title: Prestressed concrete

text: Tendon encapsulation systems are constructed from plastic or galvanised steel materials, and are classified into two main types: those where the tendon element is subsequently bonded to the surrounding concrete by internal grouting of the duct after stressing ("bonded" post-tensioning); and those where the tendon element is permanently "de"bonded from the surrounding concrete, usually by means of a greased sheath over the tendon strands ("unbonded" post-tensioning).


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Casting the tendon ducts/sleeves into the concrete before any tensioning occurs allows them to be readily "profiled" to any desired shape including incorporating vertical and/or horizontal curvature. When the tendons are tensioned, this profiling results in reaction forces being imparted onto the hardened concrete, and these can be beneficially used to counter any loadings subsequently applied to the structure.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: In bonded post-tensioning, tendons are permanently bonded to the surrounding concrete by the "in situ" grouting of their encapsulating ducting (after tendon tensioning). This grouting is undertaken for three main purposes: to protect the tendons against corrosion; to permanently "lock-in" the tendon pre-tension, thereby removing the long-term reliance upon the end-anchorage systems; and to improve certain structural behaviors of the final concrete structure.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Bonded post-tensioning characteristically uses tendons each comprising "bundles" of elements (e.g., strands or wires) placed inside a single tendon duct, with the exception of bars which are mostly used unbundled. This bundling makes for more efficient tendon installation and grouting processes, since each complete tendon requires only one set of end-anchorages and one grouting operation. Ducting is fabricated from a durable and corrosion-resistant material such as plastic (e.g., polyethylene) or galvanised steel, and can be either round or rectangular/oval in cross-section. The tendon sizes used are highly dependent upon the application, ranging from building works typically using between 2 and 6 strands per tendon, to specialized dam works using up to 91 strands per tendon.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Fabrication of bonded tendons is generally undertaken on-site, commencing with the fitting of end-anchorages to formwork, placing the tendon ducting to the required curvature profiles, and reeving (or threading) the strands or wires through the ducting. Following concreting and tensioning, the ducts are pressure-grouted and the tendon stressing-ends sealed against corrosion.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Unbonded post-tensioning differs from bonded post-tensioning by allowing the tendons permanent freedom of longitudinal movement relative to the concrete. This is most commonly achieved by encasing each individual tendon element within a plastic sheathing filled with a corrosion-inhibiting grease, usually lithium based. Anchorages at each end of the tendon transfer the tensioning force to the concrete, and are required to reliably perform this role for the life of the structure.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: For individual strand tendons, no additional tendon ducting is used and no post-stressing grouting operation is required, unlike for bonded post-tensioning. Permanent corrosion protection of the strands is provided by the combined layers of grease, plastic sheathing, and surrounding concrete. Where strands are bundled to form a single unbonded tendon, an enveloping duct of plastic or galvanised steel is used and its interior free-spaces grouted after stressing. In this way, additional corrosion protection is provided via the grease, plastic sheathing, grout, external sheathing, and surrounding concrete layers.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Individually greased-and-sheathed tendons are usually fabricated off-site by an extrusion process. The bare steel strand is fed into a greasing chamber and then passed to an extrusion unit where molten plastic forms a continuous outer coating. Finished strands can be cut-to-length and fitted with "dead-end" anchor assemblies as required for the project.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Both bonded and unbonded post-tensioning technologies are widely used around the world, and the choice of system is often dictated by regional preferences, contractor experience, or the availability of alternative systems. Either one is capable of delivering code-compliant, durable structures meeting the structural strength and serviceability requirements of the designer.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Research on the durability performance of in-service prestressed structures has been undertaken since the 1960s, and anti-corrosion technologies for tendon protection have been continually improved since the earliest systems were developed.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: The durability of prestressed concrete is principally determined by the level of corrosion protection provided to any high-strength steel elements within the prestressing tendons. Also critical is the protection afforded to the end-anchorage assemblies of unbonded tendons or cable-stay systems, as the anchorages of both of these are required to retain the prestressing forces. Failure of any of these components can result in the release of prestressing forces, or the physical rupture of stressing tendons.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Prestressed concrete is a highly versatile construction material as a result of it being an almost ideal combination of its two main constituents: high-strength steel, pre-stretched to allow its full strength to be easily realised; and modern concrete, pre-compressed to minimise cracking under tensile forces. Its wide range of application is reflected in its incorporation into the major design codes covering most areas of structural and civil engineering, including buildings, bridges, dams, foundations, pavements, piles, stadiums, silos, and tanks.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Building structures are typically required to satisfy a broad range of structural, aesthetic and economic requirements. Significant among these include: a minimum number of (intrusive) supporting walls or columns; low structural thickness (depth), allowing space for services, or for additional floors in high-rise construction; fast construction cycles, especially for multi-storey buildings; and a low cost-per-unit-area, to maximise the building owner's return on investment.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: The prestressing of concrete allows "load-balancing" forces to be introduced into the structure to counter in-service loadings. This provides many benefits to building structures:


