50 Fun Facts About Ancient China

Zhuang Zhou woke from a dream unsure whether he was a man or which creature now dreaming that it was him?

A butterfly 'flitting and fluttering about' is the image Zhuangzi used to ask whether waking life is any more real than a dream. The parable sits in the Inner Chapters, the seven sections thought to be Zhuang Zhou's own writing.

Zhao Gao, the Qin eunuch, tested which courtiers dared contradict him by calling what animal a horse in open court?

A deer paraded as a horse gave Chinese the idiom 'point at a deer and call it a horse', meaning a brazen lie nobody dares challenge. Zhao Gao later assassinated the Second Emperor himself, before the last Qin ruler, Ziying, had him killed.

After the First Emperor died on tour in 210 BC, his chancellor masked the smell of the corpse with carts of what?

Rotten fish was carted before and behind the emperor's wagon so the court would not learn he was dead before the succession was fixed. The secrecy let the plotters forge an edict that put the younger son Huhai on the throne.

In Zhang Heng's 132 AD earthquake detector, a bronze ball fell from a dragon's jaws into the mouth of which animal?

A toad sat beneath each of the eight dragon heads, and the one that caught the ball pointed to the quake's direction. The device once reported a tremor 400 km away in Gansu that nobody in the capital had felt.

The Records of the Grand Historian's entry for 240 BC is the earliest certain sighting of which comet?

Halley's Comet returns about every 76 years, so the 240 BC Chinese record is the first of many apparitions logged in Chinese chronicles. Court astronomers logged it again in 87 BC and 12 BC, long before Edmond Halley predicted its return.

Which device, first flown as wooden 'muyuan' around 400 BC, later measured distances and signalled Chinese armies?

The kite is credited to the master carpenter Lu Ban and a rival philosopher, who flew wooden birds called muyuan. Early texts also record kites lifting men aloft and testing the wind.

Which board game, recorded in the Zuo Zhuan and one of the scholar's four arts, has been played for over 2,500 years?

Go (weiqi) is believed to be the oldest board game still played continuously, invented in China more than 2,500 years ago. The Zuo Zhuan passage describes a game already familiar by 548 BC.

A Han prince dug up at Mancheng wore a burial suit of 2,498 plates of which stone, sewn with gold wire?

Jade suits were reserved for Han royals, and the wire stitching them signalled rank, from gold down to silver, copper and silk. The prince's suit and his wife Dou Wan's were the first complete ones ever found.

Qin's Ban Liang, the first coin used across a unified China, was round with a central hole of what shape?

Square-holed round cash stayed the shape of Chinese coins for two thousand years, and the Ban Liang's name means 'half a tael', its nominal weight. The Han kept minting it until the Wu Zhu coin replaced it in 118 BC.

Which Homo erectus fossils, dug from a cave at Zhoukoudian from 1921, vanished in 1941 while being shipped to safety?

Peking Man's bones were last seen leaving Peking Union Medical College on 4 December 1941 and have never been found. The first find was a single tooth in 1921; Pei Wenzhong dug up a near-complete skullcap in 1929.

Warring States and Han books were strips of which material, bound with hemp, silk or leather cord into folding rolls?

Bamboo strips, alongside wooden ones, carried Chinese writing for centuries until paper took over in the first two centuries AD. Whole libraries of them survive in waterlogged tombs, such as the military texts dug up at Yinqueshan in 1972.

The Qin, the first dynasty to rule a unified China, collapsed in 206 BC after lasting roughly how long?

Under 20 years was all the Qin lasted: 14 years, the shortest run of any major Chinese dynasty. The First Emperor's death in 210 BC was followed within a year by the revolt that brought the dynasty down.

The Han's 108 BC conquest in the northeast planted Lelang, one of its Four Commanderies, on which peninsula?

The Korean Peninsula's north stayed under Chinese rule for four centuries, with Lelang's seat at modern Pyongyang. Goguryeo finally annexed Lelang in 313 AD.

Which seashell served as money in Shang China and survives as the character radical for 'money'?

Cowrie shell money was used in China from over three thousand years ago, and the Shang even cast bronze imitations of the shells. The radical 貝 (bei) in characters to do with wealth began as a picture of a cowrie.

Which legendary sovereign, said to have a transparent body, tasted hundreds of herbs and discovered tea?

Shennong, the 'Divine Farmer', is said to have found tea when leaves blew into his cauldron of boiling water. The earliest Chinese pharmacopoeia, listing 365 medicines, carries his name.

Which wife of the Yellow Emperor reputedly discovered silk when a cocoon fell into her tea, then invented the loom?

Leizu, also called Xi Ling-shi, is credited with sericulture and the silk loom in the 27th century BC. The legend makes silk a thousand years older than the Shang dynasty.

Which legendary flood-tamer passed his own door three times in 13 years without going in, then founded the Xia?

Yu the Great beat the flood by dredging riverbeds and cutting channels that led the water into fields, instead of damming it. He went on to divide the realm into nine provinces and cast the Nine Tripod Cauldrons from their bronze.

