Native Chinese astronomy flourished during the Song Dynasty, and during the Yuan Dynasty became increasingly influenced by medieval Islamic astronomy.

References to Chinese domino tiles can be traced to writings from the Song Dynasty ( AD 1120 ).

Chinese music composer Hwang Yau-tai wrote the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Song.

In the book of the Xin Yi Xiang Fa Yao, published in 1092 by the Chinese scientist Su Song, a star map on the equidistant cylindrical projection.

Handscroll detail of a China | Chinese percussionist playing a drum for a dancing woman, from a 12th century remake of Gu Hongzhong's 10th century originals, Song Dynasty.

* 1983 – Liu Song, Chinese snooker player

There were many great encyclopedists throughout Chinese history, including the scientist and statesman Shen Kuo ( 1031 – 1095 ) with his Dream Pool Essays of 1088, the statesman, inventor, and agronomist Wang Zhen ( active 1290 – 1333 ) with his Nong Shu of 1313, and the written Tiangong Kaiwu of Song Yingxing ( 1587 – 1666 ), the latter of whom was termed the " Diderot of China " by British historian Joseph Needham.

This would have been a king of Japan ( referred to as Wa by contemporary Chinese scholars ) who is said to have sent messengers to the Song Dynasty at least twice, in 443 and 451.

King Bu, supposed to be Yūryaku, sent an envoy to the emperor of Liu Song, a minor Chinese dynasty, in 478.

Chinese women playing flutes, from the 12th-century Song Dynasty remake of the Night Revels of Han Xizai, originally by Gu Hongzhong ( 10th century )

Critical analysis of these Chinese texts reveals that certain chapters in the Book of Wei had been copied from the Bei-Xi by Song editors, including the chapter on the Xiongnu.

Image: Meister nach Chang Hsüan 001. jpg | Ladies making silk, a remake of an 8th-century original by Zhang Xuan by Emperor Huizong of Song, early 12th century, Chinese

File: Shenzong of Song. jpg | Court portrait of Emperor Shenzong of Song ( r. 1067-1085 ), Chinese

Image: Songhuizong4. jpg | Golden Pheasant and Cotton Rose, by Emperor Huizong of Song ( r. 1100-1126 AD ), Chinese

Image: Songhuizong8. jpg | Listening to the Guqin, by Emperor Huizong of Song ( 1100-1126 AD ), Chinese

Jahrhunderts ( II ) 001. jpg | Chinese, anonymous artist of the 12th century Song Dynasty

Medieval Song Dynasty painters such as Lin Tinggui and his Luohan Laundering ( housed in the Smithsonian Freer Gallery of Art ) of the 12th century are excellent examples of Buddhist ideas fused into classical Chinese artwork.

During the Chinese Song Dynasty ( 960-1279 AD ), not only landscape art was improved upon, but portrait painting became more standardized and sophisticated than before ( for example, refer to Emperor Huizong of Song ), and reached its classical age maturity during the Ming Dynasty ( 1368-1644 AD ).

Although high level of stylization, mystical appeal, and surreal elegance were often preferred over realism ( such as in shan shui style ), beginning with the medieval Song Dynasty there were many Chinese painters then and afterwards who depicted scenes of nature that were vividly real.

Chinese dry-cured hams have been recorded in texts since prior to Song dynasty and used in myriad dishes.

* It was described at length in the Zhufan Zhi ( 諸蕃志, " Records of Foreign Peoples ") by Zhao Rugua ( 1170 – 1228 ), a Chinese customs inspector for the port city of Quanzhou during the Song Dynasty.

Explosive land mines were being used in 1277 AD by the Song Dynasty Chinese against an assault of the Mongols, who were besieging a city in southern China.

From the middle and late Eastern Han to the early Wei and Jin dynasties, the net growth of ancient Chinese science and technology experienced a peak ( second only to that of the Northern Song dynasty )... Han studies of the Confucian classics, which for a long time had hindered the socialization of science, were declining.

The zero was probably introduced to the Chinese in the Tang Dynasty ( 618-907 AD ) when travel in the Indian Ocean and the Middle East would have provided direct contact with India, allowing them to acquire the concept of zero and the decimal point from Indian merchants and mathematicians.

* 1461 – The Ming Dynasty Chinese military general Cao Qin stages a coup against the Tianshun Emperor.

* 1363 – Beginning date of the Battle of Lake Poyang ; the forces of two Chinese rebel leaders — Chen Youliang and Zhu Yuanzhang — are pitted against each other in what is one of the largest naval battles in history, during the last decade of the ailing, Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty.

When the Ming Dynasty Chinese astronomer Xu Guangqi adapted the European southern hemisphere constellations to the Chinese system in The Southern Asterisms, he combined Apus with some of the stars in Octans to form the " Exotic Bird " ( 異雀, Yìquè ).

The system of Chinese astrology was elaborated during the Zhou dynasty ( 1046 – 256 BC ) and flourished during the Han Dynasty ( 2nd century BC to 2nd century AD ), during which all the familiar elements of traditional Chinese culture – the Yin-Yang philosophy, theory of the 5 elements, Heaven and Earth, Confucian morality – were brought together to formalise the philosophical principles of Chinese medicine and divination, astrology and alchemy.

A Han Dynasty ( 202 BC – 220 AD ) Chinese miniature model of two residential towers joined by a bridge

Although large Chinese bridges of wooden construction existed at the time of the Warring States, the oldest surviving stone bridge in China is the Zhaozhou Bridge, built from 595 to 605 AD during the Sui Dynasty.

The Wanli Emperor enjoying a boat ride on a river with an entourage of guards and courtiers in this Ming Dynasty Chinese painting.

In 1455, in an effort to control inflation, the succeeding Ming Dynasty ended the use of paper money and closed much of Chinese trade.

Much of Chinese culture, literature and philosophy further developed during the Zhou Dynasty ( 1045 – 256 BC ).

This practice began with the Qin Dynasty: in 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang united the various warring kingdoms and created the first Chinese empire.

Chinese bronzes | Bronze ritual vessel ( You ( vessel ) | You ), Western Zhou Dynasty

The Zhou Dynasty was the longest-lasting dynasty in Chinese history, from 1066 BC to approximately 256 BC.

Taking advantage of civil war in the Jin Dynasty, the contemporary non-Han Chinese ( Wu Hu ) ethnic groups controlled much of the country in the early 4th century and provoked large-scale Han Chinese migrations to south of the Yangtze River.

A Chinese Tang Dynasty tricolored Ceramic glaze | glaze porcelain horse ( ca.

Meanwhile, in what are now the northwestern Chinese provinces of Gansu, Shaanxi, and Ningxia, there emerged a Western Xia Dynasty from 1032 to 1227, established by Tangut tribes.

In the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols were divided between those who wanted to remain based in the steppes and those who wished to adopt the customs of the Chinese.

Lu Xun also criticised Confucianism heavily for shaping Chinese people into the condition they had reached by the late Qing Dynasty: his criticism are well portrayed in two of his works, A Madman's Diary and The True Story of Ah Q.