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145-586: Kuge (from Middle Chinese kuwng-kæ 公家, "ducal family", or "nobility" in a pre– peerage context ) originally described the Emperor and his court. The meaning of the word changed over time to designate bureaucrats at the court. During the Heian period , the relative peace and stability provided freedom for the noble class to pursue cultural interests, and the kuge became leaders and benefactors of arts and culture in Japan. Most of

290-492: A phonemic split of their tone categories. Syllables with voiced initials tended to be pronounced with a lower pitch, and by the late Tang dynasty , each of the tones had split into two registers conditioned by the initials, known as the "upper" and "lower". When voicing was lost in most varieties (except in the Wu and Old Xiang groups and some Gan dialects), this distinction became phonemic, yielding up to eight tonal categories, with

435-542: A Late Middle Chinese koiné and cannot very easily be used to determine the pronunciation of Early Middle Chinese. During the Early Middle Chinese period, large amounts of Chinese vocabulary were systematically borrowed by Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese (collectively the Sino-Xenic pronunciations ), but many distinctions were inevitably lost in mapping Chinese phonology onto foreign phonological systems. For example,

580-504: A better understanding and analysis of Classical Chinese poetry , such as the study of Tang poetry . The reconstruction of Middle Chinese phonology is largely dependent upon detailed descriptions in a few original sources. The most important of these is the Qieyun rime dictionary (601) and its revisions. The Qieyun is often used together with interpretations in Song dynasty rime tables such as

725-455: A brief interlude from 552 to 555), they are sometimes grouped together with Eastern Wu and Eastern Jin under the historiographic term "the Six Dynasties ". The rulers of these short-lived dynasties were generals who seized and then held power for several decades but were unable to securely pass power of rule onto their heirs to continue their dynasty successfully. Emperor Wu of Liang (502–549)

870-445: A ceasefire and peace. However, Hou thought that peace was unsustainable, so he broke the ceasefire and captured the palace, leading to the slaughter of the nearby populace. Emperor Wu was starved to death and after the short puppet reigns of crown prince Xiao Gang and Xiao Dong, Hou seized power and established the Han dynasty. In spite of conquering Jiankang, Hou essentially only controlled

1015-482: A close analysis of regularities in the system and co-occurrence relationships between the initials and finals indicated by the fanqie characters. However, the analysis inevitably shows some influence from LMC, which needs to be taken into account when interpreting difficult aspects of the system. The Yunjing is organized into 43 tables, each covering several Qieyun rhyme classes, and classified as: Each table has 23 columns, one for each initial consonant. Although

1160-516: A compact presentation. Each square in a table contains a character corresponding to a particular homophone class in the Qieyun , if any such character exists. From this arrangement, each homophone class can be placed in the above categories. The rime dictionaries and rime tables identify categories of phonetic distinctions but do not indicate the actual pronunciations of these categories. The varied pronunciations of words in modern varieties of Chinese can help, but most modern varieties descend from

1305-556: A detrimental "craze". Older versions of the rime dictionaries and rime tables came to light over the first half of the 20th century, and were used by such linguists as Wang Li , Dong Tonghe and Li Rong in their own reconstructions. Edwin Pulleyblank argued that the systems of the Qieyun and the rime tables should be reconstructed as two separate (but related) systems, which he called Early and Late Middle Chinese, respectively. He further argued that his Late Middle Chinese reflected

1450-504: A diplomatic faux pas, he incited the anger of Yuwen Tai, the leading general of Western Wei, which resulted in him being deposed and dying. Western Wei set up the puppet state of Western Liang with capital at Jiangling. Northern Qi also had designs on the Liang throne and sent an expedition under the banner of a cousin of Emperor Yuan. Chen Baxian and Wang Sengbian set up the last surviving son of Emperor Yuan, Xiao Fangzhi , as Liang ruler, but he

1595-658: A failed coup by the ruling Cao family against the Sima family, the final Cao ruler abdicated. Sima Yan (Emperor Wu of Jin) then founded the Western Jin dynasty and the conquest of Eastern Wu by Western Jin occurred in 280, ending the Three Kingdoms period and reuniting China proper. The Western Jin dynasty was severely weakened due to the War of the Eight Princes from 291 to 306. During

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1740-682: A formidable general to the great delight of the Northern Wei. Thus, they were unable to capitalize when Northern Wei suffered the Wuqi Incident . Starting in 445, Northern Wei, taking advantage of Liu Song's weakness, made major incursions in the lands between the Yangtze and the Huai (modern Shandong, Hebei, and Henan) and devastating six provinces. Emperor Wen lamented that if Tan were still alive, he would have prevented Northern Wei advances. From then on, Liu Song

1885-422: A hierarchy of tone, rhyme and homophony. Characters with identical pronunciations are grouped into homophone classes, whose pronunciation is described using two fanqie characters, the first of which has the initial sound of the characters in the homophone class and second of which has the same sound as the rest of the syllable (the final). The use of fanqie was an important innovation of the Qieyun and allowed

2030-428: A large number of consonants and vowels, many of them very unevenly distributed. Accepting Karlgren's reconstruction as a description of medieval speech, Chao Yuen Ren and Samuel E. Martin analysed its contrasts to extract a phonemic description. Hugh M. Stimson used a simplified version of Martin's system as an approximate indication of the pronunciation of Tang poetry. Karlgren himself viewed phonemic analysis as

2175-526: A monk, but each time he was persuaded to return by extravagant court donations to Buddhism. Furthermore, since Buddhists and Daoists were exempt from taxation, nearly half of the population fraudulently named themselves as such, badly damaging state finances. Imperial clansmen and officials were also greedy and wasteful. Emperor Wu was willing to accept generals who defected from Northern Wei. So when Northern Wei suffered major revolts in their northern garrison towns , he sent his general Chen Qingzhi to support

2320-474: A more sophisticated and convenient analysis of the Qieyun phonology. The rime tables attest to a number of sound changes that had occurred over the centuries following the publication of the Qieyun . Linguists sometimes refer to the system of the Qieyun as Early Middle Chinese and the variant revealed by the rime tables as Late Middle Chinese . The dictionaries and tables describe pronunciations in relative terms, but do not give their actual sounds. Karlgren

2465-659: A new conception referring to the two as distinct 'Northern' and Southern' parallels, using unique local customs to distinguish themselves and compete for legitimacy. It was during the Northern and Southern dynasties period that the earliest recorded mass migration of ethnic Han to southern China (south of the Yangtze River ) took place. This sinicisation helped to develop the region from its previous state of being inhabited by isolated communities separated by vast uncolonized wilderness and other non-Han ethnic groups. During this period,

2610-534: A new sinification program that had the Xianbei elites conform to many Han standards. These social reforms included donning Han clothing (banning Xianbei clothing at court), learning the Han language (if under the age of thirty), converting Xianbei family names to one-character Han surnames, and encouraging high-ranking Xianbei and Han families to intermarry. Emperor Xiaowen also moved the capital city from Pingcheng to one of China's old imperial sites, Luoyang , which had been

