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    One-Minute Story of Influential Chinese Historical Figures
    One-Minute Story of Influential Chinese Historical Figures
    One-Minute Story of Influential Chinese Historical Figures
    Ebook139 pages1 hour

    One-Minute Story of Influential Chinese Historical Figures

    By Yanan Zhao

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    About this ebook

    Since 221 B.C, there have been 422 emperors in throne, from the first emperor in China, to the last emperor’s abdication in 1912. They possessed centralized political, financial and military power. This paramount power of a big country combined with different personalities and intelligence gave them legendary stories.

    Women in those emperors’ lives were countless, but important ones were influential and documented. They were glowing in a patriarchy society, because of their outstanding intelligences, incredible beauties, remarkable achievements and legendary destinies.

    Unlike many emperors who could inherit the throne and power from their royal families, ministers and generals usually needed to work hard and fight for chances to serve the country. Their fates were significantly influenced by emperors they were serving and the whole of society at that time. Some people realized their dreams and brought the whole of country prosperity, while some did horrible things that made society suffer from chaos and disasters.

    Thousands of years of history is full of happiness, sadness and grief, also consists of large numbers of epic, intriguing or controversial stories. People living, fighting and contributing in those extraordinary times are worth reading.

    Though each person’s story in this book could be written into a long biography or an interesting novel, the writer selects the most essential parts and makes an effort to introduce them explicitly and comprehensively. Almost each story could be finished within one minute, but the fun, thinking and shock after reading might last pretty long.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherYanan Zhao
    Release dateSep 13, 2017
    ISBN9781370470167
    One-Minute Story of Influential Chinese Historical Figures

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      Book preview

      One-Minute Story of Influential Chinese Historical Figures - Yanan Zhao

      One-Minute Story of Influential Chinese Historical Figures

      By Yanan Zhao

      Copyright 2017 Yanan Zhao

      Smashwords Edition

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      One-Minute Story of Influential Chinese Historical Figures

      In history, we are at least alone.

      Since 221 B.C, there have been 422 emperors in throne, from the first emperor in China, to the last emperor’s abdication in 1912. They possessed centralized political, financial and military power. This paramount power of a big country combined with different personalities and intelligence gave them legendary stories. 

      Women in those emperors’ lives were countless, but important ones were influential and documented. They were glowing in a patriarchy society, because of their outstanding intelligences, incredible beauties, remarkable achievements and legendary destinies.

      Unlike many emperors who could inherit the throne and power from their royal families, ministers and generals usually needed to work hard and fight for chances to serve the country. Their fates were significantly influenced by emperors they were serving and the whole of society at that time. Some people realized their dreams and brought the whole of country prosperity, while some did horrible things that made society suffer from chaos and disasters.

      Thousands of years of history is full of happiness, sadness and grief, also consists of large numbers of epic, intriguing or controversial stories. People living, fighting and contributing in those extraordinary times are worth reading.

      Though each person’s story in this book could be written into a long biography or an interesting novel, the writer selects the most essential parts and makes an effort to introduce them explicitly and comprehensively. Almost each story could be finished within one minute, but the fun, thinking and shock after reading might last pretty long.

      Table of Content

      1 Period of Clan Alliance

      2 Wars and Competitions Among Kingdoms

      3 The First Emperor and His United Feudal Kingdom

      4 Dynasty of Legendary Civilians

      5 Other Multifarious Emperors of Han Dynasty

      6 People in Turbulent Days

      7 Transient and Exceeding Glorious

      8 Creators of Prosperity

      9 Absurdness and Love of Royals

      10 People Living in A Falling Empire

      11 A Wealthy Dynasty and Its Artsy Emperors

      12 Fights in a Half-Country

      13 Genghis Khan and His Empire

      14 Establishment of Ming and Contention War Over the Throne

      15 Defending the Capital and Ming’s Dignity

      16 Glorious People in History

      17 The Last Feudal Dynasty Qing

      Chapter 1 Period of Clan Alliance

      Mysterious Chinese Founder of Military Strategy — Jiang Shang (about 1156B.C. —1017B.C.)

      The hereditary system, which replaced the abdication system before it, was established in China since 2070 B.C. by Xia Dynasty. It is the first kingdom of the clans’ alliance in China. In 1600 B.C., a slavery kingdom Shang Dynasty replaced Xia and ruled China until 1046B.C..

