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132-551: Wu ( Chinese : 吳; pinyin : Wú ; Middle Chinese * ŋuo < Eastern Han Chinese : *ŋuɑ ), known in historiography as Eastern Wu or Sun Wu , was a dynastic state of China and one of the three major states that competed for supremacy over China in the Three Kingdoms period. It previously existed from 220 to 222 as a vassal kingdom nominally under Cao Wei , its rival state, but declared complete independence in November 222. It

264-499: A massive full-scale rebellion , the Wu forces suffered a great defeat as they lent a great quantity of manpower to Zhuge Dan's cause. Shouchun was quickly regained by Wei under Sima Zhao 's command. During the conquest of Shu by Wei in 263, Wu could not fully lend support to their allies due to a revolt in Vietnam. The decline of Wu was long in existence since the death of Lu Xun in 245 and

396-464: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where

528-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and

660-505: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and

792-595: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese

924-507: A barbaric "jungle", developed into one of the commercial, cultural, and political centres of China. The achievements of Wu in the south marked the coming of Chinese civilization to the farthest southern reaches of the empire. In 230, the island of Yizhou was reached by the Chinese during the Three Kingdoms period under the reign of Sun Quan. Contact with the native population and the dispatch of officials to an island named "Yizhou" ( 夷州 ) by

1056-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of

1188-597: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of

1320-700: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only

1452-451: A dangerous situation." When the Wu forces showed up, Cheng Ji wielded a ji , fought fiercely and managed to sink some enemy boats before he was eventually overwhelmed by the enemy and killed. When Cao Pi received news that the Shu forces had set up linked camps over a distance of more than 700 li , he told his subjects: "(Liu) Bei does not know military strategy. How can anyone fight

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1584-590: A general serving under Sun Quan , led an army to invade Liu Bei 's territories in southern Jing Province . Guan Yu , Liu Bei's general in charge of guarding Jing Province, was away at the Battle of Fancheng and did not know about the invasion until after he returned from his Pyrrhic victory at Fancheng. He was surrounded by Sun Quan's forces in Maicheng (麥城; in Dangyang , Hubei), captured in an ambush while trying to break out of

1716-552: A greater task. Each of you has your own duties so you cannot excuse yourselves from them! Military rules are long established. You shouldn't break them." The Wu officers began to show greater respect for Lu Xun after the Wu victory, which was largely due to his strategies. Lu Xun did not report this incident to Sun Quan, who found out about it himself after the battle. When Sun Quan asked Lu Xun about it, Lu replied that he valued those officers even though they were insubordinate towards him, and decided to put up with them because he felt it

1848-564: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as

1980-622: A new state, historically known as Shu , to contest Cao Pi's claim to the Han throne. Around the same time, Sun Quan shifted the capital of his territories from Gong'an County to E County , which he renamed "Wuchang" ( 武昌 ). On 23 September 221, Sun Quan pledged allegiance to Cao Pi and became a vassal of the Wei state; in return, Cao Pi awarded Sun Quan the title "King of Wu " ( 吳王 ). Liu Bei desired to avenge Guan Yu and take back Jing Province, so he made preparations for war against Sun Quan. When Zhao Yun ,

2112-479: A rivalry with his younger brother, Sun Ba . The conflict resulted in the emergence of two rivalling factions, each supporting either Sun He or Sun Ba, in Sun Quan's imperial court. Sun Quan eventually deposed Sun He and forced Sun Ba to commit suicide, while Lu Xun and many other ministers who took either Sun He's or Sun Ba's side in the struggle met with unhappy ends. Sun Quan appointed his youngest son, Sun Liang , as

2244-538: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate

2376-503: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin

2508-678: A single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with

2640-509: A small issue. Now, we should raise our troops' morale and make plans while waiting for changes in the situation. If we're on plains and flat ground, we should be worrying about sustaining heavy losses in skirmishes and charges. However, since the enemy is on mountainous terrain, they cannot conduct an all-out assault because they are sandwiched between wood and rocks. We should take advantage of this weakness of theirs." The Wu generals did not understand Lu Xun's reasoning and thought that he feared

