Word: emperor
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...from a mandarin, the most famous citizen of the humble settlement of Paifangcun until, well, until the very small boy came along. The eminent ancestor had passed the torturous series of civil examinations to prove he was a master of the Confucian classics and thus fit to serve the Emperor in faraway Beijing. And the boy's forefather did just that, at the very height of empire, when the Sons of Heaven, as the Emperors were called, could afford to sneer at the Western barbarians begging to trade with their Celestial Kingdom...
...countryside and then back home again, turning and turning and turning. And his life would be one of many somersaults: away from home, never to return, over the seas, into politics, into war, in and out of danger, in and out of power, and finally into the role of emperor of a nation that could once again afford to sneer...
...continued to ordain idiotic agricultural experiments, but Liu and Deng sidetracked the policies. The strategy--a sort of bureaucratic guerrilla warfare--exasperated the Great Helmsman. Presented with new Deng directives on communes, Mao sputtered, "What emperor decided these?" Finally, even Mao recognized that China was famished and dying. He made a strategic retreat and allowed Liu and Deng to restore order and the food supply. But he never forgave them for showing him up. Increasingly paranoid, he accused Deng of refusing to sit next to him at meetings. In 1962 he attacked Liu and Deng, screaming, "You have...
...resided in Zhongnanhai, the walled district of Beijing that is China's new Forbidden City; Deng chose to live not in Zhongnanhai but in a block-long house called Miliangku (literally "rice-grain storehouse"), not far away. It was there that China's unquestioned leader, its emperor without portfolio, enjoyed his family, played his beloved games of bridge and drifted into senescence, dealing with the specters that haunt the capital and the realm. They were ghosts as hoary as the last Emperor of the Ming dynasty who hanged himself on Coal Hill, just east of Deng's home; the students...
...great adventure," Branson said shortly before setting off to claim "the last great aviation record left on earth." But the planned 18-day flight of the helium hot balloon was ended by "a ballast-versus-helium problem," said project manager Mike Kendrick. In February, the 46-year-old Virgin emperor had postponed the same voyage because of unsuitable weather; this glitch may well cost Branson his shot at the record. A two-man Swiss team and American millionaire Steve Fossett--on a solo mission--are both expected to set out within the week...