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118-634: Shi Jingtang ( Chinese : 石敬瑭 ; 30 March 892 – 28 July 942), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Gaozu of Later Jin ( 後晉高祖 ), was the founding emperor of the Later Jin dynasty of China during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period , reigning from 936 until his death. Shi was an ethnic Shatuo and was an important military general for the Later Tang before rebelling in 936. He enlisted

236-667: A Han Chinese ancestry despite the Shatuo origin. Under the Old History of the Five Dynasties account, his great-great-grandfather, whose name was given as Shi Jing ( 石璟 ), followed the Shatuo chieftain Zhuye Zhiyi ( 朱邪執宜 ) in submitting to Tang , and was settled, along with the rest of the Shatuo people under Zhuye, in Tang territory. Shi Jingtang's father Nieliji ( 臬捩雞 ), who was referred to by

354-464: 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

472-457: 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

590-505: 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

708-595: 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

826-462: 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

944-597: 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

1062-700: 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

1180-628: A declaration calling for Li Congke, whom he claimed to be an inappropriate person to be emperor as merely an adoptive son, to abdicate the throne and pass it to Li Siyuan's youngest biological son Li Congyi the Prince of Xu. Li Congke, in anger, stripped Shi of his titles and declared a general campaign against Shi. He also arrested Shi's sons, as well as his younger brother Shi Jingde ( 石敬德 ), and put them to death. Shi's cousin Shi Jingwei ( 石敬威 ) committed suicide. Li Congke commissioned Zhang Jingda to lead

1298-442: A declaration in which he called on Shi to renounce the peace agreement with Liao and attack it to recapture the territories and peoples that Liao had previously captured, but was not yet openly breaking with Shi. In response, Shi, under Sang Weihan's advice, headed to Guangjin—since then renamed back to Yedu—to prepare for a potential campaign against An Chongrong. Anticipating that An Congjin might rebel when he left Daliang, Shi, under

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1416-564: 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

1534-534: A number of officers still loyal to him, and committed suicide by immolation on Xuanwu Tower ( 玄武樓 ) inside the palace. Shi subsequently entered Luoyang and assumed control over the Later Tang realm. The local military governors throughout the Later Tang realm initially all formally submitted to Shi Jingtang. Among them was Fan Yanguang, who, however, felt insecure in his position as the military governor of Tianxiong, and who also had ambitions to be emperor, and therefore

1652-444: A precarious spot – because it was obvious that he was initially intending on supporting Li Conghou and because of the long-standing, if latent, rivalry between him and Li Congke while both served under Li Siyuan. He remained at Luoyang for the funeral of his father-in-law Li Siyuan, and after the funeral, did not dare to personally bring up the idea of returning to Hedong. Empress Dowager Cao and her daughter, Shi's wife, who by this point

1770-538: 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

1888-503: 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

2006-678: 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

2124-610: 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

2242-563: 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

2360-596: 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

2478-689: 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

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2596-485: 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,

2714-577: Is in Shuocheng District , the urban core of the city. Shuozhou has a continental, monsoon -influenced semi-arid climate ( Köppen BSk ), with cold, very dry, and somewhat long winters, and warm, somewhat humid summers. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from −9.8 °C (14.4 °F) in January to 21.9 °C (71.4 °F) in July, and the annual mean is 7.42 °C (45.4 °F). Typifying

2832-457: Is not only a close relative, but had also shared all difficulties of mine when we grew up. Now I am the Son of Heaven; who else can I depend on but Master Shi?" (Shi, and his supporters, would later claim that at this time, Li Congke also made a personal promise to him that he would never be moved away from Hedong for the rest of his life, although historical records, besides Shi's later claim, do not state

2950-595: 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

3068-445: 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

3186-668: 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

3304-484: 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,

3422-496: 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

3540-497: 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

3658-540: 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

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3776-428: 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

3894-735: 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

4012-525: 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

4130-680: 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

4248-579: 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

4366-473: 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

4484-591: 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

4602-639: 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. Shuozhou The site of Shuozhou

4720-502: The Dongchuan and Xichuan armies. When Li Siyuan subsequently sent An to the front to monitor the campaign, Shi took the opportunity to write to Li Siyuan, explaining his misgivings from the campaign, and Li Siyuan began to be convinced. Li Siyuan subsequently forced An into retirement and then killed An, and then recalled Shi's army (although Shi already began to retreat before receiving the retreat orders). Li Siyuan subsequently again made him

