CHINESE CHRONOLOGY,
ERA AND MODE OF RECKONING BY CYCLES,
WITH A COMPLETE SERIES OF THE SUCCESSIVE
DYNASTIES AND SOVEREIGNS,
CHRONOLOGY is so intimately connected with the record of historical events, so essential to the proper arrangement of facts, that the study of the latter cannot be pursued with pleasure, without some at- tention to the former. Without chronology, history will be dark and confused, and its study devoid of the advantages it would otherwise possess. Waving here all questions respecting the accuracy of the Chinese mode of computing time, it will suffice for our present pur- pose, if we can lay before our readers a concise account of their cycle, with a complete series of their successive dynasties and sovereigns.
For the cycle of sixty years, which the Chinese call hưá kiáh tsz', they acknowledge themselves indebted to Náu, Náu the Great, one of the ministers of Hwang ti, or the Yellow emperor. By command of his sovereign, in the sixty-first year of his reign, Náu the Great, taking the shih kán, or ten
Tá
horary characters,甲乙丙丁戊己庚辛壬癸 kiah, yih, ping, ting, máu, kí, hang, sin, jin, kwei, and together with them the+shik 'rh chí, twelve other horary characters, 子丑寅辰巳午未申酉戌亥tsz', chau, yin, máu, shin, sĩ, soi, voi, shin, giữ, sách, hái, he formed this cycle. The shih kán have been called the 'ten stems,' and the shih 'rh chi, the twelve branches.' Náu commencing with the first of the