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Some
persons of Binggou
【Legend of Wang
Zhao-Jun】
Wang
Zhao-Jun is perhaps one of the most well-known
beauties of ancient China. She was a native
of Zigui in Western Hubei province. She
entered the imperial harem during the
reign of Emperor Yuan of Western Han (48-33
BC). As the emperor had a large harem
of maidens, he chose his companions by
looking at their portraits. The court
painter, Mao Yan shou had painted an unflattering
portrait of Wang Zhao-Jun because she
refused to bribe him. As a result, she
failed to receive the emperor's favour.
When the northern barbarous nation, Xiongnu
chieftain, Huhanxie became a subject of
the Han empire, he asked the Emperor to
grant him a Han beauty as his empress.
To consolidate the relations with the
Xiongnu, Emperor Yuan acceded to the request.
However, he was not prepared to part with
any of his beautiful maidens. He chose
Wang Zhao-Jun as the bride for Huhanxie
as she appeared ordinary and plain from
the portrait.
It
was only when she was summoned before
the emperor prior to her departure that
Emperor Yuan realized his terrible mistake.
To his amazement and dismay, |
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| she turned out to be the most beautiful
of the maidens in his harem. However, |
Wang
Zhao-jun |
it was too late for the Emperor
to change his decision. In anguish and sorrow,
he parted with Wang Zhao-Jun. Mao Yanshou
was subsequently put to death for deceiving
the Emperor.
The
fate of Wang Zhao-Jun had however been sealed.
With sadness, she clutching her Pipa (a
musical instrument) to her bosom, departed
from Changan and traveled beyond the Great
Wall to the land of the Xiongnu. She never
returned and died in a distant barbarous
land. Her tomb at Hohhot in Inner Mongolia
was one of the eight special scenery spots
in present Inner Mongolia.
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【Qinshihuang】
Qinshihuang
(256B.C.-210B.C.), monarch of the State
of Qin of the Warring States Period, ascended
the throne at the age of thirteen, and took
over the reins of government at twenty-one.
During his reign, he succeeded in putting
down internal rebellions, and, externally,
waged wars for unification on the other
six states. It took him only ten years to
wipe them out, thus putting an end to the
state of chaos caused by rival principalities.
This was followed by the founding of a unified
centralized state, Qin. The state was divided
into thirty-six prefectures with counties
under their jurisdiction. Centralized leadership
was strengthened, and laws, the system of
weights and measures, the monetary system
and the writing system were standardized.
Besides, he promoted land communication,
and hence the development of economy and
culture. In order to resist external invasion,
he had a great wall built. Qinshihuang thus
became the founder of the first unified
feudal dynsty in Chinese history. To reinforce
his rule, Qinshihuang practiced autocracy,
imposing harsh laws and severe punishments
and heavy levies and corves upon his people.
Moreover, he levied war year after year
and thus caused untold sufferings to the
people. Qinshihuang, though
on the throne
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| for a short time, had a tremendous in
fluence on the Chinese nation. He |
Qing
Shi-huang |
| laid the foundation stone
for a unified Chinese nation, and is called
by posterity "An Emperor of Myriads
of Ages". |
【Mengtian】
Mengtian
was an excellent general in Qin Dynasty.
After Qinshihuang emperor built up the
Qin Dynasty, the first unified, multi-national,
autocratic and power-centralized state
in Chinese history, he made Xianyang,
a city near Xi'an in Shaanxi Province,
as his capital city. After Qin Shi Huang
unified China (221 BC), his capital city
Xianyang experienced extreme stress from
Xiongnu. Qin Shi Huang saw the emergency
and importance of strengthening military
defense at the northern frontier.
To
protect the northern frontier, Mengtian
was authorized to migrate thousands of
people to southern border areas to pioneer
the virgin land. As the northern tribe,
the Xiongnu kept plundering the northern
frontiers, Mengtian was again commended
to beat back the Xiongnu tribe in northern
areas and supervised the construction
of the Great Wall.By the emperor’s order,
General Mengtian led tremendous forced
labour to work on the Great Wall project.
In nine years time, they connected all
the existing bits and pieces, restored
and extended them. Hence the shape |
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| of the Great Wall was formed. This was
the initial phase in the history |
Meng
Tian |
of the Great Wall of China.
It was roughly 5,000 km long and ran from
west to east, separating China from Mongolia.
Ever in the history of the Great Wall of
China, renovation work has been ongoing.
In the next 2,000 years, over 20 emperors
of various dynasties had been restoring,
rebuilding and extending the Great Wall.
In
210 BC, emperor Qinshihuang died in touring,
however, two other generals-Zhaogao and
Lisi faked imperial edicts and commaned
Mengtian to suicide in Yangzhou. |
【Emperor Hanwudi】
| He
was an emperor of far-reaching influence
in Chinese history, who is known as Hanwudi.An
outstanding statesman in Chinese history,
Hanwudi (156B.C.-87B.C.) was one of the
emperors of the Western Han Dynasty. In
order to consolidate his rule, he proscribed
all non-Confucian schools of thought and
espoused Confucianism as the state ideology,
thus pushing Confucius up into the orthodox
position. If we say that Qinshihuang was
the first emperor who unified China in terms
of territory, then the first emperor who
unified China in terms of ideology was none
other than Hanwudi. For two thousand years
thereafter, Confucianism had been the only
one dominant school of thought under Heaven.
From this one can well imagine just how
great an influence Hanwudi had exerted in
Chinese history. While unifying the state
ideology, Hanwudi strengthened the centralize
state power and weakened local forces. He
dispatched troops to attack aristocrats
of the Huns, and twice sent Zhang Qian,
Reception Chief of the Han court, as an
envoy to the Western Regions to open the
Silk Road and promote economic and cultural
exchanges with the west. |
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Han
Wu-di |
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