4838-578: The Han Chinese name Shi Shaoyong ( 石紹雍 ), was said to be a successful general under Zhuye Zhiyi's grandson Li Keyong , who was an important late-Tang warlord, and Li Keyong's son Li Cunxu , who ruled the independent state of Jin after Tang's fall. The other official history for the period, the New History of the Five Dynasties , apparently was skeptical of this account of Shi Jingtang's ancestry, and instead merely gave Nieliji's name, further stating that it

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4956-630: The Han emperor, Han Xin allied with the Xiongnu instead and joined them on their raids against China until his death in battle in 196   BC. Mayi was subsequently the capital of Dai Prefecture and the scene of an attempted ambush of the Xiongnu by Chinese troops in 133   BC. During the chaos between the fall of the Sui and rise of the Tang , Mayi was the base of the would-be emperor Liu Wuzhou . The seat of government

5074-816: The Khitan; and that a certain amount of money be given to the Khitan each year. The chancellor Zhang Yanlang supported their proposal. However, another imperial scholar, Xue Wenyu ( 薛文遇 ) opposed, believing that it was likely to lead to the Khitans' asking for Li Congke's daughter in marriage, which Xue considered humiliating. Li Congke therefore put a stop to the proposal and demoted Lü. In summer 936, at Xue's suggestion, Li Congke issued an edict moving Shi from Hedong to Tianping. Shi, in fear, convened his staff members and considered what to do next. Zhao Ying advocated reporting to Tianping, but Liu Zhiyuan and Sang Weihan advocated resistance. Accepting Liu and Sang's suggestion, Shi issued

5192-679: The Later Jin officials and commoners to both feel humiliated, but was also credited by historians as what preserved the peace between Later Jin and Liao during his reign. In summer 940, when Shi Jingtang tried to have Li Jinquan the military governor of Anyuan Circuit (安遠 headquartered in modern Xiaogan , Hubei ) replaced by the general Ma Quanjie ( 馬全節 ), Li rebelled and submitted to Later Jin's southeastern neighbor Southern Tang . Southern Tang's emperor Li Bian commissioned his general Li Chengyu ( 李承裕 ) to aid Li Jinquan—but with instructions not to try to retain possession of Anyuan; rather, Li Chengyu

5310-422: The Later Tang remnants there. Eventually, Zhang's deputy Yang Guangyuan assassinated him and surrendered to Khitan/Later Jin. Emperor Taizong gave the Later Tang army to Shi, and they jointly prepared to head south toward Luoyang. They engaged Zhao's army at Tuanbo Valley (團柏谷, in modern Taiyuan), crushing it. Zhao fled to Lu Prefecture (潞州, in modern Changzhi , Shanxi ) and, believing he could not hold it against

5428-555: 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

5546-725: The advice of He Ning , left his nephew Shi Chonggui in charge of Daliang with authority to immediately commission generals to act against An Congjin. In winter 941, hearing that Shi Jingtang had left Daliang for Yedu, An Congjin rebelled. Shi Conggui immediately, under authority previously given to him by Shi Jingtang, commissioned the general Gao Xingzhou to assume overall command against An Congjin. Upon hearing of An Congjin's rebellion, An Chongrong also rebelled, and Shi sent Du Chongwei against him. Gao quickly defeated An Congjin's advance army, forcing An Congjin into returning to Shannan East's capital Xiang Prefecture ( 襄州 ) to try to defend it. Meanwhile, Du engaged An Chongrong, and An Chongrong

5664-604: The centuries leading up to the Mongol Empire. The official history Old History of the Five Dynasties stated that his family was originally descended from Shi Que ( 石碏 ), an official of the Spring and Autumn period state Wey , through the Han prime minister Shi Fen ( 石奮 ), and further stated that Shi Fen's descendants fled west when Han fell, settling in what would eventually become Gan Prefecture (甘州, in modern Zhangye , Gansu ), apparently in an attempt to try to link Shi with

5782-404: The city and surrendered; the imperial forces then entered and put An Chongrong to death. (An Congjin, however, would not be defeated until after Shi Jingtang's death.) Meanwhile, Shi fell ill. He entrusted his young and only surviving son Shi Chongrui to Feng Dao, wanting Feng to support Shi Chongrui in succeeding to the throne. After Shi Jingtang's death in summer 942, Feng, in consultation with