At which 208 AD river battle did fire ships wreck Cao Cao's chained fleet and set up the Three Kingdoms split?

Red Cliffs turned on Huang Gai's fake surrender: his 'defecting' ships were packed with kindling and oil and sailed blazing into Cao Cao's line. Sun Quan and Liu Bei's win kept the south out of Cao Cao's hands for good.

Which peasant-born rebel won the Battle of Gaixia in 202 BC, founded the Han dynasty and reigned as Emperor Gaozu?

Liu Bang was among the very few dynastic founders born into a peasant family, having begun as a minor law officer in Pei County. His dynasty's name stuck so well that China's majority ethnic group still calls itself Han.

At the Feast at Swan Goose Gate, the host's cousin staged what performance as cover for killing the future Han founder?

A sword dance by the host's cousin was meant to end with a thrust at the guest of honour, but an uncle joined in and kept blocking the blade. The guest escaped on a latrine break, and the idiom 'aimed at the Duke of Pei' was born.

On which eastern peak, foremost of China's five sacred mountains, did the First Emperor hold a 219 BC summit ceremony?

Mount Tai is where the First Emperor proclaimed the unity of his empire in a famous summit inscription. Some 6,660 stone steps climb from the gate at its foot to the South Heaven Gate at the top.

Which two commodities did the Han state nationalise in 117 BC, prompting the famous court debate of 81 BC?

Salt and iron monopolies funded Emperor Wu's expansionist state, and the 81 BC debate pitted Confucian scholars against the ex-merchant Sang Hongyang. The monopolies survived the debate; only the state liquor monopoly was scrapped.

Which palace lady, one of China's Four Beauties, left in 33 BC to marry the Xiongnu chanyu Huhanye?

Wang Zhaojun is said to have refused to bribe the court painter, who then gave her portrait a 'mole of widowed tears' so the emperor never called for her. After Huhanye died she was made to marry the next chanyu, as Xiongnu custom required.

Roughly how many people did the Han census of 2 AD, China's first nationwide head count, register?

About 58 million people, 57,671,400 to be exact, were registered in 2 AD, six years before Wang Mang usurped the throne. Census registers mattered because every adult owed the state tax and labour service.

Shang diviners dated oracle bones by pairing ten Heavenly Stems with twelve Earthly Branches, a cycle of how many days?

60 days is the length of the stem-branch cycle, and almost every oracle bone inscription opens with one of its day names. The same 60-count was later applied to years and still names them in Chinese astrology.

Which Shang consort of King Wu Ding commanded up to 13,000 troops and lies in the only unlooted royal tomb at Yinxu?

Fu Hao was a high priestess as well as a general, and her tomb, found intact in 1976 by archaeologist Zheng Zhenxiang, held 468 bronzes. Two named generals served under her command.

Which Bronze Age site near Chengdu, found by workers in 1986, yielded masks with protruding pupils and a 2.6 m statue?

Sanxingdui's sacrificial pits held thousands of gold, bronze and pottery objects from a culture with no known writing, linked to the ancient kingdom of Shu. Its bronze tree, nearly 4 m tall, may depict the mythical Fusang tree.

Which four-eyed official of the Yellow Emperor is said to have invented Chinese characters, making the sky rain millet?

Cangjie's legend says the deities and ghosts cried when he created writing, and his name lives on in the Cangjie input method for typing Chinese. The tale stands in for a long evolution of script that matured on Shang oracle bones.

Which Qin reformer, torn apart by chariots after Duke Xiao died, was refused an inn room by his own travel-papers law?

Shang Yang's harsh code, rewarding military merit and breaking clans into nuclear families, made Qin the state that would swallow the rest. His whole family was executed along with him.

What collective name covers the rival philosophies, Mohism among them, that flourished amid Warring States conflict?

Hundred Schools of Thought is the later label for the doctrines born of constant war and the hunt for new political models. Mohism, with its doctrine of impartial caring, grew into one of the two most prominent organised schools.

Which assassin smuggled a poisoned dagger inside a map scroll in 227 BC, then was cut down after missing the Qin king?

Jing Ke carried the severed head of a Qin defector as a gift to get close to the future First Emperor, who dodged the blade and stabbed him eight times. Prince Dan of Yan had sent him with a dagger refined with poison.

Which Han historian chose castration over death after defending general Li Ling, so he could complete his history?

Sima Qian lived on as a palace eunuch to complete the Shiji, a history running from the Yellow Emperor down to his own Emperor Wu. His father Sima Tan had conceived the project but left only sketches.

Which short-lived dynasty, declared by usurping regent Wang Mang in 9 AD, splits the Han into Western and Eastern?

Xin lasted only from 9 to 23 AD before Han loyalists toppled Wang Mang and Emperor Guangwu refounded the Han at Luoyang. The 'Former' and 'Later' Han labels refer to the two sides of that gap.

Which first known female Chinese historian finished her brother's Book of Han and wrote Lessons for Women?

