Emperor Wu of Liang

Emperor Wu of Liang (梁武帝) (464–549), personal name Xiao Yan (蕭衍), courtesy name Shuda (叔達), nickname Lian'er (練兒), was the founding emperor of the Liang Dynasty of Chinese history. His reign, until the end, was one of the most stable and prosperous during the Southern Dynasties.

Emperor Wu created universities and extending the Confucian civil service exams, demanding that sons of nobles study. He was well read himself and wrote poetry and patronized the arts. Although for governmental affairs he was Confucian in values, he embraced Buddhism as well. He himself was attracted to many Indian traditions. He banned the sacrifice of animals and was against execution. It was said that he received the Buddhist precepts during his reign, earning him the nickname The Bodhisattva Emperor. The Emperor is the namesake of the Emperor Liang Jeweled Repentance (梁皇寳懺), a widely read and major Buddhist text in China and Korea.

At the end of his reign, his overly lenient attitude on his clan's and officials' corruption and lack of dedication to the state came at a heavy price; when the general Hou Jing rebelled, few came to his aid, and Hou captured the capital Jiankang, holding Emperor Wu and his successor Emperor Jianwen under close control and plunging the entire Liang state into anarchy. Emperor Liang himself died while under house arrest, with some historians believing that Hou starved him to death.

Emperor Wu

Emperor Wu or the Wu Emperor (武帝, lit. "The Martial Emperor") is the posthumous name of numerous Chinese rulers:

The Emperor of Wu (吳帝) refers to:

See also

Emperor

An emperor (through Old French empereor from Latin: 'imperator') is a monarch, usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother (empress dowager), or a woman who rules in her own right (empress regnant). Emperors are generally recognized to be of a higher honour and rank than kings. In Europe the title of Emperor was, since the Middle Ages, considered equal or almost equal in dignity to that of Pope, due to the latter's position as visible head of the Church and spiritual leader of Western Europe. The Emperor of Japan is the only currently reigning monarch whose title is translated into English as "Emperor".

Both kings and emperors are monarchs, but emperor and empress are considered the higher monarchical titles. In so far as there is a strict definition of emperor, it is that an emperor has no relations implying the superiority of any other ruler, and typically rules over more than one nation. Thus a king might be obliged to pay tribute to another ruler, or be restrained in his actions in some unequal fashion, but an emperor should in theory be completely free of such restraints. However monarchs heading empires have not always used the title—the British sovereign did not assume the title until the incorporation of India into the British Empire, and even then used it only in a limited context. For purposes of protocol, emperors were once given precedence over kings in international diplomatic relations; currently, however, precedence amongst heads of state – whether they be Kings, Queens, Emperors, or Presidents – is determined by the duration of time that each one has been continuously in office.

Chinese martial arts

Chinese martial arts, often labeled under the umbrella terms Kung Fu (/ˈkʊŋ ˈfuː/; Chinese: 功夫; pinyin: gong fu) and Wushu (武术), are the several hundreds of fighting styles that have developed over the centuries in China. These fighting styles are often classified according to common traits, identified as "families" (家; jiā), "sects" (派; pài) or "schools" (門; mén) of martial arts. Examples of such traits include Shaolinquan (少林拳) physical exercises involving Five Animals (五形) mimicry, or training methods inspired by Chinese philosophies, religions and legends. Styles that focus on qi manipulation are called internal (内家拳; nèijiāquán), while others that concentrate on improving muscle and cardiovascular fitness are called "external" (外家拳; wàijiāquán). Geographical association, as in northern (北拳; běiquán) and "southern" (南拳; nánquán), is another popular classification method.

Terminology

Kung fu and wushu are loanwords from Chinese that, in English, are used to refer to Chinese martial arts. However, the Chinese terms kung fu and wushu ( listen (Mandarin) ; Cantonese: móuh-seuht) have distinct meanings. The Chinese equivalent of the term "Chinese martial arts" would be Zhongguo wushu (Chinese: 中國武術; pinyin: zhōngguó wǔshù) (Mandarin).

Han dynasty

The Han dynasty (Chinese: 漢朝; pinyin: Hàn cháo) was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 AD). Spanning over four centuries, the Han period is considered a golden age in Chinese history. To this day, China's majority ethnic group refers to itself as the "Han people" and the Chinese script is referred to as "Han characters". It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han, and briefly interrupted by the Xin dynasty (9–23 AD) of the former regent Wang Mang. This interregnum separates the Han dynasty into two periods: the Western Han or Former Han (206 BC – 9 AD) and the Eastern Han or Latter Han (25–220 AD).

The emperor was at the pinnacle of Han society. He presided over the Han government but shared power with both the nobility and appointed ministers who came largely from the scholarly gentry class. The Han Empire was divided into areas directly controlled by the central government using an innovation inherited from the Qin known as commanderies, and a number of semi-autonomous kingdoms. These kingdoms gradually lost all vestiges of their independence, particularly following the Rebellion of the Seven States. From the reign of Emperor Wu onward, the Chinese court officially sponsored Confucianism in education and court politics, synthesized with the cosmology of later scholars such as Dong Zhongshu. This policy endured until the fall of the Qing dynasty in AD 1911.