2755-402: A peace offering. Despite Emperor Wu's assurances, Hou decided to rebel in the name of Xiao Dong , the grandson of the former crown prince Xiao Tong who died in 531 and was removed from crown prince because of conflicts with his father. Hou surprised Emperor Liang by besieging the Liang capital at Jiankang. Attempts by Liang forces to break the siege failed, and Emperor Wu was forced to negotiate

2900-453: A prelude to his reconstruction of Old Chinese , produced a revision of Karlgren's notation , adding new notations for the few categories not distinguished by Karlgren, without assigning them pronunciations. This notation is still widely used, but its symbols, based on Johan August Lundell 's Swedish Dialect Alphabet , differ from the familiar International Phonetic Alphabet . To remedy this, William H. Baxter produced his own notation for

3045-436: A process now known as tonogenesis . Haudricourt further proposed that tone in the other languages, including Middle Chinese, had a similar origin. Other scholars have since uncovered transcriptional and other evidence for these consonants in early forms of Chinese, and many linguists now believe that Old Chinese was atonal. Around the end of the first millennium AD, Middle Chinese and the southeast Asian languages experienced

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3190-475: A six-way contrast in unchecked syllables and a two-way contrast in checked syllables. Cantonese maintains these tones and has developed an additional distinction in checked syllables, resulting in a total of nine tonal categories. However, most varieties have fewer tonal distinctions. For example, in Mandarin dialects the lower rising category merged with the departing category to form the modern falling tone, leaving

3335-416: A slightly different set of initials from the traditional set. Moreover, most scholars believe that some distinctions among the 36 initials were no longer current at the time of the rime tables, but were retained under the influence of the earlier dictionaries. Early Middle Chinese (EMC) had three types of stops: voiced, voiceless, and voiceless aspirated. There were five series of coronal obstruents , with

3480-404: A system of four tones. Furthermore, final stop consonants disappeared in most Mandarin dialects, and such syllables were reassigned to one of the other four tones. Northern and Southern dynasties The Northern and Southern dynasties ( Chinese : 南北朝 ; pinyin : Nán běi cháo ) was a period of political division in the history of China that lasted from 420 to 589, following

3625-414: A three-way distinction between dental (or alveolar ), retroflex and palatal among fricatives and affricates , and a two-way dental/retroflex distinction among stop consonants . The following table shows the initials of Early Middle Chinese, with their traditional names and approximate values: Old Chinese had a simpler system with no palatal or retroflex consonants; the more complex system of EMC

3770-426: A vowel, an optional final consonant and a tone. Their reconstruction is much more difficult than the initials due to the combination of multiple phonemes into a single class. The generally accepted final consonants are semivowels /j/ and /w/ , nasals /m/ , /n/ and /ŋ/ , and stops /p/ , /t/ and /k/ . Some authors also propose codas /wŋ/ and /wk/ , based on the separate treatment of certain rhyme classes in

3915-403: Is further classified as follows: Each table also has 16 rows, with a group of 4 rows for each of the four tones of the traditional system in which finals ending in /p/ , /t/ or /k/ are considered to be checked tone variants of finals ending in /m/ , /n/ or /ŋ/ rather than separate finals in their own right. The significance of the 4 rows within each tone is difficult to interpret, and

4060-550: Is now one of China's greatest tourist attractions. In the year 523, a revolt of several military garrisons broke out, the Rebellion of the Six Garrisons ( Liu Zhen ). The revolt was caused by a food shortage far north of Luoyang. After the rebels force was suppressed, the government had 200,000 surrendered garrison rebels deployed to Hebei, which proved later to be a mistake when a former garrison officer organized another rebellion in

4205-420: Is strongly debated. These rows are usually denoted I, II, III and IV, and are thought to relate to differences in palatalization or retroflexion of the syllable's initial or medial, or differences in the quality of similar main vowels (e.g. /ɑ/ , /a/ , /ɛ/ ). Other scholars do not view them not as phonetic categories, but instead as formal devices exploiting distributional patterns in the Qieyun to achieve

4350-441: Is thought to have arisen from a combination of Old Chinese obstruents with a following /r/ and/or /j/ . Bernhard Karlgren developed the first modern reconstruction of Middle Chinese . The main differences between Karlgren and newer reconstructions of the initials are: Other sources from around the same time as the Qieyun reveal a slightly different system, which is believed to reflect southern pronunciation. In this system,

4495-587: The Yunjing , Qiyin lüe , and the later Qieyun zhizhangtu and Sisheng dengzi . The documentary sources are supplemented by comparison with modern Chinese varieties , pronunciation of Chinese words borrowed by other languages—particularly Japanese , Korean and Vietnamese — transcription into Chinese characters of foreign names, transcription of Chinese names in alphabetic scripts such as Brahmi , Tibetan and Uyghur, and evidence regarding rhyme and tone patterns from classical Chinese poetry . Chinese scholars of

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4640-570: The Book of Zhou , Emperor Xiaowu of Northern Wei 's sister was married to the ethnic Han Zhang Huan, son of Zhang Qiong. When the Eastern Jin dynasty ended, Northern Wei received the Jin prince Sima Chuzhi  [ zh ] as a refugee, and he married a Northern Wei Princess. Their son Sima Jinlong in turn married Northern Liang Xiongnu King Juqu Mujian 's daughter. In the year 523, Prince Dongyang of

4785-515: The Kiyohara clan , and the Ōe clan . Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese ) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the Qieyun , a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The Swedish linguist Bernhard Karlgren believed that the dictionary recorded a speech standard of

4930-615: The Later Yan that ended favorably for the Northern Wei after they received help from Zhang Gun that allowed them to destroy the Later Yan army at the Battle of Canhe Slope . Following this victory, Tuoba Gui conquered the Later Yan capital of Pingcheng (modern-day Datong). That same year he declared himself Emperor Daowu. Due to Emperor Daowu's cruelty, he was killed by his son Tuoba Shao, but crown prince Tuoba Si managed to defeat Tuoba Shao and took

5075-573: The Liu Song royal Liu Hui ( 刘辉 ), married Princess Lanling ( 蘭陵公主 ) of the Northern Wei, Princess Huayang ( 華陽公主 ) to Sima Fei ( 司馬朏 ), a descendant of Jin royalty, Princess Jinan ( 濟南公主 ) to Lu Daoqian ( 盧道虔 ), Princess Nanyang ( 南阳长公主 ) to Xiao Baoyin , a member of Southern Qi royalty. Emperor Xiaozhuang of Northern Wei 's sister the Shouyang Princess was wedded to Emperor Wu of Liang 's son Xiao Zong  [ zh ] . According to

5220-504: The Northern Zhou dynasty (557–580). The Northern Qi inherited the primary recruiting grounds of the Northern Wei army; previously, five out of six Northern Wei military officers came from the eastern territories, particularly the local armed forts of Han military families and steppe tribes who had settled in these areas. The members of these military families, both men and women, were often expert riders and archers. Like its predecessor

5365-455: The Northern and Southern dynasties period were concerned with the correct recitation of the classics. Various schools produced dictionaries to codify reading pronunciations and the associated rhyme conventions of regulated verse. The Qieyun (601) was an attempt to merge the distinctions in six earlier dictionaries, which were eclipsed by its success and are no longer extant. It was accepted as

