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The relationship between social factors and the formation of exported mug designs is blurred. This study addresses how they influence material design. Based on a quantitative typological analysis, this paper interprets the cultural relationships underlying the evolution of mug designs exported during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The study reveals: (1) the typology and handle styles of mugs can be categorized into six types, with a predominance of Cylindrical bodies and Ear-shaped handles. Notably, artistic emphasis is concentrated on Bulbous cup bodies and Tail outward curved handles; (2) the design of mugs in the eighteenth century exhibited diversity, morphological similarities, and feature continuity, evolving from representational (Ming Dynasty) to abstract and then to minimalistic styles (Qing Dynasty), particularly evident in the three-dimensional modeling of handles for ergonomic comfort (transitioning from a singular Outward curved form to Ear-shaped form, and then to Entwined branch form); (3) the body shape of mugs transformed from Arc-barrel bodies to Bulbous bodies (focusing on heat retention), and eventually to Cylindrical bodies (prioritizing heat retention, practicality, and cost-efficiency).; (4) the volume of mugs steadily increased from the early eighteenth century, generally classified into large volume (≥ 500 ml), medium volume (200-499 ml), and small volume (< 200 ml); (5) considering the extreme range of volume (11090 ml) and height (25 cm), it indicates that these two variables do not necessarily have a direct positive correlation; (6) the low center of gravity in handle design (average width of 3.4 cm against an average height of 9.9 cm for the body) reflects considerations for the distribution of liquid weight and operational convenience. The volume of sample-10 (11127 ml) notably exceeds the typical range for tea-drinking utensils, revealing the mechanism of wealth and status symbolism. Market demand orientation emerged as the primary driver for the evolution of export mug designs during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, with adjustments in the merchant system playing a secondary role. The transformation in mug design reflects the interplay of multiple factors, with the trend toward minimalist design being a response to market demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines four typologies of secularism in China from the sixteenth century onward, through an analysis of the triadic relationship between the secular, religious, and superstitious. These notions have been considered to be derived from the particular intellectual and political history of the West, but this fails to grasp the complexity of non-Western belief systems. This article proposes to instead examine how Chinese policymakers and intellectuals actively fabricated religion and produced secularization. It goes beyond a simple rebuttal of Eurocentrism, and arguments regarding the mutual incomparability of Western and Chinese experiences of secularization. It distinguishes four typologies of secularism that emerged successively in China: (1) the reduction of Christianity from the sixteenth century to the 1900s; (2) the Confucian secular and (3) atheist secular that were conceptualized, respectively, by royalist reformers and anti-Manchu revolutionaries during the final two decades of the Qing Dynasty; and (4) the interventionist secularism pursued by the Republican and the Communist regimes to strictly supervise and regulate religious beliefs and practices. The paper argues that, if secularization is indeed Christian in nature, secularism and religion were not imposed in China under Western cultural and political hegemony. Instead, the Christian secular model was produced in China mainly via pre-existing cultural norms and the state's ad hoc political needs, making the Christian secularism itself a multipolar phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of a large‐scale censorship campaign in Qing China (1644–1911) on intellectuals' writings. Using a Difference‐in‐Difference approach and analysing 23,000 poems, the study reveals a significant decrease in the frequency of censored words in poems written by censored intellectuals. There was no room to circumvent censorship by adopting homophones, split words, and variant characters. The machine learning analyses uncover some indication that the censorship campaign influenced intellectuals' writing styles, with intellectuals shifting away from the censored poetry. The campaign created intense political pressures, leading to self‐censorship, but its long‐term impact on word choices was minimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic discussion of traditional zinc-smelting technology in China has been hampered by a paucity of physical data recovered from early production sites. In recent years, however, the discovery of former zinc-smelting sites in the municipality of Chongqing in south-western China has provided important evidence from archaeological excavations that contribute to the study of this topic. Taking the smelting furnace found at the Linjiangerdui site in Zhong County as an example, this paper introduces and discusses the form, use and maintenance of the zinc-smelting furnace of the Ming Dynasty (AD 1368–1644), and makes a preliminary comparison with the smelting furnaces dating to the Qing Dynasty (AD 1636–1912) unearthed in Shizhu County and the mountainous Hunan Province in an attempt to elucidate the development and evolution of ancient Chinese zinc-smelting technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A coalition of Chinese, Vietnamese, and French authorities spent much of 1878–1879 putting down a