2772-442: A stalemate for about six months from February to July 222. Liu Bei ordered Wu Ban to lead a few thousand soldiers out of the mountainous regions to set up camps on flat terrain and provoke the Wu forces to attack them. When the Wu officers wanted to respond to the taunts and attack the enemy, Lu Xun said: "This must be a trick. We should observe first." As Lu Xun suspected, there were actually 8,000 Shu troops waiting in ambush in

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2904-732: A strategy for defeating the enemy." He then ordered his men to carry a pile of straw each and launch a fire attack on the enemy. Upon the commencement of the fire attack, Lu Xun led all the Wu units on an all-out assault on the Shu forces. Zhu Ran defeated the Shu vanguard force, cut off its retreat route and forced Liu Bei to retreat. Pan Zhang 's subordinates killed Feng Xi and inflicted heavy casualties on Feng's unit. Song Qian also destroyed five Shu garrisons and killed its defending officers. Zhang Nan , Shamoke (a tribal king allied with Shu), Ma Liang , and Wang Fu were killed in action, while Du Lu ( 杜路 ) and Liu Ning ( 劉寧 ) were forced to surrender to Wu. Over 40 Shu camps were destroyed by

3036-610: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c.  1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct

3168-563: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than

3300-537: A veteran general under Liu Bei, tried to dissuade his lord from going to war with Sun Quan, Liu Bei ignored him. Later, when Liu Bei launched the campaign against Sun Quan, he did not bring Zhao Yun along and instead left him behind to guard Jiangzhou . Qin Mi , an official under Liu Bei, also advised his lord against going to war with Sun Quan but ended up being thrown into prison. Liu Bei ordered Zhang Fei to lead 10,000 troops from Langzhong to join him at Jiangzhou. During

3432-452: A war with camps laid out over a distance of 700 li ? 'A person who deploys troops in forested and damp areas with obstacles is bound to be captured by the enemy.' This is something to be avoided in war. I will hear from Sun Quan very soon." He received a report about the Wu victory seven days later. Huang Quan and the separate Shu army on the northern bank of the Yangtze were cut off from

3564-703: A year after Shu was conquered by Wei . At the time, Wu was experiencing internal turmoil because rebellions had broken out in Jiaozhi ( 交趾 ) in the south. The ministers Puyang Xing , Wan Yu and Zhang Bu decided to install Sun He's son, Sun Hao , on the throne. In the beginning of Sun Hao's reign, the emperor reduced taxes, gave relief to the poor, and granted freedom to a large number of palace maids. However, Sun Hao gradually became more cruel and superstitious and started indulging in wine and women instead of finding ways to revive his declining state. Sun Hao's tyranny caused widespread anger and hatred towards him in Wu, but it

3696-596: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which

3828-689: Is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of

3960-485: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,

4092-506: Is cunning and experienced. In the initial stage, his army was very focused and its morale was very high, so we could not defeat them then. Now, however, since it has been quite some time, they are already weary, low on morale, and out of ideas. Now is the time for us to launch a multi-pronged assault on them." Lu Xun then targeted one enemy camp and attacked it but failed to capture it. The Wu officers complained: "We are sacrificing our soldiers' lives for nothing." Lu Xun replied: "I have devised

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4224-579: Is described in Shishuo Xinyu 世说新语 by Liu Yiqing (刘义庆, 403-444), which narrates that Wang Dao learned the idiom after fleeing in Jiankang, today's Nanjing . In the end, proto-Wu emerged as the unified proto-language from which every contemporary Wu language is spoken. Wu dialects have striking similarities to Early Middle Chinese as described in the Qieyun phonological system. A reconstruction of proto-Wu

4356-415: Is final. There is no need to advise me against my decision anymore!" The historical text Sanguozhi did not mention anything about Zhuge Liang opposing Liu Bei's decision to go to war with Sun Quan. However, it did mention that Zhao Yun and Qin Mi attempted to dissuade Liu Bei: Zhao Yun advised Liu Bei against attacking Sun Quan, but was ignored. Qin Mi was imprisoned by Liu Bei when he advised him against

4488-595: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of

4620-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate

4752-400: Is preparing for war, Qin Mi opposes his decision. Liu Bei is so angry that he wants to execute Qin Mi. However, Qin Mi is spared after Zhuge Liang and the rest of the Shu imperial court plead with Liu Bei. Zhuge Liang then writes a memorial to Liu Bei to explain why he should not go to war with Sun Quan, but Liu Bei throws the memorial to the ground after reading it and exclaims, "My decision