5510-484: The Qieyun and rime table categories for use in his reconstruction of Old Chinese. All reconstructions of Middle Chinese since Karlgren have followed his approach of beginning with the categories extracted from the rime dictionaries and tables, and using dialect and Sino-Xenic data (and in some cases transcription data) in a subsidiary role to fill in sound values for these categories. Jerry Norman and W. South Coblin have criticized this approach, arguing that viewing

5655-473: The Qieyun are assumed to have the same nuclear vowel and coda, but often have different medials. Middle Chinese reconstructions by different modern linguists vary. These differences are minor and fairly uncontroversial in terms of consonants; however, there is a more significant difference as to the vowels. The most widely used transcriptions are Li Fang-Kuei's modification of Karlgren's reconstruction and William Baxter's typeable notation . The preface of

5800-431: The Qieyun system is no longer viewed as describing a single form of speech, linguists argue that this enhances its value in reconstructing earlier forms of Chinese, just as a cross-dialectal description of English pronunciations contains more information about earlier forms of English than any single modern form. The emphasis has shifted from precise phones to the structure of the phonological system. Li Fang-Kuei , as

5945-543: The Qieyun system to cross-dialectal descriptions of English pronunciations, such as John C. Wells 's lexical sets , or the notation used in some dictionaries. For example, the words "trap", "bath", "palm", "lot", "cloth" and "thought" contain four different vowels in Received Pronunciation and three in General American ; these pronunciations and others can be specified in terms of these six cases. Although

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6090-577: The Qieyun were known, and scholars relied on the Guangyun (1008), a much expanded edition from the Song dynasty. However, significant sections of a version of the Qieyun itself were subsequently discovered in the caves of Dunhuang , and a complete copy of Wang Renxu's 706 edition from the Palace Library was found in 1947. The rhyme dictionaries organize Chinese characters by their pronunciation, according to

6235-544: The Rouran , Goguryeo , Tuyuhun and smaller local powers to defeat the Northern Wei, the North and South were forced into tacitly acknowledging their equal status, for example, by granting each other the highest positions as the most esteemed envoys. As the Wei Shu and Song Shu testify, there was a shift from imperial rhetoric denouncing the other side as illegitimate barbarians, towards

6380-666: The Sui dynasty extinguished the Chen dynasty . It can be divided into three time periods: Northern Wei ; Eastern and Western Weis ; Northern Qi and Northern Zhou . The Northern, Eastern, and Western Wei along with the Northern Zhou were established by the Xianbei people while the Northern Qi was established by a Xianbei-influenced ethnic Han. In the north, local ethnic Han gentry clans responded to

6525-610: The Yangtze . The period came to an end with the unification of China proper by Emperor Wen of the Sui dynasty . During this period, the process of sinicization accelerated among the non-Han ethnicities in the north and among the indigenous peoples in the south. This process was also accompanied by the increasing popularity of Buddhism in both northern and southern China and Daoism gaining influence as well, with two essential Daoist canons written during this period. Notable technological advances occurred during this period. The invention of

6670-565: The Yellow Turban and the Five Pecks of Rice rebellions, China eventually coalesced into the Three Kingdoms . Of these, Cao Wei was the strongest, followed by Eastern Wu and Shu Han , but they were initially in a relatively stable formation. After a 249 coup by Sima Yi , the Sima family essentially controlled Cao Wei and the conquest of Shu Han by Cao Wei rapidly followed. Following

6815-460: The Yunjing distinguishes 36 initials, they are placed in 23 columns by combining palatals, retroflexes, and dentals under the same column. This does not lead to cases where two homophone classes are conflated, as the grades (rows) are arranged so that all would-be minimal pairs distinguished only by the retroflex vs. palatal vs. alveolar character of the initial end up in different rows. Each initial

6960-562: The Yunjing identifies a traditional set of 36 initials , each named with an exemplary character. An earlier version comprising 30 initials is known from fragments among the Dunhuang manuscripts . In contrast, identifying the initials of the Qieyun required a painstaking analysis of fanqie relationships across the whole dictionary, a task first undertaken by the Cantonese scholar Chen Li in 1842 and refined by others since. This analysis revealed

7105-469: The biwa , and they had disciples among the daimyō and sometimes rich commoners. As masters of a certain field, kuge gave their disciples many licenses certifying that the disciples had learned a certain field and allowed them to perform in public or sometimes to teach others. Disciples were expected to pay their master a fee for each issued license. During the Edo period, this was an important source of income for

7250-509: The dōjō , separating them into groups according to their office at court. These determined the highest office to which they could be appointed. Within the dojo class, the groupings were: The jige class was associated with but not a part of the dojo : Most of the highest-classed kuge belonged to the Fujiwara clan and Minamoto clan , but there were still other clans like the Sugawara clan ,

7395-412: The fanqie spelling 德紅 , the pronunciation of 德 was given as 多特 , and the pronunciation of 多 was given as 德河 , from which we can conclude that the words 東 , 德 and 多 all had the same initial sound. The Qieyun classified homonyms under 193 rhyme classes, each of which is placed within one of the four tones. A single rhyme class may contain multiple finals, generally differing only in

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7540-462: The kuge . In 1869 during the Meiji Restoration the kuge merged with the daimyō to form a single aristocratic group, the kazoku . Others associated with the kuge included Buddhist priests, Kyoto cultural patrons, geisha , and actors. The kuge were divided into two classes, the higher dojo and the lower jige . In the 12th century conventional differences were established among

7685-502: The stirrup during the earlier Jin dynasty (266–420) helped spur the development of heavy cavalry as a combat standard. Historians also note advances in medicine, astronomy , mathematics , and cartography . Intellectuals of the period include the mathematician and astronomer Zu Chongzhi (429–500), and astronomer Tao Hongjing . After the collapse of a unified China proper under the Eastern Han dynasty in 220 due in large part to

7830-403: The "even" or "level", "rising" and "departing" tones, occur in open syllables and syllables ending with nasal consonants . The remaining syllables, ending in stop consonants , were described as the " entering " tone counterparts of syllables ending with the corresponding nasals. The Qieyun and its successors were organized around these categories, with two volumes for the even tone, which had

7975-559: The Buddhist Gai Wu ( 蓋吳 ) rebelled. After pacifying this rebellion, Emperor Taiwu, under the advice of his Daoist prime minister Cui Hao , proscribed Buddhism — the first of the persecutions of Chinese Buddhism known as the Three Disasters of Wu . At this late stage in his life, Emperor Taiwu meted out cruel punishments, which led to his death in 452 at the hands of the eunuch Zong Ai . His death sparked off turmoil that only ended with

8120-405: The Cantonese scholar Chen Li in a careful analysis published in his Qieyun kao (1842). Chen's method was to equate two fanqie initials (or finals) whenever one was used in the fanqie spelling of the pronunciation of the other, and to follow chains of such equivalences to identify groups of spellers for each initial or final. For example, the pronunciation of the character 東 was given using