5900-430: The coming torrent of Khitan/Later Jin forces, surrendered, leaving Shi's path toward Luoyang clear. Emperor Taizong, citing the fact that the Han Chinese may be fearful of Khitan soldiers, stopped at Lu himself and had Shi advance toward Luoyang by himself. Believing the situation to be hopeless, Li Congke gathered his family (including Empress Dowager Cao, who decided to die with her stepson's family rather than to live) and

6018-468: The commander). Later in 927, when the general Zhu Shouyin the military governor of Xuanwu Circuit (宣武, headquartered in modern Kaifeng , Henan ) rebelled against Li Siyuan's rule, Li Siyuan initially sent a small dispatch of soldiers under Fan Yanguang to attack Xuanwu's capital Daliang, but then followed that dispatch by sending Shi, and then followed Shi there himself. Zhu, finding the situation hopeless, committed suicide. LI Siyuan subsequently made Shi

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6136-519: The defender of Taiyuan and the military governor of Hedong Circuit (河東, headquartered at Taiyuan). He was also given the greater honorary chancellor designation of Shizhong ( 侍中 ). Shi entrusted much of the affairs of the circuit to two officers, Liu Zhiyuan and Zhou Gui ( 周瓌 ), putting Liu in charge of military matters and Zhou in charge of financial matters. Li Siyuan became deathly ill in late 933. Li Congrong, believing that Li Siyuan's chiefs of staff Zhu Hongzhao and Feng Yun would try to divert

6254-407: The deputy commander of the imperial guards (by this point, serving as the deputy to another biological son of Li Siyuan's, Li Congrong the Prince of Qin). He was also given the military governorship of Heyang Circuit (河陽, headquartered in modern Jiaozuo , Henan ). Shi's relationship with Li Congrong was a tense one, as Li Congrong, viewing himself as the natural heir (being older than Li Conghou),

6372-399: 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

6490-484: 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

6608-476: The emperor of China, he would allow Shi to retain Hedong. Emperor Taizong was enticed, believing that Zhao's army would be difficult to defeat, but was persuaded by Sang (who argued that Zhao could be defeated and that Emperor Taizong, having already committed to Shi, should not support Zhao) to reject Zhao's proposal. Meanwhile, while Zhao was in negotiations with the Khitan, the situation at Jin'an became desperate for

6726-524: The emperor's actions—the network included two of Shi's own sons, who served in the imperial guards (whose names were variously recorded, and one of whom might have been a brother whom he adopted as a son), and the servants of Empress Dowager Cao. (The two sons were recorded in the New History of the Five Dynasties as Shi Chongying ( 石重英 ) and Shi Chongyin ( 石重胤 ), and in the Zizhi Tongjian as Shi Chongyin ( 石重殷 ) and Shi Chongyi ( 石重裔 ).) In 935, there

6844-521: 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

6962-468: The eunuch Meng Hanqiong , from Tianxiong (as Meng was left in charge of Tianxiong when Li Conghou was recalled from there), they issued a series of orders—from their Office of the Chiefs of Staff, rather than by imperial edicts—transferring Fan Yanguang, then the military governor of Chengde Circuit (成德, headquartered in modern Shijiazhuang , Hebei ), to Tianxiong; Shi from Hedong to Chengde; and Li Congke, then

7080-413: 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

7198-491: 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

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7316-599: 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

7434-474: The greater honorary chancellor title of Zhongshu Ling ( 中書令 ). As Zhu Hongzhao and Feng Yun considered themselves responsible for Li Conghou's succession to the throne, they retained power as chiefs of staff after he took the throne. As both Shi and Li Congke had great battlefield accomplishments under Li Siyuan, they were apprehensive of both Shi and Li Congke. In spring 934, Zhu and Feng, not wanting Shi to remain long as Hedong and wanting to recall their ally,

7552-593: The help of the Khitan -led Liao dynasty in his struggle against the Later Tang dynasty . For this he was called Emperor Taizong of Liao 's adopted son (even though he was 10 years older). After Shi's rise to power, the Liao would later annex the strategically crucial Sixteen Prefectures and eventually annex the entire Later Jin. The rise of the Liao in northern China and the Mongolian Plateau would shape Chinese politics for

