章节分类

Empire

China’s ancient civilization began in the Huang Ho basin about 1500 BC. The warring feudal states comprising early China were first united under Emperor Ch’in Shih Huang Ti (246–210 BC), who gave China its name and first central government. Subsequent dynasties alternated brilliant cultural achievements with internal disorder until the Empire was brought down by the revolution of 1911, and the Republic of China installed in its place. Chinese culture attained a pre-eminence in art, literature and philosophy, but a traditional backwardness in industry and administration ill prepared China for the demands of 19th century Western expansionism, which exposed it to military and political humiliations, and mandated a drastic revision of political practice in order to secure an accommodation with the modern world.

The Republic of 1911 barely survived the stress of World War I, and was subsequently all but shattered by the rise of nationalism and the emergence of the Chinese Communist movement. Moscow, which practiced a policy of cooperation between Communists and other parties in movements for national liberation, sought to establish an entente between the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang (National People’s Party) of Sun Yat-sen. The ensuing cooperation was based on little more than the hope each had of using the other.

An increasingly uneasy association between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party developed and continued until April 12, 1927, when Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Yat-sen’s political heir, instituted a bloody purge to stamp out the Communists within the Kuomintang and the government and virtually paralyzed their ranks throughout China. Some time after the mid-1927 purges, the Chinese Communist Party turned to armed force to resist Chiang Kai-shek and during the period of 1930–34 acquired control over large parts of Kiangsi, Fukien, Hunan and Hupeh. The Nationalist Nanking government responded with a series of campaigns against the Soviet power bases and, by October 1934, succeeded in driving the remnants of the Communist army to a refuge in Shensi Province.

Subsequently, the Communists under the leadership of Mao Tse-tung defeated the Nationalists and on September 21, 1949 formally established the Peoples Republic.

Emperors

The detailed emperor reference table is reused from the previously approved General-volume China introduction. It supplements the shorter table in this Specialized edition. Original inscription order is preserved.