4884-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles

5016-484: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,

5148-558: Is the time for you to make reconciliations, rest and recuperate. This is not the time for you to launch another assault on us again. However, if you do not consider carefully and plan to dispatch all your remaining forces on another attack, I assure you none of those you send here will return alive." Liu Bei became critically ill in April 223. Before he died on 10 June, he named his son Liu Shan as his successor and appointed Zhuge Liang and Li Yan as regents to assist Liu Shan. After taking over

5280-496: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because

5412-497: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for

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5544-540: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it

5676-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while

5808-687: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system

5940-495: The Battle of Xiaoting and during the invasions of Wu by Wei in the 220s, Shu was able to reestablish their trade and relationships with Wu. Shu's cotton was a great influx for Wu, and the development of shipbuilding, salt, and metal industries was greatly increased. The fact of inflation and economic problems still were in existence since the Han dynasty. Sun Quan tried to start a currency of large coins manufactured by copper. He also tried to prohibit private minting. This policy

6072-525: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in

6204-680: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with

6336-579: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and

6468-495: The Wu Gorge . By the time Liu Bei reached the safety of Baidicheng , all his boats, military equipment, and supplies had been captured by Wu forces. The dead bodies of Shu soldiers floated in the river and obstructed its flow. Liu Bei was extremely upset and furious with his defeat. He exclaimed: "Is it not the will of Heaven that I must be humiliated by Lu Xun?" When Zhao Yun showed up at Yong'an with reinforcements from Jiangzhou,

6600-651: The Wu state in the Spring and Autumn period and the Wuyue kingdom in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period . It was called "Eastern Wu" because it occupied most of eastern China in the Three Kingdoms period, and "Sun Wu" because the family name of its rulers was " Sun ". During its existence, Wu's capital was sometimes at Jianye (present-day Nanjing , Jiangsu ) and sometimes at Wuchang ( 武昌 ; present-day Ezhou , Hubei ). Towards

6732-524: The central government . Outside of the court, families displayed their own independent authority. Wu, at times, was to a certain extent run for the protection of particular families. The Eastern Wu era was a formative period in Vietnamese history . The ruler of Jiaozhou (modern Vietnam and Guangzhou ), Shi Xie , is primarily remembered today in Vietnam as Sĩ Nhiếp . According to Stephen O'Harrow , Shi Xie

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6864-472: The end of the Han dynasty , Sun Ce , the eldest son of the warlord Sun Jian , and his followers borrowed troops from the warlord Yuan Shu and embarked on a series of military conquests in the Jiangdong and Wu regions between 194 and 199, seizing several territories previously occupied by warlords such as Liu Yao , Yan Baihu and Wang Lang . Sun Ce broke off relations with Yuan Shu around 196–197 after

6996-473: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c.  1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded

7128-591: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at

7260-652: The 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian , records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai , a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases, and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific, and technical terms. The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian , an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. Battle of Xiaoting In late 219, Lü Meng ,

7392-515: The Administrator of Yidu . In response to the Shu invasion, Sun Quan appointed Lu Xun as his Grand Chief Controller ( 大都督 ) and ordered him to lead 50,000 troops to resist the enemy. Lu Xun had under his command several Wu officers such as Zhu Ran , Pan Zhang , Song Qian , Han Dang , Xu Sheng , Xianyu Dan ( 鮮于丹 ), and Sun Huan . In February 222, Liu Bei planned to lead his army from Zigui (秭歸) further into Jing Province to reclaim

7524-478: The Jin invaders, but the Wu forces suffered several consecutive defeats and even the Wu chancellor, Zhang Ti , was killed in action. Seeing that Wu was doomed to fall, Sun Hao surrendered to the Jin dynasty on 31 May 280, marking the end of Wu and the end of the Three Kingdoms period. Despite Sun Quan proclaiming himself emperor in 229, its politics reflected its warlord origins. When Wu was initially founded its military

7656-555: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though

7788-467: The Shu army, comprising over 40,000 troops, advanced further to Zigui County . Liu Bei also sent messengers to request reinforcements from the local tribes in Wuling Commandery (武陵郡). At Zigui, Liu Bei met up with Liao Hua , a former subordinate of Guan Yu. Liao Hua had become a prisoner-of-war in Wu after Guan Yu's death, but managed to escape and make his way back to Shu. Liu Bei appointed him as

