Talk:Chinese noble titles in the imperial period

needs to cover noble titles up to the Qing Dynasty -says cleanup.

Above remark was by Cohesion, 10:12, 2004 Sep 1. The issue has been addressed since. Sebastian 21:56, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)

Styles for Foreign Monarchs

I just started replacing the pinyin of Chinese translations of titles such as "queen" with hanzi, when i realized: What's the point? . I don't think the question how to translate them is of encyclopedic interest – this belongs in a dictionary (a bilingual one – not Wiktionary). Question: Should the whole section be deleted or only the second half? — Sebastian (留言) 21:05, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)

Comments

1. The old nobility in China bears no comparison whatsoever to European nobility. Titled individuals were usually feudal lords in control of their own fiefdoms. Under later dynasties, as China became more centralised, the feudal nobility was supressed. To my knowledge, noble titles were only given under the Qing Dynasty to the head of the House of Confucius (the Duke of Qu Fu), the head of the Imperial House of Ming (the Marquess of Extended Grace), and two nineteenth-century statesmen, Li-X-X and Guo-X-X (I cannot remember their given names). Titled individuals under the Qing Dynasty were usually descendants of the Manchu Emperors. (There were many of them - considering that each emperor had many concubines and that each of his sons had, in turn, a lot of concubines too. To be noted here, perhaps, is that a concubine was NOT a mistress: the children of concubines were on par with the children of the Empress and other minor wives with regards to succession.)

2. When one talks of the "nobility" in China, one usually refers to the mandarinage, I think. Members of mandarin families were not titled and were not strictly themselves "mandarins" until they passed state examinations. However, many of them trace their lineage back to the Song Dynasty (900s-1200s), if not earlier. They were the veritable "anciens riches" of China.

3. Existing noble titles under the Qing Dynasty (mostly for descendants of the Imperial House) were NOT abolised in 1912 with the abolition of the Chinese monarchy. The Xuan-tung Emperor (Pu-Yi) and the revolutionaries signed a concordat, mediated by Yuan Shi-kai, the last Prime Minister of the monarchy and the first President of the Republic (treacherous man!). It was called, in English, the Treaty of Favourable Treatment in which the newly founded Republic of China agreed to recognise, inter alia, all titles of the nobility. Another article recognised the position of the last Emperor as Emperor (his abdication ended the rule of the Dynasty over China, but not the Dynasty itself!). The Republicans further added that he would be treated with all dignity due to a foreign monarch. The Treaty was only recinded in 1924 (I think), following which his late Imperial Majesty defected to the Japanese and was reinstated as, firstly, Head of State of occupied Manchuria and, later on, Emperor of Manchukuo. This decision was highly criticised by most members of the Imperial Family, including the Emperor's father and former Regent, Prince Chun.