Xiang (place)

Xiang was a place in Guangxi province where there was an idol to Gan. Feeling that Gan was an embodiment of immorality and other evils, Hong Xiuquan, Lu Liu and Feng Yunshan destroyed the idol and desecrated the temple to Gan in the 1840s.

Xiang later became one of the early bases of the Taiping.

Sources

Spence, Jonathan. God's Chinese Son (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1996) p. 100, 110

Xiang

Xiang or Hsiang may refer to:

Xiang Chinese

Xiang (Hsiang, simplified Chinese: 湘语; traditional Chinese: 湘語) or imprecisely Hunanese (Chinese: 湖南话), is a group of linguistically similar and historically related varieties of Chinese, spoken mainly in Hunan province but also in a few parts of Guangxi, Sichuan and Shaanxi. Scholars divided Xiang into five subgroups, Chang-Yi, Lou-Shao, Hengzhou, Chen-Xu and Yong-Quan. Among those, Lou-shao, as known as Old Xiang, still exhibits the three-way distinction of Middle Chinese obstruents, preserving the voiced stops, fricatives, and affricates. Xiang has also been heavily influenced by Mandarin, which adjoins three of the four sides of the Xiang speaking territory, and Gan in Jiangxi Province, from where a large population immigrated to Hunan during the Ming Dynasty.

Xiang speakers played an important role in Modern Chinese history, especially in those reformatory and revolutionary movements such as Self-Strengthening Movement, Hundred Days' Reform, Xinhai Revolution and Chinese Communist Revolution. Some examples of Xiang speakers are Mao Zedong, Zuo Zongtang, Huang Xing and Ma Ying-jeou.

Emperor Shun

Shun (Chinese: 舜; pinyin: Shùn), also known as Emperor Shun (Chinese: 帝舜; pinyin: Dìshùn) and Chonghua (Chinese: 重華; pinyin: Chónghuá), was a legendary leader of ancient China, regarded by some sources as one of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. Oral tradition holds that he lived sometime between 2294 and 2184 BCE.

Names

Shun's ancestral name (姓) is Yao (姚), his clan name (氏) is Youyu (有虞). His given name was Chonghua (重華). Shun is sometimes referred to as the Great Shun (大舜) or as Yu Shun (虞舜). The "Yu" in "Yu Shun" was the name of the fiefdom, which Shun received from Yao; thus, providing him the title of "Shun of Yu").

Life of Shun

According to traditional sources, Shun received the mantle of leadership from Emperor Yao at the age of 53, and then died at the age of 100 years. Before his death Shun is recorded as relinquishing his seat of power to Yu(禹): an event which is supposed to have eventuated in the establishment of the Xia Dynasty. Shun's capital was located in Puban (蒲阪), presently located in Shanxi).