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Some notable building structures constructed from prestressed concrete include: Sydney Opera House and World Tower, Sydney; St George Wharf Tower, London; CN Tower, Toronto; Kai Tak Cruise Terminal and International Commerce Centre, Hong Kong; Ocean Heights 2, Dubai; Eureka Tower, Melbourne; Torre Espacio, Madrid; Guoco Tower (Tanjong Pagar Centre), Singapore; Zagreb International Airport, Croatia; and Capital Gate, Abu Dhabi UAE.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Concrete is the most popular structural material for bridges, and prestressed concrete is frequently adopted. When investigated in the 1940s for use on heavy-duty bridges, the advantages of this type of bridge over more traditional designs was that it is quicker to install, more economical and longer-lasting with the bridge being less lively. One of the first bridges built in this way is the Adam Viaduct, a railway bridge constructed 1946 in the UK. By the 1960s, prestressed concrete largely superseded reinforced concrete bridges in the UK, with box girders being the dominant form.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: In short-span bridges of around , prestressing is commonly employed in the form of precast pre-tensioned girders or planks. Medium-length structures of around , typically use precast-segmental, "in-situ" balanced-cantilever and incrementally-launched designs. For the longest bridges, prestressed concrete deck structures often form an integral part of cable-stayed designs.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Concrete dams have used prestressing to counter uplift and increase their overall stability since the mid-1930s. Prestressing is also frequently retro-fitted as part of dam remediation works, such as for structural strengthening, or when raising crest or spillway heights.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Most commonly, dam prestressing takes the form of post-tensioned anchors drilled into the dam's concrete structure and/or the underlying rock strata. Such anchors typically comprise tendons of high-tensile bundled steel strands or individual threaded bars. Tendons are grouted to the concrete or rock at their far (internal) end, and have a significant "de-bonded" free-length at their external end which allows the tendon to stretch during tensioning. Tendons may be full-length bonded to the surrounding concrete or rock once tensioned, or (more commonly) have strands permanently encapsulated in corrosion-inhibiting grease over the free-length to permit long-term load monitoring and re-stressability.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Circular storage structures such as silos and tanks can use prestressing forces to directly resist the outward pressures generated by stored liquids or bulk-solids.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Horizontally curved tendons are installed within the concrete wall to form a series of hoops, spaced vertically up the structure. When tensioned, these tendons exert both axial (compressive) and radial (inward) forces onto the structure, which can directly oppose the subsequent storage loadings. If the magnitude of the prestress is designed to always exceed the tensile stresses produced by the loadings, a permanent residual compression will exist in the wall concrete, assisting in maintaining a watertight crack-free structure.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Prestressed concrete has been established as a reliable construction material for high-pressure containment structures such as nuclear reactor vessels and containment buildings, and petrochemical tank blast-containment walls. Using pre-stressing to place such structures into an initial state of bi-axial or tri-axial compression increases their resistance to concrete cracking and leakage, while providing a proof-loaded, redundant and monitorable pressure-containment system.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Nuclear reactor and containment vessels will commonly employ separate sets of post-tensioned tendons curved horizontally or vertically to completely envelop the reactor core. Blast containment walls, such as for liquid natural gas (LNG) tanks, will normally utilize layers of horizontally-curved hoop tendons for containment in combination with vertically looped tendons for axial wall pre-stressing.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Heavily loaded concrete ground-slabs and pavements can be sensitive to cracking and subsequent traffic-driven deterioration. As a result, prestressed concrete is regularly used in such structures as its pre-compression provides the concrete with the ability to resist the crack-inducing tensile stresses generated by in-service loading. This crack-resistance also allows individual slab sections to be constructed in larger pours than for conventionally reinforced concrete, resulting in wider joint spacings, reduced jointing costs and less long-term joint maintenance issues. Initial works have also been successfully conducted on the use of precast prestressed concrete for road pavements, where the speed and quality of the construction has been noted as being beneficial for this technique.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Some notable civil structures constructed using prestressed concrete include: Gateway Bridge, Brisbane Australia; Incheon Bridge, South Korea; Roseires Dam, Sudan; Wanapum Dam, Washington, US; LNG tanks, South Hook, Wales; Cement silos, Brevik Norway; Autobahn A73 bridge, Itz Valley, Germany; Ostankino Tower, Moscow, Russia; CN Tower, Toronto, Canada; and Ringhals nuclear reactor, Videbergshamn Sweden.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Worldwide, many professional organizations exist to promote best practices in the design and construction of prestressed concrete structures. In the United States, such organizations include the Post-Tensioning Institute (PTI) and the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI). Similar bodies include the Canadian Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (CPCI), the UK's Post-Tensioning Association, the Post Tensioning Institute of Australia and the South African Post Tensioning Association. Europe has similar country-based associations and institutions.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: It is important to note that these organizations are not the authorities of building codes or standards, but rather exist to promote the understanding and development of prestressed concrete design, codes and best practices.


title: Prestressed concrete

text: Rules and requirements for the detailing of reinforcement and prestressing tendons are specified by individual national codes and standards such as:


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: Mansfield Town Football Club is a professional football club based in the town of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, England. The team competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. Nicknamed 'The Stags', they play in a blue and yellow kit. Since 1919, Mansfield have played at Field Mill, which is now an all-seater stadium with a capacity of 9,186. Their main rivals are Chesterfield and Notts County.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: The club was formed in 1897 as Mansfield Wesleyans and entered the Mansfield & District Amateur League in 1902, before changing its name to Mansfield Wesley and joining the Notts & District League in 1906. They then finally became Mansfield Town in 1910, and moved from the Notts & Derbyshire League to the Central Alliance the following year. Crowned Alliance champions in 1919–20, they joined the Midland League in 1921 and would win this league on three occasions – 1923–24, 1924–25 and 1928–29 – before they were admitted into the Football League in 1931. They were relegated out of the Third Division in 1960, but won promotion out of the Fourth Division in 1962–63, remaining in the third tier for nine seasons until their relegation in 1972. They reached the Second Division for the first time after winning the Fourth Division title in 1974–75 and the Third Division title in 1976–77, only to suffer two relegations in three seasons.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: Promoted out of the Fourth Division under the stewardship of Ian Greaves in 1985–86, they went on to win the Football League Trophy in 1986–87. Mansfield were however relegated in 1991 and promoted again in 1991–92, only to suffer an immediate relegation the following season. They won promotion once again in 2001–02, but were relegated to League Two in 2003 and lost their Football League status with a further relegation in 2008. They spent five seasons in the Conference until they were promoted back into the Football League after winning the Conference in 2012–13 following investment from new club owner John Radford.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: Mansfield Town was formed under the name of Mansfield Wesleyans in 1897, the name of the club coming from the local Wesleyan church. The club played friendlies up until the 1902–03 season, when it joined the Mansfield and District Amateur League. When the league dropped its amateur tag in 1906, the church abandoned the club, which changed its name to Mansfield Wesley and moved into the Notts and District League.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: In the summer of 1910, despite having lost the previous season to Mansfield Mechanics in the Second Qualifying Round of the FA Cup, the team changed its name to Mansfield Town (much to the disgust of the Mechanics). In the following years, Mansfield Town swapped between the Notts and District League, Central Alliance League and Notts and Derbyshire League, before World War I brought a halt to proceedings.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: After the war, Mansfield became occupants of the Field Mill ground, after Mansfield Mechanics failed to pay their rent. In 1921, the club was admitted into the Midland Counties League, and celebrated by reaching the sixth qualifying round of the FA Cup twice in a row. The club won the league in 1923–24 and was the runner-up the following season, but on both occasions failed to win election to the Football League.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: In 1928–29, Mansfield won the Midland League again, but more famously reached the fourth round proper of the FA Cup, losing 2–0 to First Division club Arsenal, after a cup run which saw them beat Second Division side Wolverhampton Wanderers. However, York City beat the Stags in elections for a League place.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: In 1931, Mansfield were finally elected to the Southern Section of the Third Division. However, the club struggled to adapt to League surroundings and were frequently in the lower reaches of the table. One of very few highlights in the years before the Second World War was Ted Harston, who scored 55 goals in one season before transferring to Liverpool.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: After the war, Mansfield started to see some progress. Lucky to escape the need for re-election when it was decided that no club would be relegated after the 1946–47 season, the Stags started to move up the table. In 1950–51, Mansfield reached the fifth round of the FA Cup and became the first Football League team to complete a 23–game home schedule unbeaten, although missed out on the only Third Division promotion spot.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: In 1959–60 the club was relegated to the recently created Fourth Division, before gaining promotion back to the Third Division in 1962–63. This promotion was later tainted by life-time suspensions handed out to players Brian Phillips and Sammy Chapman for bribing opponents, including players of Hartlepools United in a vital match which Mansfield won 4–3. Two seasons later, the club again narrowly missed out on promotion to the Second Division. The season after avoiding relegation due to a points deduction for Peterborough United, Mansfield made another headline-grabbing cup run. Mansfield beat First Division West Ham United 3–0 in the fifth round of the 1968–69 FA Cup, before narrowly losing to Leicester City in the quarter finals. In 1971–72 Mansfield were relegated, again, to the Fourth Division.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: By 1976–77, the club was back in the Third Division, and despite the distraction of a 5–2 FA Cup defeat to Matlock Town, beat Wrexham to the Third Division title. The club went straight back down, and only a good run of form at the end of the 1978–79 season saved Mansfield from a double relegation.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: Mansfield won the Football League Trophy in front of 58,000 fans in May 1987, beating Bristol City on penalties after a 1–1 draw. However, the years that followed were inconsistent, with Mansfield becoming a "yo-yo" team between the Third and Fourth Divisions. Also at that time, the controversial Keith Haslam bought the club.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: In 2001–02, Mansfield were again promoted to the third tier of English football, beating Carlisle United on the final day of the season to take third place from Cheltenham Town, who lost at Plymouth Argyle. A poor season in Division Two did not pick up even with the arrival of former England international Keith Curle as manager, as the club was relegated straight back to the fourth tier of English football. In 2003–04, Mansfield beat Northampton Town in a penalty shoot-out in the Division Three play-off semi-finals, but lost to Huddersfield Town in a similar fashion final, after having an apparently legitimate Colin Larkin goal disallowed.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: In 2007–08, Mansfield's 77-year stay in the Football League came to an end as the club was relegated to the Conference. This was in spite of an excellent FA Cup run, leading to two BBC TV appearances, against Harrogate Railway Athletic and Middlesbrough. A fluke goal in a 1–0 loss to rivals Rotherham United in the last home game of the season all but guaranteed relegation. Joyous scenes erupted at the final whistle, with controversial owner Sir Keith Haslam being applauded by fans.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: Haslam left the club, as the "Three Amigos" of Perry, Middleton and Saunders purchased the club (but not the ground) for £1 - thought to be vastly over valued at the time, and installed Billy McEwan as manager. He was replaced after Christmas by David Holdsworth. Holdsworth's two-and-a-half year reign bought little improvement as the club was punching above it weight - and he was dismissed as manager.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: Caretaker manager Duncan Russell led Mansfield to an FA Trophy final appearance in 2010–11, Louis Briscoe scoring a late extra-time winner against Luton in the semi-final second leg. The Stags lost 1–0 to Darlington at Wembley Stadium after a 120th-minute extra-time goal by Chris Senior. A league position of 12th was not good enough for Russell to keep his job; Paul Hall replaced him as interim manager during the close season.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: His replacement, Paul Cox, led Mansfield to their highest Conference finish in his first season. A good run of form after Christmas saw the Stags finish in third in the league, and unbelievable achievement given the size of the fan base, although they lost 2–1 on aggregate to eventual play-off winners York City after extra time in the promotion play-off semi-final.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: An indifferent start to the 2012–13 season left Mansfield lingering around mid-table, with some fans calling for the manager's head. One good point to the first half of the season was the club's FA Cup run. A 2–1 win over Lincoln City set up a third round tie with Premier League side Liverpool. A controversial Luis Suárez goal helped the Reds to a 2–1 victory, but a brave display from the Mansfield team gave the team momentum in the weeks to follow. Following the cup game the Yellow Stain won 20 of their last 24 games, including a club record run of 12 consecutive wins, to clinch the Conference Premier title, and promotion back to the Football League. The title was sealed with a 1–0 victory over Wrexham on 20 April 2013.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: After a poor start to the 2020–21 season, Nigel Clough took over as manager in November and steered Mansfield to relative safety. 12 games without a win early in the 2021–22 season saw Mansfield second bottom of League Two in late October, but after a subsequent 14-match unbeaten streak from late November to early March, including a club-record 11 straight home wins, the Yellow Stain finished 7th in League Two, just 3 points shy of automatic promotion. They beat Northampton Town 3–1 on aggregate in the playoff semi-finals. However, in the final Port Vale secured an emphatic 3–0 win.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: The 2006–07 season saw the creation of the "SFFC (Stags Fans for Change)" an organisation aiming for the removal of then owner Keith Haslam from the club. The organisation undertook many projects over the year to get their message over in a different and non-aggressive way. This included hiring a plane to fly over the local derby match with Notts County towing a banner declaring that the club was for sale and calling for Haslam to leave. On 29 November 2007 Haslam rejected a bid from James Derry's consortium and the Mansfield fans pledged to have a TV protest against him on 2 December 2007 against Harrogate Railway Athletic live on the BBC's "Match of the Day" programme.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: In March 2008, it was reported that John Batchelor, a bidder for Mansfield Town, planned to rename the club to Harchester United after the fictional squad from the TV series "Dream Team" to make the club "more promotable" if his bid were a success. Fans and executives within the club both stated that they would oppose the name change.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: Following the club's relegation in 2008, Colin Hancock, then the chairman of Glapwell, emerged as the leading bidder as he agreed to purchase a controlling share of the Stags, Field Mill, and some land surrounding the stadium from Haslam. However, three businessmen who are also Mansfield Town fans, Andrew Perry, Andrew Saunders and Steve Middleton, bought the club from Keith Haslam for an undisclosed fee, but they were still renting the stadium from him. At the start of the 2010–11 season Mansfield were bought by John Radford.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: On 2 December 2010 the club was locked out of Field Mill in a dispute over unpaid rent. Since returning to Field Mill after securing a lease on the ground for a further year and a half, John Radford began to seek a way by which the club would once again own Field Mill. It was reported that Keith Haslam rejected an offer from Radford for Field Mill; the offer was alleged to have been worth in between £2 million and £4 million.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: On 1 March 2012, Chairman John Radford purchased the ground from Keith Haslam. Since then, 1 March is considered "Amber Day" at the club to commemorate the retrieval of Mansfield's stadium. In April 2012, Radford changed the stadium's name from "Field Mill" to the "One Call Stadium" for sponsorship reasons.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: The 2003 Football Fans Census indicates that Mansfield's biggest rivalries are with Chesterfield and Notts County, with Doncaster Rovers tertiary rivals. Bad blood between Chesterfield and Mansfield has links to the miners' strike. Fixtures between Town and County are referred to as Nottinghamshire derbies. More recently, a lesser rivalry has grown with Grimsby Town.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: During the Wesleyans era, Mansfield played in chocolate and sky blue shirts, firstly striped until 1902, and then halved. Upon assuming the Mansfield Town moniker, the club switched to red shirts, white shorts, and black socks, though this identity only lasted the 1910–11 season. A five-year stint in black and white quartered shirts with black shorts and socks followed before the club closed down.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: Upon their return in 1919, Town introduced their now-familiar blue and amber club colour scheme, initially in halves. Becoming a league side in 1931 coincided with a change to pale blue shirts with white shorts, which the club would wear until October 1934, when the blue and amber returned (albeit in quarters for the remainder of the 1934–35 season). They would continue to wear this colour combination in various arrangements (including a blue shirt with amber sleeves from January 1948) for two decades. From 1954 to 1961 Town played in white shirts and black shorts, before amber shirts with blue shorts returned for seven years. All-blue with amber trim was selected in 1968, before a new look of white shirts with blue shorts was introduced in 1970.