7670-401: The imperial general Jing Yanguang , came to the conclusion that the state, in disarray at the time, needed an older emperor. They thus supported Shi Chonggui to succeed Shi Jingtang. Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing')

7788-414: The imperial general Kang Yicheng ( 康義誠 ), whom Li Conghou sent against Li Congke in a last-ditch attempt to resist Li Congke's advance, also having surrendered to Li Congke, Li Conghou fled the capital with just 50 cavalry soldiers. Meanwhile, Shi was on the way from Taiyuan to Luoyang to pay homage to Li Conghou. They rendezvoused at Wei Prefecture (衛州, in modern Anyang , Henan ). Realizing that Li Conghou

7906-459: The imperial messenger station at Wei, while Shi himself and his followers continued on to Luoyang (to offer their allegiance to Li Congke). Shi's mother-in-law Empress Dowager Cao issued an edict deposing Li Conghou and ordering Li Congke to take the throne, and Li Congke did. He then sent an emissary to force Li Conghou to commit suicide; when Li Conghou refused, he was strangled to death. Li Congke's quick victory over Li Conghou left Shi Jingtang in

8024-614: The imperial troops against Shi, and Zhang quickly put Taiyuan under siege, but was unable to capture it quickly, with Liu defending the city capably. Shi had Sang write a letter requesting aid from Khitan's Emperor Taizong , promising that if Emperor Taizong agreed to support him as emperor, he would cede 16 prefectures to the north (the entire Lulong Circuit and the northern prefectures of Hedong Circuit) to Khitan—despite Liu's misgivings. Emperor Taizong agreed, arriving in Hedong territory in fall 936. He quickly engaged Zhang's Later Tang imperial army, defeating Zhang. The remnants of Zhang's army

8142-605: The influence of the East Asian Monsoon , over three-fourths of the annual 399 millimetres (15.7 in) of precipitation occurs from June to September. It is a centre of industry, and its notable industries are primarily mining of coal and other ores such as iron , bauxite , mica , manganese , and graphite . Other economic sectors include agriculture , chemical industry , ceramics , and fishing . Western tourists rarely come to this area of China, but there are some attractions. The Yingxian Tower , built in 1056 during

8260-581: 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

8378-516: 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

8496-515: The main armies under Yang Guangyuan and Shi's brother-in-law Du Chongwei . The central Later Jin realm was, for a time, thrown into disarray, after Fan was able to persuade another Later Jin general, Zhang Congbin ( 張從賓 ), into rebelling at Luoyang, and Zhang was even able to kill Shi's son Shi Chongxin ( 石重信 ) and Shi Chong'ai ( 石重乂 ), during his revolt. Yang's soldiers also tried to persuade him to rebel against Later Jin as well, offering to support him as emperor, but Yang refused their overture. Du

8614-457: The military governor of Chengde, who had viewed Shi's submissive attitude toward Liao as a sign of weakness, was himself considering rebelling against Later Jin. He entered into an alliance with An Congjin the military governor of Shannan East Circuit (山南東道, headquartered in modern Xiangyang , Hubei ), who was similarly considering to rebel. He also continuously provoked Liao by intercepting its emissaries and killing them. In summer 941, he issued

8732-454: The military governor of Dongchuan Circuit (東川 headquartered in modern Mianyang , Sichuan )—fearing that Li Siyuan's powerful chief of staff An Chonghui was intending to act against them, rebelled together. Li Siyuan sent Shi to command the army against the two circuits—a commission that Shi accepted despite his misgivings about the campaign. Shi quickly advanced to Jianmen Pass , but, after capturing it, could not advance further easily against

8850-492: The military governor of Fengxiang Circuit (鳳翔, headquartered in modern Baoji , Shaanxi ), to Hedong. Li Congke, believing that these moves were targeting him, rebelled. Li Conghou sent the imperial army against him, under the command of the general Wang Sitong , but Wang's army collapsed when the officer Yang Siquan ( 楊思權 ) led the soldiers under him and defected to Li Congke. Wang was captured, and Li Congke marched quickly toward Luoyang. With Li Congke approaching Luoyang and