      The last king of Shang was courageous, aggressive, and talented in military. He had many wars with rebellion armies from other clans or small countries, as a result, territory was extended. Since decades of wars caused many loses, plus his luxury life, Shang was finally defeated by another small country.

      On that day, Shang’s last king wore all his precious clothes, and burnt himself in his favorite palace. The Shang Dynasty ended after this; some of his offsprings refused to surrender to a new dynasty and moved to the north, while some of them surrendered who were given some land and power by king of new dynasty.

      The leader of the clan who took the throne from Shang’s last king continued to use and improve the system which kings took tributes and military support from vassal states; moreover, a stricter etiquette system was built based on social status, with the help of a mysterious person named Jiang Shang.

      Jiang Shang was nobody until he was 72. His life before, however, remained mysterious. Historical records say he had a noble title but was very poor, and that he ran many small businesses; others believe he studied the magical arts on Mount Kunlun, which has always been the most mysterious mountain in China.

      The story goes that a king saw him using a straight fishhook fishing near a river, found him interesting and started to chat with him. Even though he was old and poor, the king was impressed by his extraordinary wisdom and insight; he invited Jiang back to his palace and, ultimately, respected Jiang as his most important minister.

      Jiang then assisted him and then his son in overthrowing the previous dynasty, building the Zhou Dynasty, and establishing many advanced policies systems to manage the country.

      No one knows where Jiang’s knowledge came from, but he was an outstanding politician, militarist, scientist and creator of Strategy. His military book has been researched and embraced by many famous military leaders. Centuries later, in some very famous novels, he was considered to be the one who assigned places to many of the celestials in China; himself, was also a widely respected immortal.

      Chapter 2 Wars and Competitions Among Kingdoms

      In the last 300 years of Zhou Dynasty, the king lost centralized power and became political puppets by many powerful leaders of some counties who kept fighting with each other. The last king of Zhou launched a war against the most powerful feudal lord; but he ended in failure and was murdered by that lord. After his death, the Zhou dynasty officially ended. The endless wars amongst many powerful lords made territories of kingdoms kept changing. By the time of 475B.C., there were 7 strong kingdoms left.

      Besides large scale of aggressive battles, there were many other types of strategies to make a kingdom more powerful and win. Generals used their military talents and braveness to fight for, protect and honor their country in battlefields while other people serving their countries in other ways.

      Writer of the Art of War — Sun Tzu (about 545B.C. —470B.C.)

      Sun Tzu was born into a military family, and was a good friend of a famous minister in the Wu kingdom.

      When his king was planning to extend territory westward, his friend, the minister, recommended him 7 times until the king finally agreed to meet him. Sun then presented his ideas about the military and war, which impressed everyone deeply. He also showed his talent in regard to the training of an army by turning the king’s concubines and female maids into an army with combat effectiveness within a very short time.

      Together with his friend, they assisted the king and won many wars, and made their kingdom one of the most powerful countries at that time. However, his friend was set up, falsely convicted and sentenced to death by some political enemies’ opponents. Sun was, therefore, disillusioned and left the king, living in seclusion from that point onward. This was a disaster to the king since after he and his talented minister friend left, the king was seduced by a ‘honey trap’ Xishi. Due to all this reasons, their kingdom was defeated and perished.

      Sun’s military achievements were extraordinary, but his book The Art of War was even more influential. He wrote many articles during his seclusion, yet the Art of War was only one preserved and disseminated. Nowadays, the theories and philosophical opinions in that book are widely used in many other fields outside of the military.

      The First Honey Trap with Mysterious Ending — Xi Shi (about 2,500 years ago)

      Xi Shi was top of the Four Beauties in China, and the first famous honey trap or beauty spy. Born in a family of poverty, she used to wash laundry with her mother for living. She was very beautiful and even fishes in the river would hide and forget to swim when she was doing laundry by the river.

      She was a citizen of the kingdom Yue, which had a big failure in a battle with the kingdom Wu where Sun Tzu was serving. Some ministers of Yue selected her because of her beauty and trained her to sing, dance and have proper etiquette for 3 years, and then sent her to the king of Wu.

      The king of Wu was originally talented and diligent and could run his kingdom well and win in battles, with assistant of Sun Tzu and his minister friend. However, after with Xi Shi, he was so attracted and indulged with her beauty, talent, and softness;

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