title: Mansfield Town F.C.

text: 1974 saw the classic colour scheme return, and though the composition might vary, amber and blue has reigned ever since. The only exception to this was the centenary kit worn in the 1997–98 season, which was a retro kit design styled after Mansfield Wesleyans' first, albeit with sky blue shorts and socks.


title: Almighty Vice Lord Nation

text: The Almighty Vice Lord Nation (Vice Lords for short, abbreviated AVLN) is the second-largest and one of the oldest street and prison gangs in Chicago, Illinois. Its total membership is estimated to be between 30,000 and 35,000. It is also one of the founding members of the People Nation multi-gang alliance.


title: Almighty Vice Lord Nation

text: In 1957, the Vice Lords gang was founded by several African American youths originally from the North Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago. These youths met while incarcerated in the Illinois State Training School for Boys in St. Charles (also known as the St. Charles Juvenile Correctional Facility). At the time, they were led by founding member Edwin "Pepalo" Perry. The name "vice" was chosen when a gang founder looked up the term in the dictionary and found the meaning as "having a tight hold".


title: Almighty Vice Lord Nation

text: As the original Vice Lords group were released from incarceration, they quickly began to recruit other youths from their neighborhood and began engaging in conflicts with other "clubs" from various Chicago neighborhoods. By 1964, they had grown significantly and law enforcement named them as a primary target for their various illegal activities, including robbery, theft, assaults, battery, intimidation, and extortion. They were noted for their violent behavior


title: Almighty Vice Lord Nation

text: In an attempt at softening their public image, a leader of one of the original 8 Vice Lord sets changed the gang's name to "Conservative Vice Lords", which today serves as the foundation of the entire Vice Lord Nation. They developed new logos and advertised themselves as a community outreach group. They went as far as to petition for a community outreach chapter named "Conservative Vice Lord Incorporated". This attempt was successful enough that the group began to receive a large amount of positive publicity from various politicians and community leaders. CVL, Inc. established a number of recreational areas for neighborhood children which were then used as meeting houses after they had closed for the day.


title: Almighty Vice Lord Nation

text: In 1970, two Vice Lord leaders, Alfonso Alfred and Bobby Gore, applied for a $275,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The Rockefeller Foundation approved the grant. This particular era of the CVL is documented in the 1970 film, "Lord Thing", by Chicago filmmaker DeWitt Beall. Those featured in the film include Bobby Gore, Kenneth "Goat" Parks, Eddy "Pepilo" Perry, Don McIlvaine, Leonard Sengali and William Franklin.


title: Almighty Vice Lord Nation

text: At the same time, the gang was successfully consolidating smaller neighborhood gangs (including the Cherokees, the Morphines, the Commanches, the Continental Pimps, the Imperial Chaplains, the Clovers, the Cobras, and the Braves) into the Vice Lord Nation. As a result, their numbers swelled significantly. In spite of the positive press, it was soon discovered that the Vice Lords were still violent criminals. An introduction of narcotics into the Lawndale neighborhood during this time, along with a rapid increase in crimes involving intimidation, extortion, and murders of business owners who refused to pay for "protection" were perpetrated by the gang.


title: Almighty Vice Lord Nation

text: After public pressure, a federal investigation into CVL, Inc.'s use of the Rockefeller grant money was conducted and as a result, several leaders were arrested and sent to prison. By the early 1980s, Perry and Alfred were dead and Gore was in prison for murder. The younger Vice Lord leadership attempted to conceal the gang's true intentions with another camouflage campaign, this time by adopting Islamic ideologies. By the mid-1990s, they had created a large document called Lords of Islam which addressed new rules for the gang. Their headquarters, located near Pulaski and 16th Street, is referred to as the "Holy City".


title: Almighty Vice Lord Nation

text: In the 1990s, the VLs, while engaging in the usual activities, became much more sophisticated and expanded into mortgage fraud, credit card fraud, and money laundering. In 2021 the Almighty Vicelord Nation became a corporation operating globally with the mission of uniting black people. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Vice Lords Nation has between approximately 30,000 and 35,000 members operating in 74 cities and 28 states, primarily in the Great Lakes region.