8265-593: The Chen dynasty. Chen Shubao relied on the natural barrier of the Yangtze River and continued as always with his festive and licentious activities. The next year, Sui forces captured the Chen capital of Jiankang. Chen Shubao and his favorite concubine Zhang Lihua attempted to hide in a well but eventually were captured by Sui forces, thus ending the Chen dynasty. After the failure of the Liu Song's efforts to form an alliance with

8410-468: The Eastern Jin attempted to draft the dependents of the great families, the court was quickly overthrown. However, with the fall of the Eastern Jin in 420, the balance of power shifted in favour the central government. The subsequent Liu Song, Qi, Liang and Chen dynasties were ruled by military leaders from lowly social backgrounds. They gradually stripped the powerful clans of military power, authority and wealth. The emperors stationed regional armies around

8555-477: The Eastern Jin court. In order to gain popularity to take the throne he led expeditions against the Sixteen Kingdoms, capturing Shandong , Henan and, briefly, Guanzhong by 416. He gave up Guanzhong to try to take the throne. Because he believed in a prophecy saying there would be one more emperor after Emperor An , he deposed the former and, soon afterwards, his replacement, Emperor Gong in 420, ending

8700-435: The Eastern Jin dynasty. Even after crowning himself Emperor Wu, Liu Yu remained frugal. However, he did not care for education and trusted unsavory people. He felt that the nobility had too much power, so he tended to appoint the lower classes to government positions and gave military power to imperial kinsmen. Ironically, because the imperial kinsmen stabilized their military power and wished to gain political power, Emperor Wu

8845-453: The Huai River. Northern Zhou instead took advantage of Northern Qi's weakness and following their defeat of Northern Qi, in 577, they sent troops to the territories south of the Huai River, where they decisively defeated the Chen dynasty forces. The Chen dynasty was in imminent danger. In a stroke of fortune, Northern Zhou's Emperor Wu suddenly died and his general Yang Jian attempted to take

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8990-546: The Kuge resided in the capital city of Kyoto . Later in the Kamakura period (1185–1333), kuge became an antonym to buke (warrior nobles), that is, samurai who swore loyalty to the shogunate. At this point, kuge began to be used to describe those who worked in the Court; both aristocratic noblemen and commoners. Two classes formed the kuge: the dōjō ( 堂上 ) noblemen who sat on

9135-610: The Ning of Qinzhou, the Li of Guizhou-Tengzhou and the Chen of Shuangzhou. These families functioned both as cheftains to the natives and bureaucrats to the court. Liu Song founder Liu Yu was originally a leader of the Army of the Northern Garrison ( Chinese : 北府軍 ) that notably won the Battle of Fei River in 383. In 404, he helped suppress Huan Xuan 's rebellion, leading to his dominance over

9280-541: The Northern Wei arranged for Han elites to marry daughters of the Xianbei Tuoba imperial family. More than fifty per cent of Tuoba Xianbei princesses of the Northern Wei were married to southern Han men from the imperial families and aristocrats of the southern dynasties, who defected and moved north to join the Northern Wei. Several daughters of the Xianbei Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei married Han elites:

9425-527: The Northern Wei was sent to Dunhuang to serve as its governor for a term of fifteen years. With Buddhism gaining mainstream acceptance in Chinese society, Prince Dongyang and local wealthy families set out to establish a monumental project in honor of Buddhism, carving and decorating Cave 285 of the Mogao Caves with beautiful statues and murals. Such promotion of the arts would continue for centuries at Dunhuang and

9570-487: The Northern Wei, content to protect his borders. This period of peace was known as Yongming Administration . He also used government secretaries appointed with provincial governors and members of the imperial clan to monitor them. The short reigns of Emperor Wu's grandsons, Xiao Zhaoye and Xiao Zhaowen (his first son predeceased him), were dominated by Xiao Luan, Emperor's Wu's first cousin. He killed them in turn and crowned himself as Emperor Ming of Southern Qi . Using

9715-491: The Prince of Xiangdong, whom he called the "Prince of Pigs" for his obesity, eventually assassinated him and became Emperor Ming . Emperor Ming began his reign by killing all the descendants of Emperor Xiaowu, and his suspicious nature resulted in the loss of the provinces north of the Huai River, which were only briefly regained in the other Southern dynasties. Emperor Ming's young son became Emperor Houfei . The political situation

9860-656: The Sui and Tang dynasties centuries later. In the Sixteen Kingdoms period, the Tuoba family of the Xianbei were the rulers of the state of Dai (Sixteen Kingdoms) . Although it was conquered by the Former Qin , the defeat of the Former Qin at the Battle of Fei River resulted in the collapse of the Former Qin. The grandson of the last prince of Dai Tuoba Shiyiqian , Tuoba Gui restored

10005-494: The Western Wei, the Northern Zhou reacted against sinicization by trying to revive Xianbei warrior culture: reviving Xianbei tunics, trousers and boots, reverting sinicized surnames into Xianbei names and even giving Han officers Xianbei surnames. This "tribalization" policy was intended to convert large numbers of Han Chinese army recruits into "Xianbei" who would pay for their own equipment in exchange for tax exemptions. The policy

10150-483: The Xiao ( 蕭 ) family from Lanling ( 蘭陵 , in modern Cangshan County , Shandong ). Because Emperor Gao had a low social standing, he earned the disdain of nobility. His style of governance was similar to the early style of the Liu Song dynasty and was very economical. He died in the fourth year of his reign and his heir, who was only 13 years younger than him, succeeded him as Emperor Wu of Southern Qi . Emperor Wu made peace with

10295-460: The Yellow River while establishing his own puppet ruler to maintain authority. As conflict swelled in the north between successive leaders, Gao Huan took control of the east and Luoyang (holding Emperor Xiaojing of Eastern Wei as a puppet ruler) by 534, while his rival Yuwen Tai took control of the west and the traditional Chinese capital of Chang'an by 535. The Western regime was dominated by

10440-555: The ascension of Emperor Wencheng later that same year. Wang Yu  [ zh ] , an ethnic Qiang court eunuch and the favourite of Empress Dowager Wenming, patronized Buddhism lavishly. He constructed Cave 9–10, the most highly decorated of the Yungang Grottoes , and had a temple constructed in 488 at Lirun, Fengyi (modern day Chengcheng), which was his birthplace according to the Booke of Wei. Wang Yu may have been castrated during

10585-540: The banner of Xiao Baojuan's brother who was declared Emperor He of Southern Qi . Xiao Baojuan was killed by one of his generals during the siege of his capital at Jiankang, and after a short puppet reign by Emperor He, Xiao Yan overthrew the Southern Qi and established the Liang dynasty. Emperor Wu was economical, worked hard at governing, and cared for the common people. His early reign was known as Reign of Tianjian . The Liang dynasty's military strength gradually surpassed

10730-646: The capital Chang'an of the Sui and Tang dynasties . However, based on the preface of the Qieyun , most scholars now believe that it records a compromise between northern and southern reading and poetic traditions from the late Northern and Southern dynasties period. This composite system contains important information for the reconstruction of the preceding system of Old Chinese phonology (early 1st millennium BC). The fanqie method used to indicate pronunciation in these dictionaries, though an improvement on earlier methods, proved awkward in practice. The mid-12th-century Yunjing and other rime tables incorporate