thousands-strong revolt led by Li Yangcai, an officer dismissed from the Guangxi provincial army. Using Chinese and Vietnamese court records, newspapers, and memoirs, I argue that the Li Yangcai rebellion and the imperial reactions, albeit ephemeral and limited compared to other revolts and their responses in the tumultuous nineteenth century, underline the crucial element of personal connections in borderland insurgencies during the last decades of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912). Literature on these figures highlights how personal circumstances, particularistic connections, and the borderland setting played a key role in facilitating the growth of these small but influential insurgencies. My examination of Li Yangcai, focusing on similar elements, contributes to the growing scholarship on limited wars. Additionally, I show how the state, in addition to using official bureaucratic channels, relied on personal relationships with influential characters in the local communities to suppress the rebels. I demonstrate not only how people behaved within institutional constraints but also how the state incorporated personal ties into its institutional arsenal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Historische Zeitschrift is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Due to the lack of research on the embroidery types and needle techniques of the Gaoshan nationality of Taiwan, China, we used the two-dimensional verification method of literature and image analysis, Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to illustrate their stitching techniques and to summarize the basic application rules of Gaoshan embroidery stitch. The results show that the Gaoshan nationality in Taiwan is closely related to the Han nationality. Since the Qing Dynasty, after the Gaoshan nationality traded with the Han nationality in Chinese mainland, the embroidery utensils of the Gaoshan nationality have been gradually improved. According to the degree of communication with the Han nationality, the embroidery of the Gaoshan nationality is divided into primitive ecological embroidery and immigrated embroidery. The primitive ecological embroidery has a strong primitive and religious atmosphere. The immigrated embroidery has been developed from the integration of Han and Gaoshan ethnic characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The roots of the genealogy writing tradition of the Chinese Sibe go back to the Qing Dynasty. This tradition has played a crucial role to create a genealogical community of the Sibe: genealogies were the material carriers of knowledge preserved about their ancestors and their past. However, many of the genealogies were lost during the turbulent time of the twentieth century, and although numerous Sibe clans embark on reproducing their own family trees, it is only the memory of the elderly they can most often draw on. This study is intended to present and highlight the significance a specific collection of genealogies compiled by a self-taught Sibe historian, offering valuable sources for conduct research on the history of the Qing-dynasty and the Sibe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global historical land use scenarios, including HYDE3.2 and PJ, are widely used in global change research. However, their uncertainties have not been well evaluated. Based on the historical-documents-based Chinese historical cropland dataset (CHCD), we evaluated the uncertainties of the representative global historical land use scenarios in past-millennium cropland reconstruction in China in terms of the area and spatial pattern. The results show that apparent differences exist in cropland area at the national scale between HYDE3.2 or PJ and CHCD for the Song-Liao-Jin Era (AD 1000–1279) and the Qing dynasty to present (AD 1644–1999), with a maximum relative difference ratio (RDR) of about −35% and 112%, respectively. We detected similar differences at the provincial scale, except for Guizhou, Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Xinjiang provinces. Specifically, HYDE3.2 underestimates cropland areas of nine provinces, with an absolute difference of up to 5.2 × 104 km2, while overestimates cropland areas of ten provinces, with an absolute difference of up to 5.1 × 104 km2. As for the spatial pattern, the percentage of grids with an absolute value of RDR greater than 70% between HYDE3.2 and CHCD reach up to 54%–82%, mainly distributed in major agricultural areas, frontier areas, and geographical transition zones. In conclusion, neither HYDE3.2 nor PJ reflects China's cropland area and its past-millennium change accurately, resulting from the differences in data sources, area estimation, and spatial allocation methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is “Sichuan Qingyin Performance in China; The Transmission Process, Obstruction and Way to Resolve”. The study employed the qualitative research methodology of ethnomusicology. The objectives were to 1) Investigate the development of Sichuan Qingyin performance in China. 2) Examine the transmission process of Sichuan Qingyin performance in Sichuan and Chongqing, China. Based on the study findings, 1) Sichuan Qingyin is closely related to ancient Chinese Quyi art. The sources of Sichuan Qingyin are complex. Sichuan Qingyin was formed roughly during the early Qing Dynasty. From the late Qing Dynasty to the early years of the Republic of China, Sichuan Qingyin flourished. During this period, the performances of Sichuan Qingyin were very popular in the streets of Sichuan and Chongqing. Sichuan Qingyin has developed significantly since the People's Republic of China was founded. Due to changes in the times, Sichuan Qingyin is being squeezed by other art forms, so the present state of affairs is not optimistic. 