title: Almighty Vice Lord Nation

text: Vice Lord street gangs use a variety symbols to identify themselves, including a rabbit wearing a bow tie (the "Playboy" logo), often stylized with top hat and cane. Their colors are black, red, and gold.


title: Almighty Vice Lord Nation

text: As a teenager growing up on Chicago's West Side in the 1960s, Willie Lloyd joined the Unknown Vice Lords, a faction based along 16th Street in the Lawndale neighborhood. Lloyd soon became the faction's leader and recruited thousands of followers. Eventually he proclaimed himself "King of Kings" and stated that he was the leader of the entire Vice Lord Nation. However, his tenure was interrupted by a prison term for his part in the murder of a police officer in Iowa.


title: Almighty Vice Lord Nation

text: Lloyd continued to lead the gang on the outside through fellow inmates and prison employees affiliated with the gang. While incarcerated, Lloyd wrote "The Amalgamated Order of Lordism", a 61-page manifesto on the Vice Lord command structure in the prisons and on the streets. He was incarcerated in 1971 until his release on parole in 1986, then was back in prison a year later on a weapons conviction until another parole in 1992. When he left prison in 1992, he was picked up by fellow gang members dressed in furs who were driving a convoy of five limousines.


title: Almighty Vice Lord Nation

text: Later in 1992, he was involved in a protracted gang war over control of the Vice Lord Nation, involving kidnapping and the murder of rival members' children. Law enforcement intensified its efforts to remove Lloyd from the street, and from 1994 to 2001, he was again incarcerated for weapons violations.


title: Almighty Vice Lord Nation

text: During Lloyd's quarter-century as gang leader, Vice Lord drug deals, extortion and other crimes reportedly led to thousands of homicides. In 1996, police had supposedly linked every murder committed in Chicago's 15th district back to orders from Lloyd.


title: Almighty Vice Lord Nation

text: Lloyd publicly quit the Vice Lords after his release from prison, and became an outspoken critic of gang life. Lloyd attempted to earn a living as a gang mediator, and he became affiliated with a non-profit organization. He was briefly a guest lecturer for a class called "Street Gangs in Chicago" at DePaul University, which was controversial, in part due to field trips in which Lloyd took the students to the West Side.


title: Almighty Vice Lord Nation

text: In August 2003, Lloyd was shot four times in Garfield Park. This was the third assassination attempt on Lloyd. Lloyd became paralyzed from the neck down due to injuries from the shooting. Rumors persisted that Lloyd still wanted to collect a "tax" from the Vice Lords as its leader, even though he had supposedly left gang life. Lloyd has given interviews stating that he believes his attackers included some of his former henchmen. Lloyd died in 2015 aged 64.


title: Life as We Know It (film)

text: Life as We Know It is a 2010 American romantic comedy film directed by Greg Berlanti, starring Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel. It was released on October 8, 2010, after sneak previews in 811 theaters on October 2, 2010.


title: Life as We Know It (film)

text: Holly Berenson is the owner of a small Atlanta bakery, and Eric Messer is a promising television technical sports director for the Atlanta Hawks. Their best friends, Peter and Alison, set them up on a blind date that goes horribly wrong, and results in both hating each other with a passion. As the years go by, Peter and Alison get married, have a baby girl named Sophie, and select Holly and Ericwho teasingly tolerate each otheras the godparents.


title: Life as We Know It (film)

text: Shortly after Sophie's first birthday, Peter and Alison are killed in a car crash. Holly and Eric learn that their friends named them Sophie's joint guardians. After finding that none of Peter and Alison's relatives are fit to take care of Sophie, Holly and Eric put their differences aside and move into Sophie's home.


title: Life as We Know It (film)

text: Living together proves to be a struggle. One night, Holly is away at an important catering job when Eric is given the opportunity to direct a big basketball game. Eric takes Sophie with him, but her crying distracts him, leading to him making a big mistake on the broadcast. When they get home, Eric and Holly argue, but later they make up.


title: Life as We Know It (film)

text: Holly goes on a date with Sam, Sophie's pediatrician. The date is cut short when Eric calls to tell Sam that Sophie has a high fever. When they join him at the hospital, Eric sees Holly kiss Sam.


title: Life as We Know It (film)

text: Over time, the guardians discover that raising a child is more expensive than they had expected, and Holly can no longer afford to expand her business. Eric helps by investing in her company, and they cement the new relationship by going on a date, which ends with them having sex, while developing strong feelings.


title: Life as We Know It (film)

text: Their Child Protective Services caseworker, Janine, tells them they must make a firm commitment either to stay together, or break up, as waffling in between would be bad for Sophie. Eric is offered his dream job with the Phoenix Suns, and doesn't discuss it with Holly. When she finds out, she tells him to take the job, accusing him of looking for a way out of raising Sophie.


title: Life as We Know It (film)

text: At Thanksgiving break, Eric returns from Phoenix for a visit, hoping to patch things up with Holly. She invites him to a dinner that she and Sam are hosting for neighbors and friends. Eric and Holly argue when he learns she is planning to sell the house soon, as the upkeep is too costly. Holly accuses Eric of deserting her and Sophie, while Eric points out how quickly she replaced him. Eric tells her he loves her, but leaves the dinner, planning to return to Phoenix. Once alone with Holly, Sam says that if he and his former wife had fought in the way that Eric and Holly did, they would still be together. He tells Holly to work out her feelings for Eric, and leaves. That night, Sophie calls Holly "Mama" for the first time.


title: Life as We Know It (film)

text: Janine visits to make her final determination whether Holly and Eric are fit parents. Holly realizes that she can't take care of Sophie without Eric, and that she loves him. She, Sophie and Janine rush to the airport, but on reaching the gate, finds that Eric's flight has departed. She returns to the house, where she finds him sitting inside. He tells her he has realized that Peter and Alison chose them to be Sophie's guardians because, together, they are a loving family.


title: Life as We Know It (film)

text: A few months later, they host Sophie's second birthday party, with all the neighbors and friends in attendance. Holly has made a second cake with the number 1 on it, telling Eric "It's for us, 'cause we made it a year." They kiss, then the guests sing 'Happy Birthday' to Sophie.