10875-412: The capital during the earlier Eastern Han and Western Jin dynasties. The new capital at Luoyang was revived and transformed, with roughly 150,000 Xianbei and other northern warriors moved from north to south by the year 495 to serve in the capital. Within a couple of decades, the population rose to about half a million residents and was famed for being home to over a thousand Buddhist temples. Defectors from

11020-512: The chaos by constructing fortified villages. Clans would then carve de facto fiefs out of these highly cohesive family-based self-defense communities. Lesser peasant families would work for the dominant clan as tenants or serfs. The chaos also led these Han gentry families to avoid government service, before the Northern Wei court launched the sinicization movement. Northern gentry were therefore highly militarized as compared to their refined southern counterparts, and this distinction persisted well into

11165-620: The civil wars to seize power. Their armies almost destroyed the dynasty in the Disaster of Yongjia of 311, when the Five Barbarians sacked Luoyang . Chang'an met a similar fate in 316. However, a scion of the imperial house, Sima Rui (Emperor Yuan of Jin) fled south of the Huai River and reestablished the dynasty, known in historiography as the Eastern Jin dynasty . Cementing their power in

11310-464: The country selling their services to the warring princes and plundering the populace. These upheavals devastated the south which eased the fall of the south to the Sui dynasty. Under the later waning leadership of the Chen dynasty, the southern Chinese were unable to resist the military power amassed in the north by Yang Jian, who declared himself Emperor Wen of Sui and invaded the south. Aboriginal chiefs played an important active role in adapting to

11455-523: The country under the command of their imperial relatives, recruited officers from humble backgrounds and appointed low-ranking officials to monitor the powerful elites occupying the top government posts. The southern aristocracy declined with the rise of the Indian Ocean trade in the mid 5th century, which led to the court revenues shifting to trade and the disappearance of the caste by the Chen dynasty. As landowning aristocrats were unable to convert cash from

11600-424: The death of Emperor Wen, his son, the weak-willed Chen Bozong, took power and became Emperor Fei of Chen . His uncle, Chen Xu, after essentially controlling the country through his short reign, eventually deposed him and took power as Emperor Xuan of Chen . At that time, the Northern Zhou intended to conquer Northern Qi and thus invited the Chen dynasty to help. Emperor Xuan agreed to help because he wanted to recover

11745-439: The dialect data through the rime dictionaries and rime tables distorts the evidence. They argue for a full application of the comparative method to the modern varieties, supplemented by systematic use of transcription data. The traditional analysis of the Chinese syllable , derived from the fanqie method, is into an initial consonant, or "initial", ( shēngmǔ 聲母 ) and a final ( yùnmǔ 韻母 ). Modern linguists subdivide

11890-423: The dictionaries. Finals with vocalic and nasal codas may have one of three tones , named level, rising and departing. Finals with stop codas are distributed in the same way as corresponding nasal finals, and are described as their entering tone counterparts. There is much less agreement regarding the medials and vowels. It is generally agreed that "closed" finals had a rounded glide /w/ or vowel /u/ , and that

12035-535: The different languages. In 1954, André-Georges Haudricourt showed that Vietnamese counterparts of the rising and departing tones corresponded to final /ʔ/ and /s/ , respectively, in other (atonal) Austroasiatic languages . He thus argued that the Austroasiatic proto-language had been atonal, and that the development of tones in Vietnamese had been conditioned by these consonants, which had subsequently disappeared,

12180-674: The dominant Chinese structure, rather than being forcibly subjugated. For instance, the aboriginal chief Lady Xian who married the Liang court's governor Feng Bao, helped to extend the dynasties' authority while preserving autonomy and local culture. Lady Xian and Feng Bao played a critical role in assisting Chen Baxian's rise, and in stabilising the region between the Liang, Chen, and Sui dynasties. The court acknowledged her authority by awarding her with official titles and emblems of power. There were many other local chieftains of mixed origins between Guangzhou and modern Vietnam that displayed mixed traits of both aboriginal and sinicized culture, such as

12325-470: The earlier palatal consonants. The remainder of a syllable after the initial consonant is the final, represented in the Qieyun by several equivalent second fanqie spellers. Each final is contained within a single rhyme class, but a rhyme class may contain between one and four finals. Finals are usually analysed as consisting of an optional medial, either a semivowel , reduced vowel or some combination of these,

12470-562: The emperor ( sesshō or kampaku ). These daijō-kan offices were restricted to members of the Fujiwara family . Though they lost most of their political power, they sustained the court culture and maintained a cultural influence. In particular, after the Sengoku period they lost most of their financial basis and were no longer in a position to act as patrons of culture, but they passed on their knowledge as masters of particular fields such as writing waka poetry and playing instruments such as

12615-532: The end of the 19th century, European students of Chinese sought to solve this problem by applying the methods of historical linguistics that had been used in reconstructing Proto-Indo-European . Volpicelli (1896) and Schaank (1897) compared the rime tables at the front of the Kangxi Dictionary with modern pronunciations in several varieties, but had little knowledge of linguistics. Bernhard Karlgren , trained in transcription of Swedish dialects, carried out

12760-494: The entering tone was short (as the syllable ended in a voiceless stop) and probably high. The tone system of Middle Chinese is strikingly similar to those of its neighbours in the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area — proto-Hmong–Mien , proto-Tai and early Vietnamese —none of which is genetically related to Chinese. Moreover, the earliest strata of loans display a regular correspondence between tonal categories in

12905-458: The fall of the Northern Liang in 439, Emperor Taiwu united northern China, ending the Sixteen Kingdoms period and beginning the Northern and Southern dynasties period with their southern rivals, the Liu Song. Even though it was a time of great military strength for the Northern Wei, Rouran harassment from the north forced them to divert their focus from their southern expeditions. After uniting

13050-532: The final into an optional "medial" glide ( yùntóu 韻頭 ), a main vowel or "nucleus" ( yùnfù 韻腹 ) and an optional final consonant or "coda" ( yùnwěi 韻尾 ). Most reconstructions of Middle Chinese include the glides /j/ and /w/ , as well as a combination /jw/ , but many also include vocalic "glides" such as /i̯/ in a diphthong /i̯e/ . Final consonants /j/ , /w/ , /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , /p/ , /t/ and /k/ are widely accepted, sometimes with additional codas such as /wk/ or /wŋ/ . Rhyming syllables in

13195-468: The first systematic survey of modern varieties of Chinese. He used the oldest known rime tables as descriptions of the sounds of the rime dictionaries, and also studied the Guangyun , at that time the oldest known rime dictionary. Unaware of Chen Li's study, he repeated the analysis of the fanqie required to identify the initials and finals of the dictionary. He believed that the resulting categories reflected

13340-424: The floor with the Emperor; and the jige ( 地下 ) who were unable to sit with the Emperor. Although kuge included those two classes, mainly this word described the dōjō, the noblemen. The highest offices at the court were called kugyō and eligibility was limited to members of dōjō kuge. During the Edo period there were about 130 families of dōjō kuge. The most prominent members of the kuge became regents to

