The Terracotta Army commissioned by the first Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi is a collection of about 8000 life-sized ceramic soldiers and horses buried with the emperor.

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

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

Successive dynasties in Chinese history developed bureaucratic systems that enabled the Emperor of China to directly control vast territories.

Though the unified reign of the First Qin Emperor lasted only 12 years, he managed to subdue great parts of what constitutes the core of the Han Chinese homeland and to unite them under a tightly centralized Legalist government seated at Xianyang ( close to modern Xi ' an ).

Emperor Wu consolidated and extended the Chinese empire by pushing back the Xiongnu into the steppes of modern Inner Mongolia, wresting from them the modern areas of Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai.

The dynasty continued to flourish under Empress Wu Zetian, the only empress regnant in Chinese history, and reached its zenith during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong, who oversaw an empire that stretched from the Pacific to the Aral Sea with at least 50 million people.

Consequently, after the death of Emperor Yong-le, independent peasant landholders predominated in Chinese agriculture.

Emperor Kangxi ordered the creation of Kangxi Dictionary, the most complete dictionary of Chinese characters ever put together at the time.

Tibetans also had a tradition of cavalry warfare, in several military engagements early on with the Chinese Tang Dynasty ( 618 – 907 AD ), including Emperor Taizong's campaign against Tufan in 638.

A bas-relief of a soldier and horse with saddle and stirrup s, from the tomb of Chinese Emperor Taizong of Tang ( r. 626-649 ), c. 650

Chiang Kai-shek considered both the Han Chinese and all the minority peoples of China, the Five Races Under One Union, as descendants of Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor and semi mythical founder of the Chinese nation, and belonging to the Chinese Nation Zhonghua Minzu and he introduced this into Kuomintang ideology, which was propagated into the educational system of the Republic of China.

The Emperor Wu of the Western Han dynasty introduced reforms that have governed the Chinese calendar ever since.

* 1908 – Child Emperor Pu Yi ascends the Chinese throne at the age of two

As early as the 7th century the word 天皇 ( which can be read either as sumera no mikoto, divine order, or as tennō, Heavenly Emperor, the latter being derived from a Tang Chinese term referring to the Pole star around which all other stars revolve ) began to be used.

According to the legendary account in the Kojiki, Emperor Jimmu would have been born on 13 February 711 BC ( the first day of the first month of the Chinese calendar ), and died, again according to legend, on 11 March 585 BC ( both dates according to the lunisolar traditional Japanese calendar ).

During his trip, a tempest forced him to stop on an island near Guangzhou, China where he saw the rich merchant Diogo Pereira, an old friend from Cochin, who showed him a letter from Portuguese being held prisoners in Guangzhou asking for a Portuguese ambassador to talk to the Chinese Emperor in their favor.

The capitão refused to recognize his title of Nuncio, asked Pereira to resign from his title of ambassador, named a new crew for the ship and demanded the gifts for the Chinese Emperor be left in Malacca.

As Confucianism became the preferred philosophy of later Chinese dynasties, starting from the Emperor Wu of Han, Mohism and other non-Confucian philosophical schools of thought were suppressed.

Conflicts between the Chinese Emperor and the French Republic over Indochina climaxed during the Sino-French War ( 1884 – 1885 ).

Image: Sun Quan Tang. jpg | Emperor Sun Quan in the Thirteen Emperors Scroll and Northern Qi Scholars Collating Classic Texts, by Yan Liben ( c. 600-673 AD ), Chinese

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

The portraits of Kangxi Emperor, Yongzheng Emperor, and Qianlong Emperor are excellent examples of realistic Chinese portrait painting.

During the Qianlong reign period and the continuing 19th century, European Baroque styles of painting had noticeable influence on Chinese portrait paintings, especially with painted visual effects of lighting and shading.

Alarmed, the Chinese emperor Qianlong appointed Fukang ' an commander-in-chief of the Tibetan campaign ; Fu defeated the Gorkhali army and the Gorkhali were forced to accept surrender on China's terms.

The Kangxi and Qianlong Emperors, for instance, embraced Chinese traditions both to control them and to proclaim their own legitimacy.

The Qianlong Emperor sponsored the largest collection of writings in Chinese history, the Siku Quanshu completed in 1782.

The Chinese Putuo Zongcheng Temple of Chengde, completed in 1771, during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor.

File: Chinese export porcelain with Dutch ship Vryburg 1756 Qianlong period Canton. jpg | The ship Vryburg on a platter, commissioned 1756

Other art works produced in China or Hong Kong were sold in places such as Christie's including a Chinese porcelain piece with the mark of Emperor Qianlong sold for HKD $ $ 151. 3 million.

Chinese soldier of Emperor Qianlong, by William Alexander ( painter ) | William Alexander, 1793.

The Qianlong Emperor was a major patron of the arts, seeing himself as an important " preserver and restorer " of Chinese culture.

... how carefully Qianlong followed the art market in rare paintings and antiquities, using a team of cultural advisers, from elderly Chinese literati to newly fledged Manchu connoisseurs.

One of Qianlong ’ s grandest projects was to " assemble a team of China ’ s finest scholars for the purpose of assembling, editing, and printing the largest collection ever made of Chinese philosophy, history, and literature.

A Dutch embassy arrived to the Qianlong court in 1795, and would turn out to be the last occasion in which any European appeared before the Chinese Court within the context of traditional Chinese imperial foreign relations.

The style was however modified according to Chinese taste-strong shadows used in chiaroscuro techniques were unacceptable as Emperor Qianlong thought that shadows looked like dirt, therefore when Castiglione painted the emperor, the intensity of the light was reduced so that there was no shadow on the face, and the features were distinct.

File: OFB-Qianlongsatz03-Krieger. JPG | Chinese Shadow Play Figures, Two warriors ; Qianlong Set ; approx.

During the mission his Chinese proved good enough to engage in diplomatic banter and he received a personal gift from the Qianlong Emperor.

The personal interest of Emperors such as Qianlong meant that one of the most important collections of paintings in Chinese history was held at the palace.

In many ways, he was similar to other Chinese emperors who were initially successful, but whose subsequent poor rule caused the eventual demise of their dynasties, such as both Emperor Gaozong and Emperor Xuanzong of Tang and the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty.

Qianlong pledged to support Amursana since Amursana accepted Qing authority ; among those who supported Amursana and the Chinese were the Uyghur brothers Burhān al-Dīn and Khwāja-i Jahān.

Between the time of Oroi-Jalatu and Khurungui, the Chinese under Prince Cäbdan-jab defeated Amursana at the Battle of Khorgos ( known in the Qianlong engravings as " The Victory of Khorgos ").

The Chinese custom of using the Golden Urn had been introduced in the year 1792 by the Qianlong Emperor and used to select the 10th, 11th, and 12th Dalai Lamas.

For example, the real name of the Qianlong Emperor was Hung li, which was derived from the Chinese name Hongli ( 弘曆 ).

The Qing Dynasty Qianlong Emperor made many visits to Jiangnan (), which have been the popular subject of numerous Chinese operas and television dramas.

The Han Chinese began arriving in the area during the reign of Qianlong Emperor.