title: Life as We Know It (film)

text: Filming took place on location, in a house in the wealthy Buckhead area of Atlanta. Holly Berenson's bakery was depicted at Belly General Store in Virginia-Highland, a century-old bungalow-style neighborhood with several small-scale historic retail clusters, a few miles northeast of Downtown Atlanta. Scenes from Eric's workplace were filmed at Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) off Techwood Drive in Atlanta. Filming also took place at Philips Arena.


title: Life as We Know It (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 29% based on 153 reviews and an average rating of 4.60/10. The critics consensus reads: "Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel make a charming couple with plenty of chemistry, but that isn't enough to make up for "Life as We Know It"s formulaic plot and poorly written script." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 39 out of 100 based on 31 critic reviews, meaning "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Life as We Know It (film)

text: Despite having been a critical failure, "Life as We Know It" had a successful run at the box office, bringing in over $105 million worldwide against a $38 million budget.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: Plants vs. Zombies is a 2009 tower defense video game developed and published by PopCap Games. First released for Windows and Mac OS X, the game has since been ported to consoles, handhelds, and mobile devices. The player takes the role of a homeowner amid a zombie apocalypse. As a horde of zombies approaches along several parallel lanes, the player must defend the home by putting down plants, which fire projectiles at the zombies or otherwise detrimentally affect them. The player collects a currency called "sun" to buy plants. If a zombie happens to make it to the house on any lane, the player loses and must play through the level again.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: "Plants vs. Zombies" was designed by George Fan, who conceptualized it as a more defense-oriented sequel to his fish simulator game "Insaniquarium" (2001), then developed it into a tower defense game featuring plants fighting against zombies. The game took inspiration from the games "" and ""; along with the movie "Swiss Family Robinson". It took three and a half years to make "Plants vs. Zombies". Rich Werner was the main artist, Tod Semple programmed the game, and Laura Shigihara composed the game's music. In order to appeal to both casual and hardcore gamers, the tutorial was designed to be simple and spread throughout "Plants vs. Zombies".


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: "Plants vs. Zombies" was positively received by critics and was nominated for multiple awards, including "Download Game of the Year" and "Strategy Game of the Year" as part of Golden Joystick Awards 2010. Reviewers praised the game's humorous art style, simplistic but engaging gameplay, and soundtrack. Upon release in May 2009, it was the fastest-selling video game developed by PopCap Games and quickly became their best-selling game, surpassing "Bejeweled" and "Peggle". By 2010, it had sold over a million copies worldwide and has since been considered one of the greatest video games of all time. In 2011, PopCap was bought by Electronic Arts (EA). The company laid off Fan and 49 other employees, marking a change of focus to mobile and social gaming. After the buyout, "Plants vs. Zombies" was followed by a series of games including two direct sequels, three third-person shooters, and two spin-offs, most of which have received positive reviews.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: "Plants vs. Zombies" is a tower defense video game in which the player defends a house from zombies. The lawn is divided into a grid, with the player's house to the left. The player places different types of plants on individual squares of the grid. Each plant has a different style of defense, such as shooting, exploding, and blocking. Different types of zombies have their own special behaviors and their own weaknesses to different plants. For example, Balloon Zombie can float over the player's plants, but its balloon can be popped by Cactus. Other examples of zombies include Dancing Zombie which summons Backup Dancers around himself; and the Dolphin Rider Zombie, which rides on a dolphin to jump over a plant.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: The player can pick a limited number of types of plants through seed packets at the beginning of each level, and must pay to place them using a currency called "sun". The player collects sun by either clicking on sun icons that randomly appear over the lawn, or by using certain plants that generate sun, like Sunflowers and Sun-shrooms. Each type of plant recharges between each placement at various speeds. A shovel can be used to dig up and remove plants. Positioned at the left end of each lane is a single-use lawnmower; if a zombie reaches this end, the mower activates and kills all zombies in that lane. If a zombie reaches the end of a lane whose mower has already been used, the player has to restart the level.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: There are five stages in the Adventure mode, each comprising ten levels. At the end of nearly every level, the player collects a new type of plant to use in subsequent levels. On the first level of stage two (level 21), zombies begin to occasionally drop in-game money when killed. After level 34, the player can spend the money at an in-game store called Crazy Dave's Twiddydinkies. Crazy Dave offers boosts that the player uses to upgrade already-placed plants and gardening tools for the player's Zen Garden. It is unlocked after level 54 and allows the player to water and maintain a group of plants, which are obtained as loot from killing zombies or purchasing them through his store; in return, the plants generate money for the player. Every stage's fifth level has a mini-game challenge, often utilizing a conveyor belt that gives various plants to the player. On every stage's tenth level, the player receives plants from a conveyor belt. Stages one, three, and five occur in daylight, while stages two and four take place at night.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: During the nighttime stages, the player uses the lower-cost fungi plants due to the lack of natural sun generation at night. Stages three and four take place in the house's backyard, which has six lanes (unlike the usual five lanes) and features a pool taking up the middle two lanes. On the pool, plants are placed on top of Lily Pads which, unlike most plants, can be placed directly on pool lanes. Stage four has fog that obscures most of the lawn. Stage five takes place on the house's roof. This setting has the player use catapult plants, instead of the standard shooting plants, to account for the roof's upward slope.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: Adventure mode's last level pits the player against Dr. Zomboss, an evil scientist and the zombies' animator. He crushes the player's plants by having his Zombot crush the plants or throw vans at them, and can place fire and ice balls that roll across a lane. The player subdue these balls with Jalapeños and Ice-shrooms. After completing the Adventure mode, the player can play it again, this time with plants unlocked during the previous play-through, and with three randomly selected plants to begin each level.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: Three additional modes—Mini-Games, Puzzle, and Survival—become available once Adventure mode is completed. In Mini-Games mode, the player selects from a collection of twenty mini-games. These levels pose the player with unique challenges, each using some gimmick—often variants of a conveyor belt that gives the player certain plants. In Puzzle mode, the player selects from two types of levels: "Vasebreaker" and "I, Zombie". In "Vasebreaker", the player breaks open a set of vases, each containing a plant or a zombie. The level ends when all the vases are smashed and all the zombies are killed. In "I, Zombie", the player places zombies to get past pre-placed cardboard cut-outs of plants, aiming to eat the brain at the end of each lane. Survival mode offers a selection of levels in which the player chooses plants to defeat increasingly challenging waves of zombies.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: "Plants vs. Zombies" was designed by George Fan. Imagining a more defense-oriented version of one of his previous titles, "Insaniquarium" (2001), and having played some "Warcraft III" tower defense mods, he was inspired to make a tower defense game. Fan considered a sequel to "Insaniquarium" for the Nintendo DS, each screen would represent a separate fish tank—one on top of the other. Aliens would attack the top fish tank and, if successful, would break into the bottom fish tank. Gameplay in the top tank would focus on defense against the aliens, while in the bottom tank it would revolve around resource generation, akin to "Insaniquarium". But inspired by "Warcraft III" towers, he felt that plants would make good defensive structures. He wanted to bring new concepts to the genre and believed the fact that enemies in tower defense games would never attack the towers was unintuitive. To address this, he began designing the five- and six-lane setups that would later be used in the final game. Enemies were at first the aliens from "Insaniquarium", but while Fan was sketching concept art, he drew what he considered "the perfect zombie", and the theming was reworked. Fan went with using zombies instead of aliens in order to make the game stand out from other video games using plants.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: "Insaniquarium" substantially influenced the development of "Plants vs. Zombies". The games have similar pacing, determined by the "drip-feeding" of pets and plants respectively, and choosing plants at the beginning of each "Plants vs. Zombies" level is analogous to choosing pets in "Insaniquarium". Fan also took inspiration from the film "Swiss Family Robinson," in which a family defends themselves and their home against pirates. Fan included elements from the trading card game "", which he had played with his girlfriend, Laura Shigihara. Showing her how to customize their card decks inspired him to design "Plants vs. Zombies" with seed packets—instead of his original idea of a conveyor belt that gave random plants—due to the seed packet system's greater complexity. While the conveyor belt was dropped from the more common game mode, it remained a special element in select levels. The use of multitasking between lanes was influenced by and was featured prominently in the old arcade game "Tapper".