7920-455: The State, so you should cooperate harmoniously and work together to defeat the enemy in order to repay the State's kindness. You should not be behaving as you are now. I may be a mere scholar, but I have received orders from our Lord. The reason why the State asks you to lower yourselves and submit to my command is because I have a modicum of value and I can endure humiliation for the sake of fulfilling

8052-445: The Wu forces from all directions. At the same time, landslides occurred at the Ma'an Hills and caused the Shu forces to sustain thousands of casualties. The Wu general Sun Huan fought with his life and managed to break through enemy lines and capture the key positions in the hills. Liu Bei was forced to retreat through the hazardous mountainous terrain and barely escaped alive at night. During

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8184-481: The Wu forces. Throughout the Shu army, only Xiang Chong 's unit managed to retreat without sustaining any losses. The actual location of the battle is at the juncture between the west of Yidu County and east of Changyang County in Yichang , Hubei . Liu Bei and his remaining troops retreated to the Ma'an Hills (馬鞍山; east of present-day Changyang County , Hubei ), where they continued to be fiercely assaulted by

8316-474: The Wu navy might have been to Taiwan , but the location of Yizhou is open to dispute; some historians believe it was Taiwan, while others believe it was the Ryukyu Islands . Wu merchants also may have reached Southern Vietnam and Cambodia . Failed protection of Gongsun Yuan also was in existence when the latter rebelled against Wei . This was because of the waterway's difficulties. Such things cost Wu, and

8448-494: The Wu officers who participated in the battle had either served in Wu since Sun Ce 's time or were relatives of Sun Quan's family, so they viewed themselves highly and were unwilling to follow Lu Xun's orders. Lu Xun placed his sword on the desk and said: "Liu Bei is well known throughout the Empire, and even Cao Cao feared him. Now, he is at our borders and we have a tough fight ahead. All of you gentlemen have received grace from

8580-454: The Wu soldiers called for him to surrender, he replied: "Dogs of Wu! Do you think a Han officer will ever surrender?" He was eventually killed in action. Cheng Ji also covered the rear during the Shu retreat. As the enemy approached, someone urged him to abandon his boat and escape, but he replied: "I have never fled from battle throughout my military career. Besides, the Emperor is currently in

8712-514: The Wu territories. In 208, Sun Quan allied with the warlord Liu Bei and they combined forces to defeat Cao Cao at the Battle of Red Cliffs . Sun Quan and Liu Bei maintained their alliance against Cao Cao after the battle for the next ten years or so, despite having some territorial disputes over Jing Province . In 219, Sun Quan severed ties with Liu Bei when he sent his general Lü Meng to invade Liu's territories in Jing Province . Guan Yu , who

8844-613: The Yangtze) from any possible attack by Wei forces. He then personally led the main Shu army, which travelled along the southern bank of the Yangtze. Liu Bei also ordered Wu Ban (吳班) and Chen Shi (陳式) to lead the Shu navy to Yiling on the banks of the Yangtze. In the meantime, he also sent Ma Liang as an envoy to meet the tribes in Wuling Commandery and seek to bribe their chiefs with money and official titles to win their support. As

8976-403: The achievements supposedly gained within Taiwan did not cover this problem and Sun Quan lost his vassal. Later on in the existence of Wu, the once great military was turned to an unimpressive one. It was most likely an easy task to take Hefei from Wei, but Wu could not do so. Since the 230s, this task was made harder due to the "New City", a heavily fortified castle built at Hefei by Wei. One of

9108-527: The battle, as described in the novel: Liu Bei plans to go to war with Sun Quan to avenge Guan Yu and retake Jing Province , but his decision is opposed by many of his subjects. The first person who attempts to dissuade him from going to war is Zhao Yun , who is ignored. After that, other Shu officials such as Ma Liang and Chen Zhen urge Zhuge Liang to stop Liu Bei, so Zhuge Liang brings them along to meet Liu Bei and advise him against his decision, but Liu Bei refuses to accept their advice. Just when Liu Bei

9240-514: The battles of Ruxu (222–223), Shiting (228), and Hefei (234). However, Wu never managed to gain any territory north of the Yangtze River while Wei also never succeeded in conquering the lands south of the Yangtze. A succession struggle broke out between Sun Quan's sons in the later part of his reign—Sun Quan installed Sun He as the crown prince in 242 after his former heir apparent, Sun Deng , died in 241, but Sun He soon became involved in

