21 March 2011
Appendix — Names of People and Places
People
Duzong 宋度宗 (AD.1225-1274) — A Song Emperor reigned from 1265 to 1274.
Gonddi 宋宗 (AD.1271-1275) — A Song Emperor reigned from 1274 to 1275.
Jia Sidao 賈似道 — The prime minister ruled from 1259 to 1275 in the Southern Song dynasty.
Kublai Khan or Khubilai Kkan (忽必烈) — The fourth Great Mongul Khan; died in 1294.
Lui Zhuang 劉壯 — A friend and partner of Wang and is the informant in the opera.
Wang Zhu-wan 黃 貯 萬 (Zhu means accumulated; Wan means
10,000) — Wang is the principal character in the opera. His name sounds too commonplace
and likely an arbitrary name if Wang was a real person.
Wu Ju-zhen 胡菊珍 (Ju Zhen literally means chrysanthemum pearl) — She was referred to only
Consort Wu 胡妃 or Consort Su in the Annals of Nanxiong. In the opera, she is the concubine 貴妃 and
adopts a false name as Su GuZhi 蘇桂枝 (Gu Zhi means laurel twig).
Zhang Qin 張欽 (Qin means respect or imperial) — A general in the opera had a
title of Shangshu (尚書) equivalent to a defence minister. The title was used in the Ming and Qing
dynasties.
Places
Conghua 從花 — A small city north of Guangzhou and close to the spa resort.
Ezhou 鄂州 — A city located south of Wuhan in Hubei Province.
Guangzhou 廣州 or Canton — The capital of Guangdong Province was an important port in the Silk
Route since the Han dynasty (206 BC - AD 220).
Hechou 合州 — A fortress city of Southern Sond Dynasty, located in Chongqing Shi Province
and north of the city of Chongqing, now called Hechuan 合川區.
Linan or Lin'an 臨安 — The capital of Southern Song dynasty, now city of Hangzhou
杭州市 in northwestern Zhejiang Province.
Longxi 隴西 — an ancient prefecture dating from Qin
dynasty to Northern Song dynasty. It covered a triangular marshy area comprising the south of Gansu Province, the east of Qinghai
Province and the north Sichuan Province.
Lu Gang 魯港 — A small city just south of the harbour city Wuhu in southerly eastern
Anhui Province.
Mei Pass 梅關 (Plum Tree Pass) — A mountain pass located at the boundary between the
Provinces of Jiangxi and Guangdong until recent decades. In the Song dynasty, fortifications were constructed at the pass.
The road was an important thoroughfare for trade and military movements. In 1928, Mao Zedong had attempted to cross the
pass from Jiangxi into Guangdong.
Nanxiong 南雄 — A city in the Nanxiong prefecture of the Guangdong Province. Nanxiong Fu
or Nanxiong Prefecture 南雄府; situated in the northeastern corner of Guangdong Province
and bordering the Jiangxi Province and the area adjacent to the Hunan Province.
Shaoguan 韶關 — A city and municipality in northern Guangdong.
Xiangyang 襄陽襄陽 — A northern town now amalgamated with the city of Fancheng and became the city of Xiangfan 襄樊 in 1950, the second largest
city in north Hubei Province. The Han River runs through Xiangyang and was a strategic route in China. The city has
one of the oldest still-intact city walls in China.
Zhen River 湞水 — A river flows from the Nanxiong to the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong.
Zhuji Lane 珠璣巷 — A small town or village about 9 km
north of Nanxiong. The ancient village had almost forgotten for centuries until
the middle of 1990. Right now the cobbled lane, the arched city gates and the gateway bridge
have been repaired or renovated. A monument of Lady Wu was built at the old well. The local government of Nanxiong has
also erected a statute of Lady Wu and has promoted the ancient Zhuji Lane and the
adjacent Mei Pass to attract tourism and investments.