千 ch'ien a thousand as phonetic, and meant ripe grain, from which it is not a very far cry to year. It is now classed under radical 干 (line 205).
| 222. | 終 | 於 | 獻 | and ended with the Emperor Hsien. | |
| Chung1 | yü2 | hsien4 | |||
| End | with | hsien |
Chung see line 113.
Yü see line 35.
Hsien is composed of 犬 ch'üan dog as radical, with an obsolete word meaning tripod as phonetic. It was originally a term applied to fat dogs offered in sacrifice at the ancestral temple. It means to present to a superior, but is here the dynastic title of the last Emperor of the Eastern Han dynasty, whose reign ended A.D. 221.
| 223. | 魏 | 蜀 | 吳 | Wei, Shu, and Wu, | |
| Wei4 | shu3 | wu2 | |||
| Wei | shu | wu |
Wei is composed of 委 wei to depute as phonetic, with 鬼 kuei disembodied spirit as radical. It here stands for portions of modern Shansi and Honan, over which a son of the great 曹操 Ts'ao Ts'ao ruled as first Emperor.
Shu is composed, under its old form, of 虫 ch'ung insect as radical, below 目 mu eye as formerly written, with a curved line. It originally meant caterpillar or looper, the curved line being a picture of the loop formed by the insect when moving. It is here a name for modern Ssŭch'uan, over which 劉備 Liu Pei, a quondam artisan, ruled as first Emperor.
Wu is a common surname, and is popularly known as 口天吳 k'ou t'ien wu the wu which is made up of k'ou and t'ien, in allusion to its structure. It here stands for that part of the