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: When the game featured aliens, its working title was "Weedlings", but Fan thought the name a poor fit because of how many gardening-themed video games were being released at the time. It was renamed "Plants vs. Zombies" as a placeholder after the enemies were changed. The planned name for most of development was "Lawn of the Dead", a pun on the title of the George A. Romero zombie film "Dawn of the Dead". Romero did not permit usage of the name, even after a plea from Fan, who sent Romero a video of himself dressed as a Zombie Temp Worker grunting and programming on a computer, subtitled with references to runtime errors. There were many other candidate names, including "Residential Evil" and "Bloom & Doom", the latter of which was used as the branding on the in-game seed packets.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: "Plants vs. Zombies" was initially designed by Fan alone. Because Fan was a full-time employee at PopCap Games, the video game company helped build up a small team consisting of a composer (Laura Shigihara), a programmer (Tod Semple), and an artist (Rich Werner). Fan was based in San Francisco, while Werner was in Seattle. Stephen Notley is credited as being a writer for "Plants vs. Zombies". He wrote the plant and zombie descriptions in the in-game guide, the Suburban Almanac. Fan found working in small teams to be easier than working in large teams. According to an interview with "Edge", while searching for an artist, Fan discovered Rich Werner, whose work Fan thought matched with his design intentions. Fan attributed the design's intrigue to its animation scheme; Tod Semple suggested using Adobe Flash, which Fan worried would generate an animation "cut out from paper" and too closely resembling "South Park", but he was ultimately satisfied, crediting Semple and Werner's talent. "Plants vs. Zombies" was made using PopCap Games's own engine: PopCap Framework. Fan consistently posted updates of "Plants vs. Zombies" every four months in an internal forum within PopCap Games called Burrito, where he accepted feedback from the employees of PopCap.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: When the concept of "Plants vs. Zombies" was first established as a sequel to "Insaniquarium", Fan wanted to make a game where the aliens invade the player's garden. Originally, his intent was to make a gardening game where plants are grown as an investment to afford defenses against an alien invasion. After Fan created the "perfect zombie", the enemies were changed from aliens to zombies. He trimmed the concept of simultaneously defending and maintaining the garden, feeling that the repetitive gardening detracted from the main gameplay. Simplifying the gardening system, Fan restructured the game's main aspects to fit better into the tower defense genre, and later added further elements inspired by other games. Fan enjoyed the idea of plants defending against the zombies, combining two distinct species that were not yet touched by other game developers at the time. Plants playing as the role of towers made sense to him, acting as stationary defense against the recurring waves of zombies. Zombies were designed to move in the current linear five- and six-lane system in the final game, allowing the enemy zombies to interact with the defensive plants, a refinement in the game that Fan felt worked as a unique gameplay mechanic to make "Plants vs. Zombies" stand out in the tower defense genre amongst other tower defense games popular at the time.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: "Plants vs. Zombies" took three and a half years to make. Much of the first year of development focused on Adventure mode. Semple began working on ideas later used for Mini-Games mode. Some ideas for the Puzzle mode section were later modified and moved into Adventure mode: "Vasebreaker" and "I, Zombie", for example, came from single-level concepts for Mini-Games mode. During testing, Fan found that the Mini-Games and Puzzle modes detracted from a focus on Adventure mode, so he locked most additional modes, requiring advancement within Adventure mode to unlock them. Later, the development of "Plants vs. Zombies" consisted of Fan testing the game and writing down notes of what could be done to tweak it before sending them off to Semple. The last year of development had the team fine-tuning "Plants vs. Zombies" before release.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: One of the critical aspects of the development was designing "Plants vs. Zombies" to be balanced between hardcore and casual gaming. Fan designed the tutorial to be simple and merged within the game to attract casual gamers. It had the player learning by performing actions, rather than reading about how to do the actions. The in-game messages were also made to be as short and easy-to-read as possible; with the dialogue from Crazy Dave being broken up into small chunks of text to match this. The in-game messages were also designed to match a player's skill set; an example being the message telling the player to place Peashooters further to the left would only pop up in an early level if a Peashooter was placed towards the right of the lawn and was eaten. The team discovered that newcomers to the genre of real-time strategy often had difficulty learning the importance of sun collection. The price of the income-generating Sunflowers was halved, encouraging the player to buy them instead of the attack-only Peashooter. The change forced restructuring of the balance between plants and zombies, a move that Fan said was worth the effort.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: Early in the development of "Plants vs. Zombies", time was spent brainstorming ideas for characters. Fan purposely gave all the plants and zombies names that matched their individual functions, designing them accordingly—for example, Peashooter shoots projectiles. Fan also made all the plants stationary and all the zombies slowly move across their lane so the casual player would understand that the towers (the rooted plants) could not move and the attackers (the mindless zombies) could slowly move. The final designs of the zombies and plants changed little from their inception. The game's sole human character, Crazy Dave, was a parody of a person Fan knew. Crazy Dave features a vocal performance by Fan.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: The final game has 49 types of plants. Fan expressed fondness for the Tall-Nut, Torchwood, and Cob Cannon plants. He liked the Tall-Nut's character, citing its "determined gaze" and its shedding a single tear when hurt. In terms of strategy, he liked that the Torchwood—which gives Peashooters flaming ammunition—required the player to consider how plants interact with each other. Fan also liked the Squash, due to its name's wordplay; the plant crushes zombies. A proposed plant would have been placed above other plants to protect them from Bungee and Catapult Zombies; it was difficult, however, to visualize this plant's position. A similar defensive item (the Umbrella Leaf) made it into the final game, protecting plants from Bungee and Catapult Zombies, but placed next to plants. Many potential plants had concept art but were not in the final "Plants vs. Zombies".