2) Today, the transmission process consists mainly of school education and professional performance groups. There are many obstacles to contemporary Sichuan Qingyin, such as a lack of performance venues, a loss of audiences, and an absence of newly composed works; this study outlines corresponding measures and recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores how an artisan community in Canton adapted European clock-making technology to the making of automata in a Chinese aesthetic style. Moreover, it positions a unique automaton from the National Museum of Denmark in relation to a Chinese story and connected drinking game. Approaching the mechanical tableau as continuously in the process of being cocreated across social and global boundaries, it points to how new technology impacted ways of trading in the international community in Canton. When the elites in Canton set the mechanical tableau drumming, chiming, and spinning; gulped their wine, and passed each other flowering branches, they cocreated and performed a social ritual that traversed boundaries. Ultimately, a close reading of the sculpture reveals an often invisible aspect of international trade: that negotiations could rely on play as much as power, capital, and influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The architectural conservation movement began in China during an era of transformation. In the period from 1840 to 1966, i.e., the end of the Qing Dynasty to the initial 17 years of the People's Republic of China, China changed its regime twice times, from the feudal Qing dynasty to the Republic of China (ROC) and then to the People's Republic of China (PRC). In of the past regime changes usually led to the complete demolition of historic buildings and cities by successive authorities. However, both the Kuomintang Party (the ruling party of ROC) and the Communist Party of China (the ruling party of PRC) chose to protect historic buildings and cities, as they considered architectural conservation helpful for nation-building. Their actions encouraged the generation of architectural conservation in China. The paper reviews the development of architectural conservation in China. It introduces the conservation policies of the KMT and CPC authorities and discusses how the government-led conservation policies impacted the development of the Chinese conservation movement. The paper provides an example from China reflective of the political influences on conservation practice in a global context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on the origins of modern territoriality and the modernist conception of territory has largely been confined to Europe and its colonial histories. Few attempts have been made to understand modern territoriality from an alternative epistemic starting point. This article moves beyond critiques of Eurocentrism by examining the territorial metamorphosis of the Qing Empire to modern China. Like the United States and Russia, China has retained its early modern continental colonial possessions. In order to explain the territorialisation of the multi-ethnic Qing empire, this article engages empirically with cartographic and textual representations of China from Confucian literati scholars, European Jesuit cartographers and the Manchu imperial court from the 17th to the early 19th centuries. The empirical study shows that by the early 19th century, a new territorialised conception of 'China' closely resembling that of modern territoriality had emerged. This 'modern' and Sinocentric form of territoriality encompassed areas that were hitherto seen as foreign and non-Chinese. In opposition to the extant Eurocentric historiography, this article traces the emergence of modern territoriality in imperial China to a nexus of European cartographic techniques, Qing imperial conquests and the literati synthesis of Manchu imperial and Sinocentric forms of territoriality. By showing the deep historical processes and global entanglements behind the emergence of modern China as a territorial state, the article makes a case for a polycentric account of modern territoriality [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Historia is the property of Historical Association of South Africa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article analyzes the instrumentalization of "China" in contacts between the Ming and Qing dynasties and Siam-Ayutthaya. It focuses both on the state-to-state relations and those between various members of the Siamese and the imperial societies. "China" and "Chinese-ness" stood for forms of ascribed identity within the Sinocentric world, for a form of social distinction, and for one of many identities assumed in the games of political loyalty. For the Ming and Qing empires, inclusion of a foreign land within "China" was conducted through the ritual and administrative fictions that situated Ayutthaya within a hierarchy vis-à-vis the imperial capital. Beyond the state's discourses, participation in a vaguely defined Chinese culture were means of building social networks within the merchant and official communities in Ayutthaya. For the junkmen that connected Ayutthaya and South China, multiple Chinese identities were instrumentalized and inflected according to the needs and necessities of the moment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decoration with feathers is a universal phenomenon in human history. Objects decorated with feathers were regarded as fine artworks and hence were enormously prized. In ancient China, dotting a surface with blue kingfisher feathers was a famous, complex and delicate decoration technique called diancui. Although various ancient diancui artworks appear in many museums around the world