13485-400: The following table shows the pronunciation of the numerals in three modern Chinese varieties, as well as borrowed forms in Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese: Although the evidence from Chinese transcriptions of foreign words is much more limited, and is similarly obscured by the mapping of foreign pronunciations onto Chinese phonology, it serves as direct evidence of a sort that is lacking in all

13630-485: The fortunes of the Tuoba clan, renaming his state Wei (now known as Northern Wei) with its capital at Shengle (near modern Hohhot ). Under the rule of Emperors Daowu (Tuoba Gui), Mingyuan , and Taiwu , the Northern Wei progressively expanded. The establishment of the early Northern Wei state and the economy were also greatly indebted to the father-son pair of Cui Hong and Cui Hao . Tuoba Gui engaged in numerous conflicts with

13775-399: The founding elites of the Sui and Tang dynasties. Hence, they tended to have a flexible approach to steppe nomads, viewing them as possible partners rather than intrinsic enemies. The Jin were succeeded by a series of short-lived dynasties: Liu Song (420–479), Southern Qi (479–502), Liang (502–557) and Chen (557–589). As all of these dynasties had their capital at Jiankang (except for

13920-513: The government secretaries, he slaughtered all the sons of Emperors Gao and Wu. Emperor Ming soon became very ill and started following Daoism, changing his whole wardrobe to red. He also passed an edict making officials try to find whitebait (銀魚). He died in 498 and was succeeded by his son Xiao Baojuan , who killed high officials and governors at whim, sparking many revolts. The final revolt in 501 started after Xiao Baojuan killed his prime minister Xiao Yi, leading his brother Xiao Yan to revolt under

14065-506: The imperial clan, one of which saw him slaughter the inhabitants of Guangling . The following ballad gives an idea of those times: Emperor Xiaowu died naturally in 464 and was succeeded by his son, who became Emperor Qianfei . Emperor Qianfei proved to be similar to his father, engaging in both kin-slaughter and incest. In a scandalous move, because his sister complained about how it was unfair that men were allowed 10,000 concubines, he gave her 30 handsome young men as lovers. His uncle Liu Yu,

14210-415: The level tone as mid ( ˧ or 33), the rising tone as mid rising ( ˧˥ or 35), the departing tone as high falling ( ˥˩ or 51), and the entering tone as ˧3ʔ. Some scholars have voiced doubts about the degree to which the names were descriptive, because they are also examples of the tone categories. Some descriptions from contemporaries and other data seem to suggest a somewhat different picture. For example,

14355-425: The lost territories south of the Huai River. In 573, he sent general Wu Mingche to assist the effort; in two years, he managed to recover he lost territories south of the Huai River. At the time, Northern Qi was in a precarious situation with little military strength and Emperor Xuan could have taken advantage of the opportunity to entirely defeat Northern Qi. However, he only wanted to protect his territories south of

14500-596: The medial (especially when it is /w/ ) or in so-called chongniu doublets. The Yunjing ( c.  1150 AD ) is the oldest of the so-called rime tables , which provide a more detailed phonological analysis of the system contained in the Qieyun . The Yunjing was created centuries after the Qieyun , and the authors of the Yunjing were attempting to interpret a phonological system that differed in significant ways from that of their own Late Middle Chinese (LMC) dialect. They were aware of this, and attempted to reconstruct Qieyun phonology as well as possible through

14645-488: The minority of the populace where centers of power were located. Widespread social and cultural transformation in northern China came with Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei (reigned 471–499), whose father was a Xianbei, but whose mother was Han. Although of the Tuoba Clan from the Xianbei tribe, Emperor Xiaowen asserted his dual Xianbei-Han identity, renaming his own clan "Yuan" ( 元 ). In the year 493 Emperor Xiaowen instituted

14790-481: The most words, and one volume each for the other tones. The pitch contours of modern reflexes of the four Middle Chinese tones vary so widely that linguists have not been able to establish the probable Middle Chinese values by means of the comparative method . Karlgren interpreted the names of the first three tones literally as level, rising and falling pitch contours, respectively, and this interpretation remains widely accepted. Accordingly, Pan and Zhang reconstruct

14935-562: The nearby areas. The rest of the Liang dynasty lands were under the control of members of the imperial clan. Their squabbling amongst themselves weakened their efforts to defeat Hou. In the end, Xiao Yi with the aid of his generals Wang Sengbian and Chen Baxian defeated Hou, crowning himself Emperor Yuan of Liang . His brother Xiao Ji based in Sichuan was still a major threat. Emperor Yuan asked for assistance from Western Wei to defeat Xiao Ji, but after subduing Xiao Ji, they kept Sichuan. Due to

15080-541: The north, Emperor Taiwu also conquered the powerful Shanshan kingdom and subjugated the other kingdoms of Xiyu ( Western Regions ). In 450, Emperor Taiwu once again attacked the Liu Song and reached Guabu (瓜步, in modern Nanjing, Jiangsu), threatening to cross the river to attack Jiankang, the Liu Song capital. Though up to this point, the Northern Wei military forces dominated the Liu Song forces, they took heavy casualties. The Northern Wei forces plundered numerous households before returning north. At this point, followers of

15225-477: The northern dynasties by their placement of naval fleets along the Yangtze, they suffered various problems related to the creation and maintenance of military strength. The court's designation of specific households for military service through the tuntian system eventually led to a fall in their social status, causing widespread desertion of troops. Faced with shortage of troops, Eastern Jin generals were often sent on campaigns to capture non-Han indigenous peoples in

15370-455: The oldest known description of the tones, which is found in a Song dynasty quotation from the early 9th century Yuanhe Yunpu 元和韻譜 (no longer extant): Level tone is sad and stable. Rising tone is strident and rising. Departing tone is clear and distant. Entering tone is straight and abrupt. In 880, the Japanese monk Annen, citing an account from the early 8th century, stated the level tone

15515-569: The other types of data, since the pronunciation of the foreign languages borrowed from—especially Sanskrit and Gandhari —is known in great detail. For example, the nasal initials /m n ŋ/ were used to transcribe Sanskrit nasals in the early Tang, but later they were used for Sanskrit unaspirated voiced initials /b d ɡ/ , suggesting that they had become prenasalized stops [ᵐb] [ⁿd] [ᵑɡ] in some northwestern Chinese dialects. The rime dictionaries and rime tables yield phonological categories, but with little hint of what sounds they represent. At

15660-507: The period was called the Reign of Yuanjia ( Chinese : 元嘉之治 ). In 430, Emperor Wen started a number of northern expeditions against Northern Wei. These were ineffective because of insufficient preparations and excessive micromanagement of his generals, increasingly weakening the dynasty. Because of his jealousy of Tan Daoji , a noted leader of the Army of the Northern Garrison, he deprived himself of