9372-442: The bigger picture into consideration. I shall attempt to explain the gravity of the situation to Your Majesty. If Your Majesty can temporarily lower your pride, put aside your anger, and carefully think through what I am about to say, I am sure that Your Majesty will be able to finalise your decision. There will also be no need to seek further counsel from your subjects. Is Your Majesty's relationship with Guan Yu comparable to that with

9504-424: The campaign, but was released later. The Shu general Huang Zhong participates in the campaign even though he is already over 70 years old at the time. He slays Pan Zhang 's subordinate, Shi Ji ( 史蹟 ), and defeats Pan Zhang in an engagement on the first day. On the second day, while pursuing the retreating Pan Zhang, he falls into an ambush and is surrounded by Zhou Tai , Han Dang , Ling Tong and Pan Zhang. He

9636-533: The campaign. Sun Quan sent Zhuge Jin as his representative to meet Liu Bei and start peace talks. When Zhuge Jin met Liu Bei, he said: "I heard that your army has come from Baidicheng , and that your subjects have advised you to reject peace talks due to the hostilities between us which arose from the King of Wu's occupation of Jing Province and Guan Yu's death. I am deeply worried because such thinking shows narrow-mindedness on their part, as well as their failure to take

9768-515: The crown prince after the incident. Sun Quan died in 252 and was succeeded by Sun Liang, with Zhuge Ke and Sun Jun serving as regents. In 253, Zhuge Ke was assassinated in a coup launched by Sun Jun, and the state power of Wu fell into Sun Jun's hands and was passed on to his cousin, Sun Chen , after his death. During Sun Liang's reign, two rebellions broke out in the Wei garrison at Shouchun (around present-day Shou County , Anhui ) in 255 and 257–258. Sun Jun and Sun Chen led Wu forces to support

9900-664: The death of Sun Quan in 252. Sun Quan's successors could do little for the empire. Zhuge Ke was assassinated by Sun Jun in 253 after a failed invasion of Hefei following the Wu victory over an invading Wei force at Dongxing . Ding Feng also ended up killing Sun Chen under orders from Sun Xiu . Corruption plagued Wu, which led to an easy conquest of Wu by the Jin dynasty in 280. Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing')

10032-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which

10164-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of

10296-493: The emperors (of the Han dynasty)? Is one Jing Province comparable to the entire Empire? Between your two enemies, whom do you hate more? If you can answer these questions, then I am sure it won't be difficult for you to finalise your decision." Liu Bei refused to listen to him. In August 221, Liu Bei sent his generals Wu Ban and Feng Xi to attack the Wu positions at the Wu Gorge , which were guarded by Li Yi ( 李異 ) and Liu E ( 劉阿 ). After Wu Ban and Feng Xi achieved success,

10428-408: The empire and the surrounding establishments with the duty of being an envoy. Following the death of Cao Pi in 226, Sun Quan strongly promoted his kingdom to focus on agriculture because the threat from Wei was lifted. However, Lu Xun suggested to Sun Quan that military commanders should become involved in the colonization of land. Sun Quan quickly accepted and he, along with his sons would execute

10560-566: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by

10692-539: The enemy so they were very unhappy with him. The Shu army passed through the Wu Gorge , Jianping ( 建平 ), Lianping ( 連平 ), and Lianwei ( 連圍 ), and arrived at the border of Yiling, where they constructed about 10 fortified garrisons. Liu Bei appointed Feng Xi as the Grand Controller ( 大督 ), Zhang Nan as the vanguard commander ( 前部督 ), and Fu Kuang , Zhao Rong ( 趙融 ), Liao Hua , and Fu Rong as detachment commanders ( 別督 ). The Shu and Wu forces were locked in

10824-430: The field." Under the reign of Sun Quan , he needed a strong role of advisors and secretaries in order to keep his link of power in a maintained level. Sun Quan's prestige in dealing with hostiles and friendly relations called for the establishment of a controlled form of an imperial government for the empire of Wu. Sun Quan also created the opportunity for people residing within Wu to gain prestige and influence throughout

