T'ang

The significance of the life and achievements of Li Shih-Min, who reigned from a.d. 626-49 emperor T’ai Tsung of the T’ang dynasty, cannot be appreciated without some knowledge of the age which immediately preceded his birth.

In 618 when the T’ang Dynasty replaced the Sui, not only was an attempt made to get a much firmer grip on China, but the Emperors ordered their generals to crush Kaokouli.

Wylie personally examined the monument in Sian-fu and published a translation of the inscription in Shang-hai in 1854. This included in detail the opinions of Chinese authorities, many historical notes and calligraphical records of the T'ang dynasty.

The balanced planning of the ancient city on the Mu-tan-chiang corresponds on the whole to the layout of the capital of the T'ang Dynasty, Ch'ang-an. The same street plans are found in the ancient capitals of Japan, Nara and Kyoto, built on the Chinese model.

At Canton I had another trip to make before returning to the United States. I was to fly to Kuei-lin. Kuei-lin had been famous for more than a thousand years for its unusual natural scenery of hills and water. It is situated in the southwest of China's Kwangsi Chuang Autonomous Region. As its scenery had been so well described in many poems since the T'ang and Sung periods, of the seven to thirteenth centuries, I, like thousands of Chinese youngsters who read those poems, had longed to visit it in my young days but never had the opportunity, for it was so far away from my home city. I therefore grasped this chance and asked to have at least two days reserved for the trip.

I spent a quiet day sitting on the balcony in the pale spring sun knitting and reading T'ang poetry.

In Han and T’ang times, he pointed out, when the capital had been at Hsi-an, dynasties had been particularly concerned with the northwest: P’ien-kuan and Shuo-fang.

Since the end of the T’ang dynasty, Chu Hsi’s ancestors had been settled in Kuan village of Wu-yüan county, then the southernmost county in She prefecture, Chiang-nan East circuit (currently the northeast corner of Kiangsi province).

According to a biography of her father commissioned by Wu Chao in 699, it was Wu Shih-huo who spurred Li Yüan - the future Emperor Kao-tsu, founder of the T'ang dynasty - to rebel against the Sui.

Collecting art was hereditary among the Rockefellers. “Each generation built on the other generation in their collecting,” Ms. Darby said, pointing out notable pieces in the house, such as the T’ang dynasty Chinese tomb figures in the vestibule, the seventh-century Chinese Bodhisattva in the tearoom and a portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart in the library.