15805-582: The pretender Yuan Hao . Despite the fact that Chen was only given 7,000 troops, he still managed to defeat army after army and even captured Luoyang, the capital of Northern Wei. Ultimately, Chen was insufficiently supplied and was defeated by troops ten times his size. After the Northern Wei split into Eastern and Western Wei, Emperor Wu granted asylum to rebel Eastern Wei commander Hou Jing , sending him on Northern Expeditions against Eastern Wei. After some initial successes, Liang forces were decisively defeated. Rumors abounded that Emperor Wu intended to give Hou as

15950-435: The primary power brokers in the Eastern Jin. With the greatly increased importance of proving one's pedigree to receive privileges, there was a rise in compiling of genealogy records, and the great families moved to legally outlaw intermarriage with common families. The lower class Northern migrants were forced to become "guests" (dependents) of the great families who established private guard forces with their new retainers. When

16095-424: The produce of their estates, the resurgence of trade and the money-based economy forced them to break up and sell their lands to the burgeoning merchant class. Influential merchants increasingly occupied political offices, displacing the old aristocrats. On the other hand, the economic developments also drove peasants, unable to cope with inflation or to pay taxes in cash, to become mercenary soldiers, wandering through

16240-405: The pronunciation of all characters to be described exactly; earlier dictionaries simply described the pronunciation of unfamiliar characters in terms of the most similar-sounding familiar character. The fanqie system uses multiple equivalent characters to represent each particular initial, and likewise for finals. The categories of initials and finals actually represented were first identified by

16385-608: The region of Wu (a region near modern-day Shanghai). At that time, due to the Hou Jing rebellion, the Qiao and Wu clans were greatly weakened, and many independent regimes emerged. Emperor Wu could not pacify all the independent regimes, so he adopted conciliatory measures. After the sudden death of Emperor Wu, his nephew Chen Qian took power as Emperor Wen of Chen . After the fall of Liang, the general Wang Lin had established an independent kingdom based in modern-day Hunan and Hubei provinces and

16530-466: The reigns of Emperor Huai of Jin and Emperor Min of Jin , the empire was put into grave danger by the uprising of northern non-Han peoples collectively known as the Five Barbarians . Numerous nomadic tribal groups had been forcibly resettled in northern and northwestern China during previous centuries. When the warring princes heavily drafted these tribes into the military, they mutinied and exploited

16675-420: The retroflex dentals are represented with the dentals, while elsewhere they have merged with the retroflex sibilants. In the south these have also merged with the dental sibilants, but the distinction is retained in most Mandarin dialects. The palatal series of modern Mandarin dialects, resulting from a merger of palatal allophones of dental sibilants and velars, is a much more recent development, unconnected with

16820-453: The rise and usurpation of the Sima family who established the Jin dynasty; subsequent leaders were similarly unable to bring the other great families in line. The Jin dynasty's flight south greatly exacerbated the weakness of the central government, and the great families who accompanied the Emperor in his flight, along with the most wealthy clans of earlier settlers along the Zhejiang coast, were

16965-483: The second or fourth rows for some initials. Most linguists agree that division-III finals contained a /j/ medial and that division-I finals had no such medial, but further details vary between reconstructions. To account for the many rhyme classes distinguished by the Qieyun , Karlgren proposed 16 vowels and 4 medials. Later scholars have proposed numerous variations. The four tones of Middle Chinese were first listed by Shen Yue c.  500 AD . The first three,

17110-563: The sinicized nobles and their Han bureaucrats while the Eastern regime was controlled by the traditional steppe tribes. Eventually, Gao Huan's son Gao Yang forced the Eastern Wei emperor to abdicate in favor of his claim to the throne, establishing the Northern Qi dynasty (551–577). Afterward, Yuwen Tai's son Yuwen Jue seized the throne of power from Emperor Gong of Western Wei , establishing

17255-559: The south to draft them into the military. The Eastern Jin dynasty fell not because of external invasion, however, but because Liu Yu (Emperor Wu of Liu Song) seized the throne from the Emperor Gong of Jin and founded the Liu Song dynasty , which officially began the Northern and Southern dynasties period. The Northern dynasties began in 439 when the Northern Wei conquered the Northern Liang to unite northern China and ended in 589 when

17400-512: The south went from being nearly a frontier to being on a path to the thriving, urbanized, sinicized region that it became in later centuries. In his book Buddhism in Chinese History , Arthur F. Wright points out this fact by stating: "When we speak of the area of the Yangtze valley and below in the period of disunion, we must banish from our minds the picture of the densely populated, intensively cultivated South China of recent centuries. When

17545-455: The south, such as Wang Su of the prestigious Langye Wang family, were largely accommodated and felt at home with the establishment of their own Wu quarter in Luoyang (this quarter of the city was home to over three thousand families). They were even served tea (by this time gaining popularity in southern China) at court instead of the yogurt drinks commonly found in the north. Beginning in the 480s,

17690-470: The south, the Eastern Jin established Jiankang on the existing site of Jianye (now Nanjing ) as their new capital. In the north, the Five Barbarians established numerous short-lived dynasties, leading to the period known as the Sixteen Kingdoms in historiography. Eventually, the Northern Wei dynasty conquered the rest of the northern states in 439 and unified northern China. Although the Eastern Jin and successive southern dynasties were well-defended from

17835-562: The speech standard of the capital Chang'an of the Sui and Tang dynasties . He interpreted the many distinctions as a narrow transcription of the precise sounds of this language, which he sought to reconstruct by treating the Sino-Xenic and modern dialect pronunciations as reflexes of the Qieyun categories. A small number of Qieyun categories were not distinguished in any of the surviving pronunciations, and Karlgren assigned them identical reconstructions. Karlgren's transcription involved

17980-440: The standard language of the late Tang dynasty. The preface of the Qieyun recovered in 1947 indicates that it records a compromise between northern and southern reading and poetic traditions from the late Northern and Southern dynasties period (a diasystem ). Most linguists now believe that no single dialect contained all the distinctions recorded, but that each distinction did occur somewhere. Several scholars have compared

18125-449: The standard reading pronunciation during the Tang dynasty , and went through several revisions and expansions over the following centuries. The Qieyun is thus the oldest surviving rhyme dictionary and the main source for the pronunciation of characters in Early Middle Chinese (EMC). At the time of Bernhard Karlgren 's seminal work on Middle Chinese in the early 20th century, only fragments of

18270-480: The strength of the Northern Wei, who suffered internal strife due to their policy of sinicization . In 503, the Northern Wei invaded but were defeated at Zhongli (modern Bengbu ). Emperor Wu supported the Northern Expeditions but did not aggressively take advantage of his victory in 516 at Shouyang due to heavy casualties. Given the excessive kin-slaughter in the Liu Song and Southern Qi dynasties, Emperor Wu

18415-476: The suppression of a 446 Qiang rebellion since the Northern Wei would castrate rebel tribes' young elite. In the first half of the Northern Wei dynasty , the Xianbei steppe tribesmen who dominated northern China kept a policy of strict social distinction between them and their Han subjects. Ethnic Han were drafted into the bureaucracy, employed as officials to collect taxes, etc. However, the Han were kept out of many higher positions of power. They also represented

