Wu Wei – författare

Among female poets in the Tang Dynasty, Yu Xuanji is the most famous and legendary one. She is very beautiful and intelligent, known as the Female Sage Poet. However, such a beautiful and talented woman was very unlucky and suffered many a setback during her life. She was involved in a number of murders, including the Poisoning of Wen Tingjun, with a tragic end. Was she really the murderer? What's the mystery behind this?

After An Lushan Rebellion, the Tang Dynasty turned from prosperity to decline. Local military governors exercised undisputed authority, controlling the best troops in the world. Li Chun, Emperor Xianzong of the Tang Dynasty, ascended the throne in turbulence. He intended to restore the imperial power and began to weaken the separatist forces in a planned and orderly way. At that time, the military governors of three towns in Hebei Povince, namely Youzhou, Chengde and Weibo, were the most domineering and became the primary target of Xianzong. Kong Konger and Nie Yinniang, military officers of Weibo, were also deeply involved and unable to extricate themselves. The contradiction between military governors and the imperial court intensified day by day. With frequent battles, rangers run amuck. In 815, Xianzong's attack on Huaixi came at a critical moment. Prime Minister Wu Yuanheng was assassinated on the way to the court, becoming the first prime minister to be assassinated in the street. His horse ran to the Jianfu Gate of Daming Palace on its own, mysteriously lingering. All the officials were frightened, Xianzong dared not to go to court, sitting in Yanying Hall in tears. The atmosphere of terror quietly covered the whole Chang'an City. Bai Juyi, accompanying the Crown Prince in his studies, submitted a written statement the Emperor. He advocated that the killers and those behind them be hunted down, but he was immediately demoted to Jiangzhou Sima. The truth was difficult to be found...

Providing quality public service is one of the essential functions of a government. In the turbulent time, however, governments worldwide are experiencing a variety of unprecedented challenges to meet citizens' increasing demands and expectations. In China, building a service-oriented government and a harmonious society is central to the 12th Five-Year Plan and challenges the governance philosophies, capacities and competencies of Chinese government at every level. Researchers of Nanyang Centre for Public Administration (NCPA) at Nanyang Technological University systematically examined the concept of service-oriented government in the context of China and developed an assessment scheme to evaluate the performance of building service-oriented government in Chinese cities. Under the auspices of the Lien Foundation in Singapore, based on the assessment scheme, they conducted large-scale telephone surveys of citizens and businesses in 32 major Chinese cities in 2011. This book presents their findings and empirical studies on public service performance, citizen satisfaction, political trust and government transparency based on the data collected from the 2011 Lien project. Moreover, it also includes selected papers presented at the 2012 Lien International Conference on Public Administration in Singapore. Contributed by scholars from Mainland China, the US, Hong Kong and Singapore, these papers discuss various important issues related with building a service-oriented government including public ethical values, the roles of NGO, social accountability, urban integration, performance measurement and emotional labor in public service.