10956-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable

11088-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has

11220-599: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although

11352-458: The greatest failures to accomplish something later on in Wu's reign was during 255 and during the last few years of the 250s. When Guanqiu Jian and Wen Qin rebelled against Wei, Wu promised to help the two in Shouchun (around present-day Shou County , Anhui ). However, the Wu forces never made it in time before the rebellion was quashed by Sima Shi and the Wei forces. When Zhuge Dan launched

11484-402: The hands of Sun Quan's general Lu Xun and was forced to retreat to Baidicheng , where he died a year later. Liu Bei's successor, Liu Shan , and his regent, Zhuge Liang , made peace with Sun Quan later and reaffirmed their previous alliance. Sun Quan declared independence from Wei in 222, but continued to rule as "King of Wu" until 229, when he declared himself "Emperor of Wu". His legitimacy

11616-531: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into

11748-516: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses

11880-509: The latter declared himself emperor—an act deemed as treason against Emperor Xian , the figurehead ruler of the Han dynasty. The warlord Cao Cao , who was the de facto head of government in the Han imperial court, asked Emperor Xian to grant Sun Ce the title of "Marquis of Wu" ( 吳侯 ). Sun Ce was assassinated in the summer of 200 and was succeeded by his younger brother, Sun Quan . Sun Quan, like his elder brother, also paid nominal allegiance to Emperor Xian while maintaining autonomous rule over

12012-692: The main Shu army during the Wu counterattack and could not return to Shu. In desperation, Huang Quan and his subordinate Pang Lin led their troops to defect to Wei. Small rebellions broke out in Lingling (零陵) and Guiyang (桂陽) commanderies after the Shu forces retreated. Bu Zhi , who was stationed at Yiyang before the battle, led Wu forces to suppress them. After the battle, Xu Sheng , Pan Zhang , Song Qian and other Wu officers suggested attacking Baidicheng to capture Liu Bei. When Sun Quan asked Lu Xun for his opinion, Lu Xun, Zhu Ran and Luo Tong said that when Cao Pi amassed his forces and seemed like he

12144-505: The memorial presented by Lu Xun. However, in 240, Sun Quan restrained Lu Xun's idea and refocused on agricultural works, because Wu came to suffer a severe famine. In 234, when Zhuge Ke was in control of affairs in the south, he strongly ignored the colonisation order and viciously ordered the agriculture factor, often starving enemies into submission. Under the rule of Wu, the Yangtze River Delta region, regarded in early history as

12276-577: The mobilisation, Zhang Fei was assassinated by his subordinates Fan Qiang ( 范彊 ) and Zhang Da ( 張達 ), who cut off his head and brought it along with them as they defected to Sun Quan's side. Zhang Fei's adjutant wrote a report to Liu Bei. When Liu Bei heard that Zhang Fei's adjutant sent him a report, he exclaimed: "Oh! (Zhang) Fei is dead." In August 221, Liu Bei personally led his army to attack Sun Quan. He also gave higher appointments to some mid-ranking Shu officers from Jing Province, such as Feng Xi and Zhang Nan , to further raise his army's morale for

12408-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including

12540-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with

12672-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in

12804-423: The nearby valleys. Since the Wu forces did not respond to the taunts, Liu Bei abandoned his plan to lure the enemy into the ambush and ordered the 8,000 soldiers to come out of the valleys. When Lu Xun heard about it, he told the Wu officers: "The reason why I did not follow your suggestions to attack the enemy is because I suspected there was something fishy about it." He then wrote a memorial to Sun Quan to emphasize

12936-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of

13068-461: The province. However, the Shu general Huang Quan noted that the Wu forces were powerful and had used the Yangtze to their advantage, so he volunteered to lead the attack and suggested that Liu Bei remain behind as backup. Liu Bei refused to listen to him, appointed him as General Who Guards the North ( 鎮北將軍 ), and put him in charge of a separate Shu army to defend the northern flank (the northern bank of

13200-431: The pursuing Wu forces had already retreated on their own. In the earlier stages of the battle, Sun Huan led a separate force to attack the Shu vanguard force at Yidao but ended up being besieged by the enemy. He requested for reinforcements from Lu Xun but was denied. The other Wu officers told Lu Xun: "General Sun is a relative of our lord. He is currently under siege, so shouldn't we help him?" Lu Xun replied: "He has

