Northern Wei

However, my thinking on this subject evolved when I had the opportunity to read Zhang Hua's Notes and Reflections on Things in the World.

Therein, Zhang Hua shares an account about the occult capture of a painting demon in the Yellow Flower Temple during the Northern Wei Dynasty.

Yuan Zhao, the man who captured the demon, found a way to interrogate it.

And he said to the demon, You should not have material essence, since you are merely a product of the imagination, a thing of paint, not divine chi.

In the collection of Notes from the Hall of Records, the Tang Dynasty writer Zhang Du writes about several cases of the shah appearing in this bird-like form.

He records, During the Wei Dynasty, a man by the name of Zhang saw something that looked like a glossy black bird made of smoke, the size of a large child.

He threw his hunting net on the creature.

When he took the net away, there was nothing underneath.

At that time, the Han Empire was, uh, already collapsed, and a c- and, and there were three countries.

Uh, uh, Bắc Ngụy, Tây Thục, and Đông Ngô, Đông Ngô.

Uh, the Wu, uh, Kingdom was, uh, at the south next to, uh, to, to Vietnam.

So, uh, he-- Tang Hoi left Vietnam to go to the Wu Kingdom in the first half of the third century.

So let's pull over to the side of the road here and look at this marvel of civil and hydraulic engineering.

Sui Wente primed the pump for everything that followed by focusing his efforts and disbursements... on repairing existing canals that had been in operation since the Qin, Han, and Northern Wei dynasties.

And being the practical emperor that he was, he directed funds to go to the most vital and useful waterways that connected the Yellow River Basin, Guangzhong, and the Eastern Plains.

He championed boring, unsung projects that maintained and optimized existing waterways.

But she's best known, I'd say, as the noble wife of Li Shimin, the Taizong Emperor.

As I indicated, she was the sister of Zhangsun Wuji, one of the men who rode out with Li Shimin on that fateful morning of July 2nd in the year 626.

She came from nobility that stretched back to the Northern Wei.

But more immediately, she was the daughter of a major guy during the Northern and Southern Dynasties period, Zhangsun Sheng.

In other words, they were conservative, not looking to try new things that might affect change in ways they were not accustomed to.

With the defeat of the northern Liang in 439, the northern Wei united northern China and ended the Sixteen Kingdoms period.

Their adoption of Chinese-style rule laid the foundation for something new that would later astound the world during the Sui and Tang dynasties.

The Northern Wei doesn't make it to the list of the top dynasties in popular Chinese history.

Though not as celebrated as it should be, the Northern Wei not only unified the north of China, it... totally reshape Chinese civilization.

If you vaguely recall from last time, the former Qin dynasty, founded by Fu Jian and his progeny, almost but not quite were able to unify China.

They almost did it in the north, but if you remember following their defeat at the historic Battle of Fei River in 383, former Qin ended up having feet of clay and disintegrated so soon after this defeat.

A Xianbei prince named Tuoba Gui knew a power vacuum when he saw one.

Might I ask you a few questions to test you? I am obliged to tell you, Doctor, if you are indeed a doctor, that the incident becomes more and more suspicious.

I would ask you, what do you know of the Emperor Shomu, and how do you associate him with the Shosu Inn near Nara? Tell me, does that puzzle you? Tell me a little about the Northern Wei Dynasty and its place in the history of ceramics.

I sprang from my chair in simulated anger.

This is intolerable, sir, said I. I came here to do you a favor, and not to be examined as if I were a schoolboy.

The surface was decorated by drawings with a stick in transverse scratches or concentric rings, and simple bits of clay stuck onto the soft surface formed the first applied ornament, gradually developing and ever far in advance of Western barbarism.

The manufacture reaches the period where actual records were available during the Wei dynasty, 220 AD, when two potteries were recorded as making porcelain for imperial use.

The string of dynasties which follows have but slight interest for the collector.

The marks we give, see marks, range from the Song dynasty, 960 AD, to the Qing dynasty, which period came into power in 1644 and continues to the present day.

The eastern Jin, on shaky ground ever since it was set up in Jiankang, was able to hang in there for 40 more years.

And with the former Qin gone, it opened the door for the northern Wei to rise.

More of them in a bit.

The eastern Jin was recovering down in Nanjing, and by 406, they were powerful enough to the extent that they sent one of their generals, Liu Yu, to take back some of the northern territories lost to the Wuhu disturbances.

This wave of northern nomadic people, these barbarians as they were referred to in the old histories, just sort of moved in and began mixing with the Han Chinese, and as I said, became as civilized and cultured as the Chinese themselves.

So it's easy to see how the most sinicized of all these folks would be the ones to take to Buddhism the fastest and incorporate it into what they were building in northern China.

Before I get to the Northern Wei, let me mention one final dynasty from the Sixteen Kingdoms period.

This was the later Zhao.

If a man has a hobby, he follows it up, whatever his other pursuits may be.

You said in your note that you were a connoisseur." "So I am." "Might I ask you a few questions to test you? I am obliged to tell you, Doctor, if you are indeed a doctor, that the incident becomes more and more suspicious." I would ask you, what do you know of the Emperor Shomu, and how do you associate him with the Shosu Inn near Nara? Tell me, does that puzzle you? Tell me a little about the Northern Wei Dynasty and its place in the history of ceramics.

I sprang from my chair in simulated anger.

This is intolerable, sir, said I. I came here to do you a favor, and not to be examined as if I were a schoolboy.