8968-534: The military governor of Xuanwu. In 928, Li Siyuan made him the defender of Yedu and the military governor of Tianxiong Circuit (天雄, headquartered at Yedu), and gave him the honorary chancellor designation Tong Zhongshu Menxia Pingzhangshi ( 同中書門下平章事 ). In 930, the two main military governors of the Shu lands, both commissioned by Li Cunxu before his death— Meng Zhixiang the military governor of Xichuan Circuit (西川 headquartered in modern Chengdu , Sichuan ) and Dong Zhang

9086-424: The minds of another brother-in-law of Li Congke's, Zhao Yanshou the military governor of Xuanwu, and Zhao's father Zhao Dejun the military governor of Lulong Circuit (盧龍, headquartered in modern Beijing ). As Shi had recently been ill and appeared frail, Li Congke decided that he needed not be concerned with Shi as a potential threat, and therefore thereafter agreed to let him return to Hedong, stating, "Master Shi

9204-455: 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

9322-425: 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

9440-583: 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

9558-538: 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

9676-455: The possibility that Lady He was Shi Shaoyong's wife and Shi Jingtang's "legal" mother, but that Lady Liu was his birth mother.) In his youth, Shi Jingtang was said to be quiet and stern. He studied the military strategies and particularly tried to take after Li Mu and Zhou Yafu . When he grew up, he was known as one of the strongest warriors in the region due to his valor and martial prowess. The region that Li Keyong ruled subsequently became

9794-412: The prefect of Dai, he became impressed with Shi Jingtang and gave his Empress Li to Shi in marriage. Shi subsequently served under Li Siyuan in campaigns, becoming one of the two prominent officers under Li Siyuan (along with Li Siyuan's adoptive son Li Congke ) due to his battlefield accomplishments. Despite the familial relationship between Shi and Li Congke and their serving together under Li Siyuan,

9912-404: 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 ,

10030-552: 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

10148-509: 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

10266-407: The remaining army and rendezvoused with Shi, signaling support for Li Siyuan. With Li Jiji dead, Li Siyuan claimed the throne. Li Siyuan commissioned Shi as the military governor of Baoyi Circuit (保義, headquartered at Shan Prefecture) and created him a count. In 927, he recalled Shi to Luoyang to serve the deputy commander of the imperial guards (with Li Siyuan's biological son Li Conghou serving as

10384-436: The secondary capital Daliang (Later Liang's former capital) and then the imperial capital Luoyang . During this campaign, both Shi and Li Congke continued to play prominent roles. Before Li Siyuan's and Li Cunxu's armies could engage each other, however, Li Cunxu was killed in a mutiny at Luoyang itself. Li Siyuan subsequently entered the city and claimed the title of regent. Li Siyuan appeared to be initially hesitant to take

10502-505: 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

10620-557: 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

10738-500: The state of Jin after Tang's fall in 907 (as Li Keyong carried the Tang-bestowed title of Prince of Jin), and after Li Keyong's death in 908, Li Cunxu succeeded him as the Prince of Jin, in rivalry with Tang's main successor state Later Liang . Li Cunxu subsequently made his adoptive brother (Li Keyong's adoptive son) Li Siyuan, a major general, the prefect of Dai Prefecture (代州 in modern Shuozhou , Shanxi ). While Li Siyuan served as

10856-426: The succession away from him, decided to try to forcibly take power, but his army was defeated by the imperial guards, and he was killed. In the aftermaths, Li Siyuan summoned Li Conghou back from Tianxiong (where Li Conghou was serving as military governor), but died before Li Conghou arrived at Luoyang. Li Conghou subsequently arrived and took the throne. Upon Li Conghou's assumption of the throne, he gave Shi Jingtang

10974-436: The such.) After Shi's return to Hedong, there were repeated incursions of Later Tang's northern circuits by Later Tang's northern rival Khitan Empire . Both Shi and Zhao Dejun repeatedly requested reinforcements, and they were allowed to amass troops and supplies at their circuits. As Shi was still apprehensive that Li Congke might be suspicious of him, Shi maintained an information network at Luoyang to keep himself informed of

11092-407: The suspicion might be cast on him, but that did not stop Li Congke from suspecting him of having greater ambitions upon receiving the report from the imperial envoy. As Shi was formally the commander of the army to the north, Li Congke commissioned the general Zhang Jingda to serve as his deputy to divide his command. By spring 936, the tension between Li Congke and Shi had become very strong—as Shi

