Zhu fan zhi

Zhu fan zhi (simplified Chinese: 诸蕃志; traditional Chinese: 諸蕃志; pinyin: Zhū fān zhì; Wade–Giles: Chu-fan-chi), variously translated as A Description of Barbarian Nations, Records of Foreign People, or other similar titles, is a Song Dynasty work by Zhao Rugua. The work is a collection of descriptions of countries and various products from outside China, and is a source of information on the people, customs and traded commodities of many countries around the world during the Song Dynasty.

Background

The author Zhao Rugua (1170-1231) was a member of the Song Dynasty imperial clan. He was posted to Fujian as a supervisor of the maritime trade in Quanzhou. While working in Fujian, he had the opportunity to meet merchants from various countries from whom he gathered information on various countries around the world. He also took note of the various products traded, studied the maps of the period, and together with the information he had learnt he wrote the book which he finished around 1225 CE. Zhao wrote: "Assigned to this post recently, I spend all day reading various maps... I listed names of these countries and their customs... I removed hearsay and kept facts. I thus name this book Zhu fan zhi."

Fan

Fan or fans may refer to:

Technology

People

Geology

One of several types of fan-shaped deposits of sediment caused by the flow of streams or glacial melt:

Places

Fanø

Fanø is a Danish island in the North Sea off the coast of southwestern Denmark, and is the very northernmost of the Danish Wadden Sea Islands. Fanø municipality is the municipality (Danish, kommune) that covers the island and its seat is the town of Nordby.

Island

Fanø is separated from the mainland by the Wadden Sea over a span of approximately five kilometres. The island is 16 km long and 5 km wide, and it is located off the coast from the city of Esbjerg to which it is connected by ferry. The ferry ride takes 12 minutes. The high ferry ticket prices that are often subject to price increases are considered by the locals to be a great threat to the local tourism industry.

A variety of environments are to be found on Fanø. Not surprisingly, a very common one is sand. The island's whole western shore is one long beach. The island's northwestern corner is a vast sandbank called "Søren Jessens Sand". Søren Jessen was an entrepreneur and captain from Hjerting, today the westernmost suburb of Esbjerg and the bank is named after him because his ship, the "Anne Catriane", stranded here in 1712.

La Belle Lucie

La Belle Lucie, The Fan, Clover Leaves, Three Shuffles and a Draw, Alexander the Great, Trefoil or Midnight Oil is a solitaire where the object is to build the cards into the foundations.

All cards are visible from the start, but this does not imply that this game is solvable with strategy. The default rule is very hard to win. The majority of games cannot be solved. For example, moving a single card onto another blocks that stack until both cards can be removed to the foundations. Any setup that has a lower card of a specific suit below a higher of the same suit, or all kings not on the bottom of each cascade cannot be solved without cheating. The shuffle and redeal is of little help. For each king left in the second redeal, there is a 66% chance that the cascade cannot be solved (if the king is not lowest). Moving aces out (Trefoil rule) has cosmetic character.

Rules

Zhu

Zhu or ZHU may refer to:

Zhu (string instrument)

The zhu (筑; pinyin: zhù) was an ancient Chinese string instrument. Although it is no longer used, three very old specimens in varying degrees of preservation survive. One with five strings, dating to approximately 433 BC, was discovered in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, in the Hubei province of central China.

It first became popular during the Warring States period, when its most famous player was Gao Jianli, a citizen of the state of Yan who attracted the attention and played for Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China.

The instrument remained popular through the Sui and Tang dynasties, and was lost during the Song Dynasty.

Little is known about the instrument but it is believed to have been a zither with a rectangular wooden body, with silk or gut strings that were played with a slender stick. Although ancient sources state that the instrument was struck (implying that the stick was bounced on the string in the manner of a hammered dulcimer in order to elicit sound), it is possible that it was actually plucked with the stick in the manner of the Korean komungo.

Zou (state)

Zou (simplified Chinese: 邹; traditional Chinese: 鄒), originally Zhu (邾) or Zhulou (邾婁), was a minor state that existed during the Zhou Dynasty of ancient China.

History

King Wu of Zhou granted Cao Xie (曹挾), an alleged descendant of the Yellow Emperor through his grandson, the legendary emperor Zhuanxu, control of the small state of Zhu as a vassal ruler under the State of Lu with the feudal title Viscount (子), but later holding the title Duke of Zhu (邾公). The ancestral surname of the ruling family was Cao (曹).

Zhu subsequently changed its name to Zou. The state of Zou was located in the southwest of modern-day Shandong Province. Its territory is now the county-level city of Zoucheng.

Demise

Zou was conquered and annexed by the state of Chu during the reign of King Xuan of Chu (r. 369–340 BC). The ruling family and its descendants adopted the Zhu (朱) surname in memory of their former state of Zhu (邾).

Legacy

Zhu is one of the most common surnames of modern-day China.

The noted Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi descends from the ruling house. The small state of Zou, however, is most famous as the birthplace of the Chinese philosopher Mencius. As the overlord State of Lu was the home state of Confucius and many of his disciples, this means that Confucianism's founder, and most of its minor sages and wise men hailed from or had ancestral roots in these two ancient states of China.