Xi'an Vshe-'an\ or Hsi-an conventional Sian City (pop., 2003 est.: 2,657,900), capital of Shaanxi province, east-central China. Located on the Wei River, the site served as the capital of several dynasties beginning in the 11th century bc. It became one of the most splendid cities of the ancient world during the Tang dynasty (ad 618-907) and was a thriving commercial centre. Marco Polo visited in the 13th century. It was an entry point in the 1920s for communist ideology from the Soviet Union. In 1936, after Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek had been kidnapped there (see Xi'an Incident), the communists and Nationalists formed a united front against Japanese invaders. It is the site of several educational institutions and numerous temples and pagodas. It became an important tourist des¬ tination after the discovery of the nearby tomb of Emperor Shihuangdi, with its army of 6,000 life-size terra-cotta warriors (designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987).
Xi'an Incident or Sian Vshyan\ Incident (1936) Seizure of Nation¬ alist leader Chiang Kai-shek by one of his generals, Chang Hsiieh-liang (Zhang Xueliang; 1898-2001), in order to persuade Chiang to postpone his war on the Chinese communists until the invading Japanese had been defeated. As a result of the incident, the Nationalists and communists formed an alliance that turned its attention to the Japanese in Manchuria. See also Manchukuo; People's Liberation Army.
Xiang Vshyaq\ River or Hsiang River conventional Siang River
River, Hunan province, southeastern China. One of the principal tributar¬ ies of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang), it flows 500 mi (800 km) from the mountains in northern Guangxi autonomous region, through Hunan prov¬ ince, into Dongting Lake, and then into the Yangtze. Large vessels from the Yangtze can reach as far as Changsha via the Xiang. The river has been a north-south trade route for centuries.
Xiang Yu or Hsiang Yu \she-'aq-'yue\ (b. 232 bc, state of Chu, China—d. 202 bc, Anhui province) Chinese aristocratic general and cul¬ tural hero. He overthrew the Qin dynasty and tried to return China to a pre-Qin ruling system. His forces were overwhelmed by Liu Bang (Gaozu), founder of the Han dynasty, and Xiang Yu chose suicide over capture. His heroism has been glorified in Chinese stories and poetry.
xiao or hsiao \'shyau\ Chinese "filial piety" In Confucianism, the attitude of obedience, devotion, and care toward one’s parents and other elders considered fundamental to moral conduct. Originally rooted in the hierarchical ideology of Chinese feudalism, it was raised to a moral pre¬ cept by Confucius, who cited it as the basis of ren. It is seen as the basis not only of family harmony but of social and political stability.
Xibo See Wenwang Xin See Wang Mang Xingkai Hu See Lake Khanka
Xingu \'sheq-'gu\ River River, central and northern Brazil. Formed by several headstreams, it flows north through northeastern Mato Grosso state and central Para state into the Amazon River near its mouth. Though approximately 1,300 mi (2,100 km) long, it is navigable for only about 125 mi (200 km) upstream from where it joins the Amazon; its central part is a series of rapids 400 mi (644 km) long. In the 1950s Xingu National Park was designated as a preserve for Brazil’s Indians, includ¬ ing the Tchikao, who were threatened by extinction.
Xining Vshe-'niqX or Hsi-ning City (pop., 1999 est.: 604,812), capital of Qinghai province, western China. Located in a valley of the Huang River, on what was traditionally the main trade route from northern China into Tibet, the region was a frontier county under the Han dynasty and again under the Sui and Tang. In 763 it was taken by Tibetans and called Qing- tangcheng. It was recovered by the Song dynasty in 1104 and renamed Xi¬ ning (meaning “peace in the west”). It became an important religious centre under the Tibetans, and Qinghai’s largest lamasery was nearby. It was named provincial capital when Qinghai became an independent province in 1928. Its industries include leather processing plants and steelworks.
Xinjiang Yshin-'jyaq'X or Hsin-chiang conventional Sinkiang in full Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang Autonomous region (pop., 2002 est.: 19,050,000), northwestern China. It is bordered by the Kashmir region, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Mongolia, Gansu and Qinghai provinces, and Tibet. China’s largest politi¬ cal unit, it covers some 635,900 sq mi (1,646,900 sq km). The capital is Urumqi. Inhabited since early times by nomad tribes, it is an area of rug¬ ged mountains and desert basins. The Silk Road traversed the region. It came under the control of local leaders with the fall of the Han dynasty in the 3rd century ad and was regained by China in the 7th century. It was successively subject to the Tibetans, Uighurs, and Arabs and was con¬ quered by Genghis Khan in the 13th century. Again under Chinese rule during the Manchu dynasty, it was established as Xinjiang province c. 1884. It came under Chinese communist rule in 1949. It was reconstituted as an autonomous region in 1955. It has mineral resources, heavy indus¬ try (including iron and steel works), and some agricultural production.
Xiongnu or Hsiung-nu Vshe-'uq-'niA Nomadic pastoral people of Central Asia. The Xiongnu at the end of the 3rd century bc formed a great tribal league that dominated much of Central Asia for more than 500 years. Their threat to the northern Chinese frontier throughout this period led to China’s eventual conquest of northern Korea and southern Manchuria during the Han dynasty. Excavation of Xiongnu graves has revealed remains of Chinese, Iranian, and Greek textiles, indicating a wide trade with distant peoples.
Xipe Totec Vshe-pa-'to-tek, 'he-pa-'to-tek\ Pre-Columbian Mexican god of spring and of new vegetation; he is also the patron of precious metals. Originating with the Zapotec Indians, he was adopted by the Aztecs. A sym¬ bol of new vegetation, he is always depicted in art wearing a freshly flayed skin, representing the “new skin” that covers the earth in spring. In the sec¬ ond ritual month of the Aztec calendar, priests sacrificed human victims by removing their hearts or shooting them with arrows, flayed the bodies, and put on the skins, which were dyed yellow and called “golden clothes.”
Xiuhtecuhtli \ .she-ii-'ta-kut-leV Aztec god of fire and creator of all life. With Chantico, his feminine counterpart, he was believed to be a repre¬ sentation of Ometecuhtli. Xiuhtecuhtli’ s festivals coincided with the two extremes in the climatological cycle, the heat of August and the cold of January. He was also the centre of a ritual transfer of fire from temple to temple that occurred once every 52 years, at the end of the Aztec calen¬ dar cycle.
Xiwangmu Vshe-'waq-'miiX or Hsi Wang-Mu In ancient Chinese Daoist mythology, the queen of the female immortals. A former mountain spirit who had been transformed into a beautiful woman, she ruled a para-
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dise called West Flower, while her husband, Mu Gong, guarded males in his East Flower paradise. Her garden contained rare flowers and the peach of immortality, which blooms once in 3,000 years.
XML in full Extensible Markup Language. Markup language developed to be a simplified and more structural version of SGML. It incorporates features of HTML (e.g., hypertext linking), but is designed to overcome some of HTML’s limitations. For example, it is designed to be extensible (i.e., designed to allow the creation of customized markup tags), which HTML is not. It is also designed to represent data by mean¬ ing rather than by layout (as it is represented in HTML). Like SGML, it is a metalanguage (a language for dealing with languages); it allows users to create a language tailored specifically to their needs.