11210-699: The throne himself, as at that time, Li Cunxu's son Li Jiji the Prince of Wei, who had been the commander of the army that destroyed Former Shu, was returning from the Shu lands and heading toward Luoyang with his army, and he initially signaled support for Li Jiji. However, after apparently concluding that he would not be tolerated if Li Jiji became emperor, he sent Shi Jingtang and Li Congke to take up defensive positions at Shan Prefecture (陝州, in modern Sanmenxia , Henan ) and Hezhong Municipality (河中, in modern Yuncheng , Shanxi ) respectively, to block Li Jiji. Li Jiji's own soldiers began to desert, and he committed suicide. Li Jiji's subordinate Ren Huan took over command of

11328-609: 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

11446-547: 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

11564-555: The two did not like each other and had a rivalry, although not overtly. In 923, Li Cunxu declared himself emperor of a new state called the Later Tang . He subsequently carried out a campaign that destroyed Later Liang later in the year—a campaign in wherein Li Siyuan played a prominent role. Shi Jingtang and Li Congke both had battlefield accomplishments during the campaign, but Shi did not receive prominent honors as his contributions were not well-known. According to traditional accounts, it

11682-512: 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

11800-452: 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

11918-460: 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

12036-453: 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,

12154-494: Was already drunk, and he made the comment, "Why do you not stay longer? You wanted to return so quickly. Is it that you are about to rebel with Master Shi?" When she returned to Taiyuan and informed Shi, Shi became even more apprehensive. The imperial scholars Li Song and Lü Qi ( 呂琦 ) believed that the solution was to ally with the Khitan Empire. They suggested that certain previously captured Khitan officers be released back to

12272-425: Was an incident in which, when the imperial envoy was at the front to review Shi's army and to deliver the imperially-bestowed supplies to the army, the soldiers began to chant, "May you live 10,000 years!" at Shi—a chant that should be reserved for the emperor. Shi became fearful, and under the advice of his staff member Duan Xiyao ( 段希堯 ), had Liu Zhiyuan behead 36 of the soldiers leading the chant, to try to alleviate

12390-452: Was arrogant and violent. Further, Li Congrong and Shi's wife, who at this point carried the title of Princess Yongning, were born of different mothers (Princess Yongning born of Empress Cao while Li Congrong born of Lady Xia, who was deceased by that point) and long despised each other. Shi thus did not want to remain under Li Congrong for long, and repeatedly requested to resign. In late 932, Li Siyuan agreed and sent him to Taiyuan to serve as

12508-421: Was because he did not like to brag about them. However, Li Siyuan was aware of his contributions. However, by 926, Li Cunxu's state, which had annexed Former Shu , was thrown into chaos due to his misrule. While a fierce general, he was not a capable ruler, and he had alienated the army by killing two prominent generals, Guo Chongtao and Zhu Youqian . A subsequent mutiny at Yedu (鄴都 in modern Handan , Hebei )

12626-527: Was carrying the greater title of Princess of Wei (and soon would receive the even greater title of Grand Princess of Jin), repeatedly begged on his behalf, however, but Li Congke's close associates, who accompanied Li Congke from Fengxiang, mostly suggested that Li Congke detain Shi and not allow him to return to Hedong. Li Congke's chief of staff Han Zhaoyin and imperial scholar Li Zhuanmei ( 李專美 ), however, believed that keeping Shi at Luoyang would cause apprehension in

12744-401: Was considering rebelling. Realizing that Fan was considering doing so, in spring 937, under Sang Weihan's advice, Shi moved the capital from Luoyang to Daliang, as Daliang was closer to Tianxiong's capital (which Shi had renamed Guangjin ( 廣晉 )) and, upon the expected revolt by Fan, he would be able to react much more quickly. Fan rebelled in summer 937. Shi mobilized his army against Fan, with

12862-417: Was gathering up his wealth and consolidating them at Hedong, and it was commonly believed that Shi would rebel. Li Congke aggravated the situation when Shi's wife—whose title had by that point had become the greater title of Grand Princess of Jin—came to Luoyang to celebrate Li Congke's birthday. After she offered Li Congke wine to wish him long life, she asked to take leave of him and return to Hedong. Li Congke

