Category: Chinese Classics

The Qianjiashi 千家诗 "Poems of one thousand writers" is an anthology of poems from the Tang 唐 (618-907), Five Dynasties五代 (907-960) and Song 宋 (960-1279) periods. The complete title of the collection is Fenmen leizuan Tang-Songshi xian qianjia shixuan 分门纂类唐宋时贤千家诗选 "Selected poems of one thousand excellent authors from the Tang and Song periods, arranged in various categories". It was compiled by the Southern Song period 南宋 (1127-1279) scholar Liu Kezhuang 刘克庄. Following his scholarly style name, Houcun 后村, the anthology is also called Houcun Qianjiashi 后村千家诗. It is 22 juan "scrolls" long and is divided into 14 chapters.

The Qianziwen 千字文 "Thousand-characters text" is a character text book for elementary learning. There are two books with that title, namely one from theLiang period 梁 (502-557) writer Prince Xiao Zifan 萧子范, which is already lost, and one by Zhou Xingsi 周兴嗣 from the same period. The book was compiled on imperial order by using one thousand characters of the oeuvres of the famous calligrapher Wang Xizhi 王羲之 from the Eastern Jin period 东晋 (317-420). Zhou selected one thousand different, often-used characters and composed them to a long poem, of which each verse is 4 words or characters long. Each two verses rhyme, so that they are easily to remember. The words cover all aspects of nature and human life, and thus also serve to learn the most important characters of all fields, like the universe, history, self-cultivation, learning, eating and drinking, living, gardens, sacrifices, and much more.

The Quantangshi 全唐诗 is a collection of all preserved shi poems 诗 from the Tang 唐 (618-907) and Five Dynasties 五代 (907-960) periods. It was compiled in the early years of the 18th century by a team led by Cao Yin 曹寅 and Peng Dingyiu 彭定求. Some of the team members were Shen Sanceng 沈三曾, Yang Zhongna 杨中讷, Pan Conglü 潘从律, Wang Shihong 汪士纮, Xu Shuben 徐树本, Ju Dingjin 车鼎晋, Cha Sili 查嗣瑮, Wang Yi 汪绎, and Yu Mei 俞梅. The Quantangshicontains nearly 50,000 poems (including fragments) of more than 2,200 persons, arranged in 900 juan "scrolls". To each person a short biography is added.

Konghou, also called Kanhou, is an ancient plucked stringed instrument in China. There are mainly three kinds of Konghou: one is played lying flat, one is played upright and another one is the phoenix-headed Konghou.

The I Ching (易经, YìJīnɡ), is also called Yi Jing,is one of the oldest know documents in the world. This “Classic of Change” was written by 3000 years ago, and the Chinese claim was passed down as oral tradition for 2000 years before that.

The Mingshi 明史 "History of the Ming" is the official dynastic history (zhengshi 正史) of the Ming dynasty 明 (1368-1644). Over time it had become common for a newly established dynasty to compile an official history of the preceeding dynasty. The compilation of the Mingshi started in 1679 and it was only finished in 1739 when it was submitted to the throne by Zhang Tingyu 张廷玉. The first imperial order to compile the history of the Ming was issued in 1645, one year after theManchus' conquest of Beijing but at such an early point of time it was not possible to collect material and sources sufficient for such a task. Only in 1679 a Compilation Office for the History of the Ming (Mingshiguan 明史馆) was established. The compilation team was supervised by Xu Yuanwen 徐元文 and led by Ye Fang'ai 叶方蔼, Zhang Yushu 张玉书, Tang Bin 汤斌 and Xu Qianxue 徐干学. One of the most important contributors was Wan Sitong 万斯同. In 1691 the draft version with a length of 416 juan "scrolls" was finished, the Mingshigao 明史稿.