18560-425: The throne as Emperor Mingyuan. Though he managed to conquer Liu Song 's province of Henan, he died soon afterward. Emperor Mingyuan's son Tuoba Tao took the throne as Emperor Taiwu. Due to Emperor Taiwu's energetic efforts, Northern Wei's strength greatly increased, allowing them to repeatedly attack Liu Song. After dealing with the Rouran threat to his northern flank, he engaged in a war to unite northern China. With

18705-441: The throne. This stopped the southern advance of the northern troops. The respite was short though, as after Yang Jian defeated his rival General Yuchi Jiong , he usurped the throne from Emperor Jing of Northern Zhou and established the Sui dynasty , crowning himself Emperor Wen of Sui . He proceeded to invade the south to reunify China. Emperor Xuan had just died and his incompetent son Chen Shubao (Houzhu of Chen) took power. He

18850-435: The tumultuous era of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Eastern Jin dynasty . It is sometimes considered as the latter part of a longer period known as the Six Dynasties (220–589). The period featured civil war and political chaos, but was also a time of flourishing arts and culture, advancement in technology, and the spread of Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism . The period saw large-scale migration of Han people to lands south of

18995-500: The voiced fricatives /z/ and /ʐ/ are not distinguished from the voiced affricates /dz/ and /ɖʐ/ , respectively, and the retroflex stops are not distinguished from the dental stops. Several changes occurred between the time of the Qieyun and the rime tables: The following table shows a representative account of the initials of Late Middle Chinese. The voicing distinction is retained in modern Wu and Old Xiang dialects, but has disappeared from other varieties. In Min dialects

19140-435: The vowels in "outer" finals were more open than those in "inner" finals. The interpretation of the "divisions" is more controversial. Three classes of Qieyun finals occur exclusively in the first, second or fourth rows of the rime tables, respectively, and have thus been labelled finals of divisions I, II and IV. The remaining finals are labelled division-III finals because they occur in the third row, but they may also occur in

19285-401: The years 526–527. The underlying cause of these wars was the growing rift between the governing aristocracy which was increasingly adopting Han-style sedentary policies and lifestyles and their nomadic tribal armies who continued to preserve the old steppe way of life. The Northern Wei court was betrayed by one of their own generals, who had the empress dowager and the young emperor thrown into

19430-520: Was a decadent ruler who had lost the Mandate of Heaven , the Sui Dynasty was able to effectively conquer the south. After this conquest, the whole of China entered a new golden age of reunification under the centralization of the short-lived Sui dynasty and the succeeding Tang dynasty (618–907). The core elite of the Northern dynasties, mixed-culture, and mixed-ethnicity military clans, would later also form

19575-473: Was afraid they would have thoughts of usurping the throne. Thus, he also frequently killed his kinsmen. After the death of Emperor Wu, his son Emperor Shao ruled briefly before being judged incompetent and killed by government officials led by Xu Xianzhi , replacing him with Emperor Wen , a different son, who soon killed the officials who supported him. Emperor Wen's reign was a period of relative political stability because of his frugality and good government;

19720-411: Was highly successful in boosting the state's military strength. The Northern Zhou dynasty was able to defeat and conquer Northern Qi in 577, reunifying the north. However, this success was short-lived, as the Northern Zhou was overthrown in 581 by Yang Jian, who became Emperor Wen of Sui . With greater military power and morale, along with convincing propaganda that the Chen dynasty ruler Chen Shubao

19865-451: Was in a weakened state. Emperor Wen was assassinated by Crown Prince Shao and Second Prince Jun in 453 after planning to punish them for witchcraft. However, they were both defeated by Third Prince Jun, who become Emperor Xiaowu . proved to be licentious and cruel, supposedly committing incest with the daughters of an uncle who had helped him gain the throne; his rivals also claimed he had incest with his mother. This led to two rebellions by

20010-547: Was licentious and wasteful, resulting in chaos and corruption in the government; many officials heavily exploited the people, causing great suffering. In planning to defeat the Chen dynasty, Emperor Wen of Sui took the suggestion of his general Gao Jiong and waited until the South were harvesting their crops to entirely burn the farmland, crippling the strength of the Chen dynasty. In 588, Emperor Wen of Sui sent his son Yang Guang (who would become Emperor Yang of Sui ) to finally vanquish

20155-493: Was not given the imperial title. After some defeats to the forces of Northern Qi, Wang Sengbian allowed their pretender, Xiao Yuanming to establish himself as Emperor Min of Liang. However, Chen Baxian was displeased with the arrangements, and in a surprise move killed Wang and deposed Emperor Min in favor of Xiao Fangzhi who became Emperor Jing of Liang. After a short reign, Chen deposed Emperor Jing and took power himself as Emperor Wu of Chen in 557. Emperor Wu of Chen came from

20300-475: Was now starting to cause trouble. Wang Lin allied with Northern Zhou and Northern Qi to conquer the Chen capital at Jiankang. Emperor Wen first defeated the combined forces of Northern Qi and Wang Lin before preventing the forces of Northern Zhou from entering the South at Yueyang . Furthermore, through Emperor Wen's extensive efforts at good governance, the economic situation of the South was greatly improved, restoring his kingdom's national strength. Following

20445-407: Was straight and low, ... the rising tone was straight and high, ... the departing tone was slightly drawn out, ... the entering tone stops abruptly Based on Annen's description, other similar statements and related data, Mei Tsu-lin concluded that the level tone was long, level and low, the rising tone was short, level and high, the departing tone was somewhat long and probably high and rising, and

20590-625: Was the first to attempt a reconstruction of the sounds of Middle Chinese , comparing its categories with modern varieties of Chinese and the Sino-Xenic pronunciations used in the reading traditions of neighbouring countries. Several other scholars have produced their own reconstructions using similar methods. The Qieyun system is often used as a framework for Chinese dialectology. With the exception of Min varieties, which show independent developments from Old Chinese, modern Chinese varieties can be largely treated as divergent developments from Middle Chinese. The study of Middle Chinese also provides for

20735-456: Was the most notable ruler of his age, being a patron of the arts and of Buddhism. The Southern dynasties, except for the last Chen dynasty, were strongly dominated by the shijia , the great families, who monopolized political power until the mid-6th century. This class was created by Cao Cao during the late Han dynasty when he attempted to consolidate his power by building an endogenous military caste of professional soldiers. His policy led to

20880-522: Was very lenient to imperial clansmen, not even investigating them when they committed crimes. The Liang reached a cultural peak because he was very learned, supported scholars, and encouraged the flourishing education system. An avid poet, Emperor Wu was fond of gathering many literary talents at court, and even held poetry competitions with prizes of gold or silk for those considered the best. In his later years, however, sycophants surrounded him. Three times he dedicated his life to Buddhism and tried to become

21025-415: Was volatile. General Xiao Daocheng slowly gained power and eventually deposed Emperor Houfei in favor of his brother, who became Emperor Shun . After defeating the rival general Shen Youzhi , Xiao forced Emperor Shun to yield the throne and crowned himself Emperor Gao of Southern Qi , thus ending the Liu Song dynasty. Though distantly related, the Southern Qi and the following Liang dynasty were members of

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