12980-481: 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

13098-479: Was initially successful in the engagement. At this time, though, An Chongrong's officer Zhao Yanzhi ( 趙彥之 ) tried to surrender to the imperial forces—and while the imperial forces killed him, Zhao's attempted surrender caused a general panic in An Chongrong's army, causing a collapse and forcing An Chongrong to flee back to Chengde's capital Zhen Prefecture ( 鎮州 ). In spring 942, an officer of An Chongrong's opened up

13216-530: Was not quickly suppressed. Li Cunxu sent Li Siyuan to suppress it, but Li Siyuan's own soldiers mutinied and forced Li Siyuan to join the Yedu mutineers. While Li Siyuan was subsequently able to escape from Yedu, Shi persuaded him that he could never, after this point, convince Li Cunxu that he was not part of the mutiny from the beginning. With Shi and the others persuading him to act against Li Cunxu, Li Siyuan finally decided to gather his troops and head south, first toward

13334-508: Was now completely without his imperial army, Shi consulted the prefect of Wei, Wang Hongzhi ( 王弘贄 ), who advised Shi that Li Conghou's cause was hopeless. When Li Conghou's guards Sha Shourong ( 沙守榮 ) and Ben Hongjin ( 奔弘進 ) heard of this, they cursed Shi for being faithless, and Sha tried to assassinate Shi, but he and Shi's guard Chen Hui ( 陳暉 ) ended up killing each other in mutual combat. Ben committed suicide. Liu Zhiyuan then slaughtered all of Li Conghou's guards, leaving Li Conghou alone at

13452-836: Was soon thereafter able to defeat Zhang, who drowned as he was retreating, ending his part of the rebellion. Fan, believing that he was nearing defeat, offered to surrender. Shi initially refused to accept his surrender. Yang could not capture Guangjin quickly, however. In fall 938, Shi agreed to accept Fan's surrender, and Fan subsequently did, ending the rebellion. Meanwhile, Shi sent the senior chancellors Liu Xu and Feng Dao to Khitan—whose state name had been changed to Liao by this point—to offer honorary titles to both Emperor Taizong and his mother Empress Dowager Shulü . He referred to Emperor Taizong as "father emperor" while referring to himself as "son emperor." He also fostered relationships with high level Khitan generals and officials by giving them gifts and using humble words toward them. This caused

13570-614: Was subsequently surrounded by the Khitan/Hedong troops at Jin'an Base (晉安寨, near Taiyuan). While Jin'an was still under siege, Emperor Taizong declared Shi the emperor of a new state of Later Jin . Still, Emperor Taizong was ambivalent on how much further support to give to Shi at this point, with a Later Tang relief army, commanded by Zhao Dejun, approaching. Zhao, however, was himself not devoted to Li Congke's cause, and stopped short of Jin'an. He secretly negotiated with Emperor Taizong, offering that, if Emperor Taizong would support him as

13688-520: Was the ancient Chinese frontier town of Mayi ( 马邑 ), which was used as a trading post between China and the Xiongnu nomads of the eastern Eurasian steppe . In 201   BC, the founder of the Han dynasty Liu Bang (posthumously known as Emperor Gaozu or the "High Ancestor") moved Han Xin from his fief around Yuzhou in Henan to Mayi, where he was attacked by the Xiongnu. Finding himself distrusted by

13806-423: Was to rendezvous with Li Jinquan and escort him safely back to Southern Tang, leaving Anyuan in Later Jin control. Li Chengyu, however, disobeyed Li Bian's orders and tried to defend Anyuan's capital An Prefecture ( 安州 ). Ma defeated, captured, and executed him. Li Bian subsequently wrote Shi, explaining that Li Chengyu had disobeyed orders. There was subsequent peace between the two states. Meanwhile, An Chongrong

13924-716: Was unclear when or how he received the surname of Shi. Most likely, Shi Jingtang descended from the Shatuo sub-tribe Anqing (安慶), specifically, from the Shi clan (石) of ultimately Sogdian origin. Shi Jingtang was born in 892, during the reign of Emperor Zhaozong of Tang , in Taiyuan . His mother was stated to be a Lady He, and it was not stated whether she was Shi Shaoyong's wife or concubine. (However, after he later became emperor, Shi Jingtang honored Shi Shaoyong's concubine Lady Liu , first as consort dowager, and then as empress dowager , suggesting

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