Lee Yun (李淵 566－635) is the first emperor of the Tang Dynasty (唐朝). There isn’t a whole lot one can say about the founder of one of China’s greatest dynasties. Unlike other founders he wasn’t ambitious and certainly no one can accused him of being capable. He, however, did fathered an extraordinary son, Lee...
The life of Lee Guang (李廣) makes for interesting reading. There are legendary heroic deeds, unbelievable misfortune and human errors. In short, it is a Greek tragedy play in real life. We have very little, if not no, information on his life prior to 166BC (漢文帝十四年). Thanks to the great historian Sema Qian (司馬遷)...
Very little is known about Lao Tze. So little that even his surname is clouded in uncertainties. However, it is generally accepted that his name was Li Er (李耳) or Lao Tan (老聃), and was born in the state of Chu (楚國) during the Zhou dynasty (周朝), but the date of his birth is...
Zhao Mengfu (1254 – 1322) born during the latter part of the Song dynasty and died just shy of the half point of the Yuan dynasty. He attained a very high position in the Mongolian court. This was a major aspect that his critics focused on because as the 11th generation descendant of Zhao...
China’s history is one continuous loop of unification and fragmentation. The fragmentation period could be as short as half a century or longer than two hundred years. Unification happened when one of the warlords defeated the pretenders after many battles. With such a background one would expect to find a large number of professional...
The period 713-756AD was when the Tang Dynasty reached its zenith. It was also China’s golden age of poetry. Then it is no surprise the era produced China’s two greatest poets, To Pu (杜甫) and Li Bai (李白). Li Bai’s life time (701-762AD) neatly framed this period. He was born in the steppe of...