13332-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,

13464-429: The rebels in the first and second rebellions respectively in the hope of making some territorial gains in Wei, but both revolts were suppressed and the Wu forces retreated after suffering many losses. Sun Liang was deposed in 258 by Sun Chen, who installed Sun Xiu , another son of Sun Quan, on the throne. Sun Xiu killed Sun Chen later in a coup with the help of Zhang Bu and Ding Feng . Sun Xiu died of illness in 264,

13596-471: The rebels. He managed to pacify the rebels with a combination of threats and persuasion. However the rebels regrouped under the leadership of Lady Triệu in Jiuzhen and renewed the rebellion with a march on Jiaozhi. According to the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư (Complete Annals of Đại Việt), Lady Triệu had long breasts that reached her shoulders and rode into battle on an elephant. After several months of warfare she

13728-560: The reins of power, Zhuge Liang made peace with Wu and re-established the Wu–Shu alliance against Wei. The events before, during, and after the Battle of Xiaoting are mentioned in chapters 81–84 of the 14th-century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms ( Sanguo Yanyi ) by Luo Guanzhong . Some fictitious stories were included and actual events were exaggerated for dramatic effect. The following are some notable events related to

13860-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for

13992-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without

14124-517: The retreat, he ordered his men to pile up their armour and set them on fire to create barriers for the pursuing Wu forces. Liu Bei regrouped his scattered forces and ordered them to abandon their boats and travel on foot towards Yufu County , which he renamed "Yong'an" (永安; literally "everlasting peace"). The Wu officers Li Yi ( 李異 ) and Liu E ( 劉阿 ) led their troops in pursuit of Liu Bei and garrisoned at Nanshan ( 南山 ). In late September or early October 222, Liu Bei and his forces retreated further to

14256-608: The siege, and eventually executed by Sun Quan's forces in Linju (臨沮; present-day Nanzhang County , Hubei). On 25 November 220, Emperor Xian , the figurehead monarch of the Eastern Han dynasty , abdicated in favour of Cao Pi and ended the Eastern Han dynasty. On 11 December, Cao Pi established the state of Wei to replace the Eastern Han dynasty and became its first emperor. On 10 May 221, Liu Bei declared himself emperor and established

14388-505: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by

14520-557: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language

14652-409: The state of Cao Wei . Sun Quan agreed to submit to Wei and was granted the title of a vassal king, "King of Wu" ( 吳王 ), by Cao Pi. A year later, Liu Bei declared himself emperor and founded the state of Shu Han . In 222, Liu Bei launched a military campaign against Sun Quan to take back Jing Province and avenge Guan Yu, leading to the Battle of Xiaoting . However, Liu Bei suffered a crushing defeat at

14784-490: The strategic importance of Yiling, point out some of Liu Bei's weaknesses, and reassure Sun Quan that he would defeat the enemy. Several days later, the Wu officers told Lu Xun: "We should have attacked Liu Bei in the initial stages. Now, he has advanced further in by 500 to 600 li and we have been locked in a stalemate for seven to eight months. He has reinforced all his crucial positions, so even if we attack them it will yield nothing." Lu Xun replied: "Liu Bei

14916-452: The support of his men, his base is well defended, and he has sufficient supplies. There is nothing to worry about. When my plans are in motion, even if we don't help him, the siege on him will automatically be lifted." After the Wu victory at Xiaoting, Sun Huan came to see Lu Xun and said: "Earlier on, I was indeed very resentful when you refused to help me. But now, after the victory, I see that you have your own way of doing things." Many of

15048-563: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to

15180-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in

15312-604: The tribes in Wuling grew restless upon the Shu army's approach, Sun Quan sent Bu Zhi to guard Yiyang and deal with any unrest. When Wu generals wanted to attack the Shu army as it approached, Lu Xun objected and said: "Liu Bei is leading an army east to attack us and his army's morale is very high. Besides, his forces are based in high and mountainous terrain, so it's difficult for us to attack them. Even if we manage to win, we cannot completely defeat them. If we suffer any setback, our morale will be greatly affected and this isn't

15444-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese

15576-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until

15708-460: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with

15840-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,

15972-442: Was attempted by William Harvey Ballard in 1969. Personages with clerical or scholarly abilities had roles to play within the state, but the policies were more determined by those of military command. Nevertheless, every Wu army was in need of administrative support and, according to Rafe de Crespigny , certain scholars were "recognised as practical counsellors, regardless of their fighting prowess or their ability to command troops in

