1279),when it became a mostly lost work,although some fragments did survive in other encyclopedias and anthologies. The Huanglan was the prototype of the classified encyclopedia and served as a model for later ones such as the (624) Tang Yiwen Leiju and the (1408) Ming Yongle dadian.
The Jingchu Suishiji,also known by various English translations,is a description of holidays in central China during the 6th and 7th centuries. It was compiled by Du Gongzhan in the Sui or early Tang as a revised,annotated edition of Zong Lin's mid-6th-century Record of Jingchu or Jingchuji. The original Record is now lost;the original text of the Jingchu Suishiji seems to have been lost as well,with current editions consisting of various attempts of Ming and Qing scholars to recover the text from fragments in other works.
Shilin Guangji is an encyclopedia written by Chen Yuanjing during the Yuan dynasty. The book contains text written in Chinese characters,Mongolian script,and the ʼPhags-pa script. Chen Yuanjing was a native of Chong'an (崇安) in Fujian and was born during the later years of the Southern Song dynasty. The encyclopedia contains a wealth of info on the daily life during the Mongol Empire and Yuan dynasty,including illustrations,maps and cartography. Among historical texts,it was easy to understand and popular even after the Yuan dynasty. Chen's book was used by scholars during the Ming and Qing dynasties to compile their own encyclopedias.
Pages from a Southern Song dynasty Shaoxing period edition of the Yiwen Leiju,from the Shanghai Library
Pages from a Ming dynasty Jiajing period edition of Yiwen Leiju,from the Harvard University
Pages from a Ming dynasty Wanli period edition of Yiwen Leiju,from the Harvard University
Pages from a Ming dynasty Wanli period edition of Yiwen Leiju,from the National Archives of Japan
