... saw the progressive elimination of the top layer of Samurai, the domain lords or daimyo, when in 1871 the last of the daimyo lords had to return their domains to the Emperor, with the domains restructured as prefectures, nationwide conscription in 1873 eliminated the status of the samurai as the sole division allowed to bear arms, and the stipends paid to samurai were eliminated by 1876. I know, things were changing. I recall one of ...

... trying to maintain order and make sure that there's enough supply. The disaster relief office has sent 17 medical teams made up of over 200 people," said a man in the party's liaison office in Liangshan prefecture, which includes Huili county, who identified himself by his surname, Song. Saturday's quake killed 38 people, the Xinhua news agency said on Monday. The temblor destroyed 258,000 homes, damaged major bridges and cracked three ...

... to both written and unwritten codes, the size of housing allocated to officials varies according to rank. A ministerial- or provincial-level official can have a house or apartment of 200 square meters, and a prefecture-level official may have 140 square meters. A ministerial-ranking official can be assigned an Audi 2.0 sedan or its equivalent at public expense. And only ministerial-level officials or higher can fly ...

... to both written and unwritten codes, the size of housing allocated to officials varies according to rank. A ministerial- or provincial-level official can have a house or apartment of 200 square meters, and a prefecture-level official may have 140 square meters. A ministerial-ranking official can be assigned an Audi 2.0 sedan or its equivalent at public expense. And only ministerial-level officials or higher can fly first-class....

... according to both written and unwritten codes, the size of housing allocated to officials varies according to rank. A ministerial- or provincial-level official can have a house or apartment of 200 square meters, and a prefecture-level official may have 140 square meters. A ministerial-ranking official can be assigned an Audi 2.0 sedan or its equivalent at public expense. And only ministerial-level officials or higher can fly first-class. ...

...from Wenchuan," Peng said, referring to an earthquake that hit the same prefecture in the 1930s. More than 16,000 people died in Wenchuan County ... lots of people and money," said He Biao, director of the Aba Prefecture Disaster Relief Headquarters. "That's where we didn't do enough. The ... the scientists' understanding of the risks to the zone, He said Aba Prefecture, which contains Wenchuan County, and sits on the Longmenshan belt, was not...

.... Young people can legally go to work in factories when they turn 16. In a series of articles this week, journalists working for Southern Metropolis Daily wrote that they had traveled to Liangshan, a prefecture in Sichuan Province, to pose as recruiters and to interview parents and other residents. The newspaper said recruiters and labor agencies working in Liangshan often transported children south and then "sold" them to factories at...

...railroad.’” (see The Guardian, Sep.20, 2005) And life is improving for many Tibetan farmers also, as Goldstein and Beall’s research (mentioned earlier) shows. When Dexter Roberts came across villagers in Northern Tibet’s Nagqu Prefecture, he discovered that most of the villagers (barley farmers and herdsmen) were quite content. “Life isn’t bad at all”, he quoted one villager as saying. (see "Tibet: Caught in China’s Two Hands", Business ...

... village on the afternoon of March 15, and I got paid several hundreds of yuan," said Zhoi'ma, from the Nyingchi prefecture of Tibet. Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province is regarded by the Dalai clique as a "model area" for secessionist activities. Since the outbreak of violence, overseas separatist forces had...

... its times. It is unfolding as the niceties of Olympic etiquette are being observed in London. Yesterday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported that a fresh riot broke out outside the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. It said that one government official was seriously injured but is silent on the response. Despite flooding western China with hundreds of thousands of troops and paramilitary units, the conflict is still continuing. It ...