16104-552: Was defeated and committed suicide. The culture of Wu was most solidified under the reign of Sun Quan from 229 to 252. Migrations from the north and the needed settlement from the Shanyue barbarians made it possible for the increase in manpower, agriculture, and settling the lower most parts of Wu. Along with that, river transportation became a huge factor and flourished as the Jiangnan and Zhedong canals were finished with construction. After

16236-486: Was defending Liu Bei's assets in Jing Province, was captured and executed by Sun Quan's forces. After that, the boundaries of Sun Quan's domain extended from beyond the Jiangdong region to include the southern part of Jing Province, which covered roughly present-day Hunan and parts of Hubei . In 220, Cao Cao's son and successor, Cao Pi , ended the Han dynasty by forcing Emperor Xian to abdicate in his favour and established

16368-436: Was dominated by famed generals who had gained their positions through prowess and pluck. These generals were celebrated for their individualism . Politics within the court were often influenced by conflicts between powerful families and individuals. Positions within the court were inherited from one generation to the next unlike the Han dynasty's bureaucracy . However, over time, the influence ultimately would move away from

16500-448: Was due to the efforts of officials such as Lu Kai and Lu Kang that Wu was able to remain relatively stable and peaceful. In February 266, Sima Yan ended the state of Cao Wei by forcing its last ruler, Cao Huan , to abdicate in his favour, and then established the Jin dynasty . In 279, Jin forces led by Du Yu , Wang Jun and others attacked Wu from six directions. Sun Hao attempted to put up resistance by sending his armies to fight

16632-476: Was elevated to an empire in May 229 after its founding ruler, Sun Quan (Emperor Da), declared himself emperor . The name "Wu" was derived from the place it was based in—the Jiangnan ( Yangtze River Delta ) region, which was also historically known as " Wu ". It was called "Dong Wu" ("Eastern Wu") or "Sun Wu" by historians to distinguish it from other Chinese historical states with similar names in that region, such as

16764-410: Was essentially "the first Vietnamese." Originally satisfied with Eastern Wu's rule, the Vietnamese opposed Shi Hui 's rebellion against Eastern Wu and attacked him for it. However, when the Wu general Lü Dai betrayed Shi Hui and executed the entire Shi family, the Vietnamese became greatly upset. In 248, the people of Jiaozhi and Jiuzhen commanderies rebelled. Eastern Wu sent Lu Yin to deal with

16896-581: Was going to help Wu attack Shu, he actually had sinister intentions. They cautioned Sun Quan about this and suggested to abandon their pursuit of Liu Bei and return to Wu. Sun Quan heeded their advice. Not long later, Cao Pi led the Wei armies to invade Wu from three directions. When Liu Bei heard of the Wei invasion of Wu, he wrote to Lu Xun: "The enemy (Wei) is at Jiangling now. If I launch another attack again, in your opinion, do you think I will succeed?" Lu Xun replied: "I am afraid your army has recently suffered defeats and has yet to recover. Now

17028-481: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half

17160-406: Was important to maintain good working relationships with them to fulfil their common goal of resisting the Shu invasion. Sun Quan praised him and rewarded him handsomely. Fu Rong volunteered to cover the rear while the Shu forces were retreating from Yiling and Xiaoting. He continued to hold his ground firmly and vent his fury on the enemy even though all his comrades had already been killed. When

17292-433: Was recognised by Shu. To distinguish the state from other historical Chinese states of the same name, historians have added a relevant character to the state's original name: the state that called itself "Wu" (吳) is also known as "Eastern Wu" (東吳; Dōng Wú) or "Sun Wu" (孫吳). Sun Quan ruled for over 30 years and his long reign resulted in stability in southern China. During his reign, Wu engaged Wei in numerous wars, including

17424-477: Was terminated in 246 due to ineffectiveness. Eastern Wu was able to make close overseas trade with countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia. Wu also traded with India and the Middle East. The language of Eastern Wu was identified with Old Jiangdong (古江東方言), the speech of the Jiangdong area ( Jiangxi , Zhejiang , Fujian , Southern Anhui , Jiangsu ); this dialect, which was already different from northern speech,

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