CHINA, the empire in the centre and east of continental Asia, known to Europe by this name, is called by the western Mongols, Cathay ; by the Manchu Tartars it is called Nikan Kourn ; and by the Chinese Tehoung-koue, the last term meaning the Central Kingdom (Duhaldo, Mist. of China, p. 1), also Tchoung-kuo, the Empire of tho Centre. According to M. Hue (i. pp. 349-330), the Chinese also name it Tchoung-hoa, or Flower of the Centre; also Tien-his, the Beneath the Heavens, or the world, as the Romans called their dominions Orbis. The name most in use is Tchoung-koud. It is also, however, called Tangshan, the Hills of Tang (the name of one of their most celebrated dynasties). The present reigning family has given it the name of Tat-sing-km°, the Empire of Great Purity ; and in government proclamations, especially in those addressed to Barbarians, it is often called Tien-chao, the Celestial Empire. Other figurative appellations are Tchoung- thang and Tien-chao, Heaven's Empire. The natives call them selves Chung-kuo - teih jin, men of the middle kingdom; also Han-jin and Tang-jin, men of Han or of Tang (from the dynasties of those names). China 1s supposed to bo the country mentioned as the land of Sinim in Isaiah xlix. 12. Chinese annals extend back for three or four thousand years. Fo-hi is the first named sovereign of the Chinese, but the date of his reign is not ascer tained. Yu the Great is the first monarch of whose reality there is no historic doubt. Their Bambus-book contains the record of the ancient imperial dynasties from B.C. 1991 to A.D. 264:— let. Ilia, the first emperor Yu beginning B.C. 1991, reigned 432 years.
2d. Shang, began Lc. 1559, lasted 509 years ; 28 reigns in 15 generations.
3d. Tsheu, began Ito. 1050, lasted 479 years. The 12th emperor Yen Yang began to reign B.0.781. His sixth year was B.C. 776. Confucius lived under this dynasty, and he recorded the observations of the solar eclipses from B.C. 481 upwards to 720.
4th. Tsin, began B.C. 2.55, and lasted to 207, 49 years. 5th. Han, began B.C. 206, and lasted to A.D. 264, a total of 469 years.
But systematic Chinese history hardly goes back so far as the reign of Yu, who was tho founder of the dominion of the kings or princes of Shen-si in S. China, as far as the great river. Ho diverted the course of the Yellow River to fertilize the lands between the two rivers.
Prior to Chi-hoang of the Tsin dynasty, about 255 years B.C., the country had been subdivided into numerous principalities and commonwealths, but that warrior emperor brought them all under subjection. He built the Great Wall to keep off the Tartars. Scree, which Horace and the ancients used, seems to have been strictly applicable to some nation in the west of China, and many authors have surmised that the term China (Cheena) was given to the country when the Tsin dynasty carried their arms to the west. China (Cheena) was early given by the people of the N.W. of India to the nation which Europe now calls China.
Tho Tsin dynasty was overthrown by Lin-pang of the Ilan province, who was the first of the Ilan dynasty. With the destruction of the Tsin dynasty great injury resulted to the Chinese annals; but most of the Han princes were muni fieent patrons of literature. During the reign of
Ming-ti, the 15th of the Han dynasty, consider able intercourse was carried on between the princtst of India and China; but it was particularly during the dynasties of Sum, Loam, and Tam, from the fourth to the seventh centuries A.D., that princes from Bengal and Malabar northwards to the Panjab sent embassies to the Chinese monarchs. Nearer our own times, the Ming and Tsing dynasties have ruled from A.D. 1368 to the close of the 19th cen tury, viz. : Origin and Early History. — All the ancient traditions of the Chinese refer to their migrations from the west. Chevalier Bunsen (Report, Brit. Assoc., 1847) says that, according to Chinese traditions, Tibet is the land of their earliest recol lections. But the first settlers of this race in China were probably emigrants from the lands lying to the south of the Caspian. An early rela tionship existed between Chinese and Mesopo tamian culture, among the most striking proofs of which are the facts that `the primitive Chinese, like the Babylonians, recognised five planets besides the sun and moon, and, with one excep tion, knew them by the same names ;' and ' a comparison between the ancient names of the months given in the Urh ya, the oldest Chinese dictionary, with the Accadian equivalents, shows, in seine instances, an exact identity.' A number of ethnological and linguistic facts point to the Chinese having left a home in the south of the Caspian Sea, where they had been brought under the influence of Accadian culture. From this rest ing-place they moved eastward about the twenty fifth century B.C., probably in consequence of the invasion of Susiana by some possibly Turanian tribe, and finally struck the northern bend of the Yellow River, the courso of which they followed until they reached the fertile plains of Shen-si.. The Chinese immigrants found the country in posses sion of a number of Taic tribes, such as the Kwei, Lung, Pang, and Li, all of whom possessed a certain amount of culture. With these tribes they contended for dominion, and by force of a supe rior civilisation gained the mastery over them. The relations thus established produced effects which have left their mark on the history of the nation through all time. In the language at the present day, as well as in the traditions and cus toms now existing, are reflected traces of this intermingling of races more than four thousand years ago. The admixture of Taic blood was also of paramount importance to the Chinese; and they owe much of their endurance as a nation, and of their superiority in mental and bodily physique, to the constant introduction of new blood into the national life. They have a tradition of a deluge, B.C. 2357, in the reign of Yaou. The first settlement of the immigrant Chinese was in the northern portion of Chih-le; and Chinese legend ary history tells us that Yaou, who reigned 4200 years ago, had his capital at the city of Tsin chow, situated about 100 miles only to the south of the present capital, Pekin. From this the people spread gradually westward and southward, colonizing the newer regions, and displacing the aboriginal inhabitants.