Cheng Yu

Cheng Yu (141-220), originally named Cheng Li (he changed his name to Yu (lit. "lifting the sun"), after dreaming of the sun on top of Mount Tai), courtesy name Zhongde, was one of the major strategists serving under the warlord Cao Cao in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. He died in the same year when the state of Cao Wei was established by Cao Cao's successor Cao Pi, which marked the start of the Three Kingdoms period. Cheng Yu was described to be a very tall man (approximately 1.91m) with a beautiful long beard. He was from Dong'e County, Dong commandery (near present-day Liaocheng, Shandong). Cheng Yu was best known at his time for his abnormal approach to outwit a shortage on grain: instead of sending hostage to Yuan Shao for food, he advised Cao Cao to feed the army with human! He was also noted for his expertise in military tactics, which helped Cao Cao defeat his rival Yuan Shao in northern China. It was widely agreed that his numerous contributions laid the foundation of Wei, the reason he was not promoted to the rank of a duke was only because of his fore-mentioned strategy to cope with the food shortage in Yan Province.

Cheng Yu (musician)

Cheng Yu is a Chinese musician. She is internationally renowned as a performer of the pipa, a Chinese four-stringed lute, but also plays the guqin, a seven-stringed zither, and is a virtuoso, scholar and specialist of Chinese music.

She gained a BMus in China and an MMus in the United Kingdom. She completed her PhD studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London on Ancient Xi'an Music and regularly performs throughout the UK.

She plays, records and researches widely on traditional and contemporary Chinese music as well as cross-cultural music collaborations in the UK, Europe and other places. In her recent project in 2005, she successfully re-created a modern version of the lost Tang Dynasty five-stringed pipa, based on the study of old Tang dynasty pipas and lutes from the East Asian cultures.

She is the founder of the UK Chinese Ensemble in 1994 and the London Youlan Qin Society in 2003.

Biography

Cheng Yu was born in Beijing, but grew up in Gansu Province in Northwest China when her family was exiled during the Cultural Revolution. She studied the southern Pudong style of pipa with her father from the age of seven and was further trained by pipa masters in the north-western Pinghu style later. She also studied and graduated with distinction in the Xi'an Conservatory of Music in 1987 for the guqin. She won the "outstanding pipa player" award in China in the same year she was selected as a pipa soloist in the China Central Orchestra of Chinese Music in Beijing.