Ban Zhao taught Empress Deng Sui in the royal library, which gave her real political influence at the Han court. Her elder brother Ban Chao, meanwhile, was the general holding the Western Regions.

Which philosopher of 'impartial caring' walked ten days to Chu and beat Gongshu Ban in nine mock sieges to save Song?

Mozi's followers, the Mohists, were the era's experts in fortification and siege defence, which made his anti-war stance practical. Their school rivalled the Confucians as the most prominent of the age.

Which stuttering prince of Han, whose essays the Qin king adored, was forced to drink poison by a jealous ex-classmate?

Han Fei's writings so impressed the Qin king that he said he could 'die without regrets' if he could befriend their author. His classmate, by then Qin's rising minister, saw to it that he never got the chance.

Which Confucian of the Jixia Academy argued that human nature is evil and is made good only by teachers and ritual?

Xunzi's realism led straight to Legalism: his two most famous pupils became its theorist and the Qin chancellor who applied it. He held that rites and a teacher's model, not any inner goodness, are what put people right.

Which Qi strategist, crippled by the removal of his kneecaps, fooled a pursuing Wei army by cutting his camp stoves?

Sun Bin, reputedly a descendant of Sun Tzu, wrote his own Art of War, lost for 2,000 years until slips turned up in a Han tomb in 1972. The Wei pursuers read his shrinking stove count as desertions and walked into his ambush.

Which 256 BC Qin irrigation works on the Min River, built by Li Bing without a dam, still waters the Chengdu plain?

Dujiangyan splits the river with a levee rather than damming it, and still irrigates more than 5,300 sq km. UNESCO listed it in 2000, two millennia into its working life.

Which Qin general, at Changping in 260 BC, reputedly buried alive the surrendered Zhao army, sparing only 240 boys?

Bai Qi's massacre came after Zhao swapped the cautious Lian Po for Zhao Kuo, whose defeat gave Chinese the idiom 'talking wars on paper'. Bai Qi is credited with 890,000 enemy deaths over his career.

Which Wei merchant befriended the future King Zhuangxiang, became Qin's chancellor and took poison in 235 BC in exile?

Lü Buwei's household compiled the Lüshi Chunqiu, an encyclopaedia of the age's philosophies, while he ran the state for the boy who became First Emperor. Banished to remote Shu after a palace scandal, he feared execution and killed himself.

Which Qin chancellor penned the 213 BC book-burning edict, made small seal script the standard and died by waist-chop?

Li Si's edict ordered the destruction of histories and literature outside the Qin archives, a purge remembered alongside the burying of scholars. Zhao Gao, his partner in the succession plot, had him put to the Five Punishments in 208 BC.

Which eldest son of the First Emperor was tricked into suicide by a forged edict that cleared the throne for Huhai?

Fusu's death was engineered by Zhao Gao and the chancellor, who hid the First Emperor's death until their fabricated order had done its work. His brother's reign lasted three years before Zhao Gao killed him too.

Which conscript, facing execution for arriving late after floods, launched the first revolt against the Qin in 209 BC?

Chen Sheng's rising lasted only months: Qin's professional troops crushed it and both leaders were murdered by their own men. The silk note and faked fox cries they used to whip up the camp are still a schoolbook story.

Which Qin court sorcerer sailed east with 3,000 boys and 3,000 girls to find a potion of eternal life, never to return?

Xu Fu claimed a giant sea creature blocked his route and talked the emperor into sending archers along on the second voyage. Centuries later the monk Yichu wrote that he had landed in Japan.

Which self-styled 'Hegemon-King of Western Chu', rival of the Han founder, cut his own throat at the Wu River in 202 BC?

Xiang Yu refused to cross the river to safety after his army, hearing Chu songs from all sides, melted away. Consort Yu killed herself as he sang the 'Song of Gaixia'.

Legend says Laozi wrote the Tao Te Ching only because which gatekeeper refused to let him ride west until he did?

Yinxi, the guard at the western gate, would not let the old master through until he had written his wisdom down 'for the good of the country'. The archivist of the Zhou court then rode off and vanished from history.

Which strategist, wearing the insignia of six states at once, led the 'Vertical Alliance' meant to contain Qin?

Su Qin's north–south pact was answered by Zhang Yi's 'Horizontal Alliance', which sold each state a separate deal with Qin. Modern scholars suspect much of his biography was forged by later writers.

Which 214 BC canal, the world's oldest contour canal, linked two river systems to supply Qin's war on the Baiyue?

Lingqu links a Yangtze tributary to a Pearl River tributary across a low watershed near Guilin, 36.4 km end to end. It carried grain south for the armies that pushed Qin rule down to the South China Sea.

Which widow of the Han founder, the first woman titled 'empress of China', ruled as regent and made her kinsmen princes?

Lü Zhi ruled through Emperor Hui and two child emperors, and within weeks of her death in 180 BC her whole clan was massacred. Her cruelty to a rival, Consort Qi, gave Chinese the phrase 'human swine'.