and researchers have realized significant results in studies of the history, technique and conservation of diancui, some key historical details are still not clear. In this research performed during restoration, an important object from the Palace Museum, the "Feather Decoration Hanging Screen with Birds and Flowers Pattern", was analyzed by various scientific technologies. This object is a Chinese imperial artwork of the Qing dynasty (seventeenth to eighteenth century) decorated with kingfisher feathers and the feathers of several other birds, and it represents the highest level of this period. As a typical and valuable case, the results provide important clues for solving questions arising from related academic fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the dominance of a two-generation approach to the study of intergenerational social mobility, multigenerational influences that link the characteristics of kin across three or more generations may be important in some populations. These effects include direct net effects of grandparents' socioeconomic characteristics on grandchildren, the effects of even more remote generations, the effects of family characteristics that bring extreme advantage or disadvantage at points in the past that are not uniformly tied to any specific past generation, a variety of demographic effects that both reweight socioeconomic distributions in successive generations and also incorporate multigenerational effects on demographic behavior itself, heterogeneous multigenerational effects in populations that contain more than one social mobility regime, and long-run multigenerational effects that result from mobility-fertility interactions in population dynamics. Genealogical data from the Qing Dynasty Imperial Lineage and from population registry data for Liaoning, China over the past several centuries provide illustrations of all of these types of multigenerational effects. Multigenerational influence is much more multi-faceted than previous speculations and empirical investigations have implied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two masterpieces of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912 CE), one in gilded brass (incense burner) decorated with cloisonné enamels stylistically attributed to the end of the Kangxi Emperor's reign, the other in gold (ewer offered by Napoleon III to the Empress as a birthday present), decorated with both cloisonné and painted enamels bearing the mark of the Qianlong Emperor, were non-invasively studied by optical microscopy, Raman microspectroscopy and X-ray microfluorescence spectroscopy (point measurements and mapping) implemented on-site with mobile instruments. The elemental compositions of the metal substrates and enamels are compared. XRF point measurements and mappings support the identification of the coloring phases and elements obtained by Raman microspectroscopy. Attention was paid to the white (opacifier), blue, yellow, green, and red areas. The demonstration of arsenic-based phases (e.g., lead arsenate apatite) in the blue areas of the ewer, free of manganese, proves the use of cobalt imported from Europe. The high level of potassium confirms the use of smalt as the cobalt source. On the other hand, the significant manganese level indicates the use of Asian cobalt ores for the enamels of the incense burner. The very limited use of the lead pyrochlore pigment (European Naples yellow recipes) in the yellow and soft green cloisonné enamels of the Kangxi incense burner, as well as the use of traditional Chinese recipes for other colors (white, turquoise, dark green, red), reinforces the pioneering character of this object in technical terms at the 17th–18th century turn. The low level of lead in the cloisonné enamels of the incense burner may also be related to the use of European recipes. On the contrary, the Qianlong ewer displays all the enameling techniques imported from Europe to obtain a painted decoration of exceptional quality with the use of complex lead pyrochlore pigments, with or without addition of zinc, as well as cassiterite opacifier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do external shocks affect local government quality and, consequently, long-term economic development? The collapse in 1911 of the Qing Dynasty in China was one of the greatest institutional shocks in world history, marking the end of more than 2,000 years of imperial rule. We exploit this shock to examine the impact of changes in historic local government quality on economic development today. By measuring variations in governance quality across 1,664 Chinese counties and examining their impact on long-term economic development, we show that historical differences in local governance quality are strong predictors of current geographical differences in economic development. This positive relationship is robust to a rich gamut of controls and checks. To further address causality issues, we instrument historical government quality with the location of military towns in the preceding Ming dynasty. The analysis shows that history has left a deep legacy on governance differences across China that determine, to a considerable extent, current Chinese regional inequalities. • Historical differences in local governance quality in China are a predictor of current differences in economic development. • Centuries of a system —the Chongfanpinan— that enshrined geographical differences in government quality still matter for local development today. • The influence of 2000 years of imperial rule is still deeply embedded in Chinese society. • Such historical influence has survived the century of political and economic upheaval that followed the demise of the Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]