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: "Plants vs. Zombies" has 26 types of zombies. Fan's favorite zombie was Dr. Zomboss; the team spent a full month designing the fight against him at the end of the game. Fan liked the Pole Vaulting Zombie due to the likely amusement of its first encounter with the player; he gave an example of a player failing to block it with a Wall-Nut plant, with the zombie jumping over the obstruction. The Newspaper Zombie's first iteration simply read a newspaper, but Werner redrew the character as having become a zombie while reading on the toilet. Fan's brother asked him whether he based the zombie on their father, as he would often read the newspaper on the toilet. Fan said that while he had no such intention, it was his favorite backstory to a zombie. The Dancing Zombie initially resembled Michael Jackson from the music video "Thriller". The zombie was present in the game before his death, but the entertainer's estate objected to its inclusion over a year following his death; PopCap replaced it with a more generic disco-dancing zombie. Many other zombies were cut during development.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: Shigihara composed "Plants vs. Zombies" soundtrack, borrowing elements from pop music and console chiptune. Before the game's inception, Fan asked Shigihara to compose the music for his next title because he admired her music. She drew influence from Danny Elfman's soundtracks and a wide range of musical styles: One song uses marching band percussion and swing; another utilizes techno beats with "organic" sounds. Film music scholar K. J. Donnelly found the music to be bright and "cartoonish". He noted the music was not dynamically tied to gameplay, but instead progresses independently. He noted the soundtrack's design in a progressive style, "almost in parallel to the unfolding of the game[play]".


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: Shigihara described the music as "macabre, yet goofy". Examining the night stages, she explained that she used a combination of big band swing beats with "several haunting and serious melodies". The songs "Loonboon" and "Brainiac Maniac" were written towards the end of production. Shigihara said these were reactionary songs she wrote to fit the game's feel after playing it through twice. Shigihara composed and performed the music video shown during the game's credits, titled "Zombies on Your Lawn". The song was inspired by "Still Alive", which played at the end of the video game, "Portal". "Plants vs. Zombies" tracks were eventually released as part of a downloadable soundtrack album.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: On April 1, 2009, PopCap released a music video for "Zombies on Your Lawn" to promote "Plants vs. Zombies". While many PC gamers were unsure if the video was an elaborate April Fools' Day joke, PopCap spokesperson Garth Chouteau revealed in an "IGN" interview that the game would soon be released for PC and Mac. On April 22, 2009, PopCap released an official game trailer of "Plants vs. Zombies" on YouTube. PopCap Games released a demo version on May 4, 2009, permitting thirty minutes of gameplay. "Plants vs. Zombies" was officially released for PC and Mac on May 5, 2009, A free Adobe Flash version of "Plants vs. Zombies" was released on September 23, 2009, along with the demo being replaced by a version where the player can play up to level 34.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: A Game of the Year edition was released on July 11, 2010. It was made available on Steam on August 11, 2010; anyone who already purchased the game could update to the new edition for free. The Game of the Year edition adds in a "Zombatar" feature allowing the player to customize a zombie's face. The edition also supports Steam Cloud, which lets the player access game save data from multiple computers.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: During the announcements for "Plants vs. Zombies", PopCap Games revealed the game would be ported to other platforms after the PC release. In August 2009, it was announced on "IGN" that "Plants vs. Zombies" would be ported to the iPhone near the end of 2009. They announced the port's release date on a trailer on YouTube in February 2010, officially releasing it on February 15, 2010. The port included a modified interface for iPhone users and a Quick Play mode allowing the player to play any level in Adventure mode; it removed the Mini-Games, Puzzle, and Survival modes.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: In March 2010, a technology blog named PadGadget found unintentionally public entries for ports of iPhone games to the iPad, "Plants vs. Zombies" among them. The game's iPad port, named "Plants vs. Zombies HD", was released on April 5, 2010. It utilized the iPad's 11 touch sensors and restored the Survival mode and the Mini-Games mode, which includes an iPad-exclusive mini-game called "Buttered Popcorn". Subsequent iOS updates would add more content to their version of "Plants vs. Zombies", including Zen Garden, additional mini-games, and additional achievements.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: In May 2011, PopCap Games officially announced that "Chuzzle" would be available on the Amazon Appstore for Android devices for the next two weeks, with "Plants vs. Zombies" becoming available later in the month. They were both free on launch day and cost $2.99 after. On May 31, 2011, "Plants vs. Zombies" entered the Amazon Appstore. In December 2011, PopCap Games announced it would be releasing "Plants vs. Zombies" and "Peggle" through the Android Market. It was made available on Google Play Store on December 15, 2011.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: "Plants vs. Zombies" has been ported to other mobile devices. On June 23, 2011, the game was released on the Windows Phone as part of Xbox Live. On November 14, 2011, and January 30, 2013, "Plants vs. Zombies" was released on the Kindle Fire and Blackberry 10 respectively as a launch app. "Plants vs. Zombies" was later released on another BlackBerry device, the BlackBerry Playbook. "Plants vs. Zombies" was released on Nook HD and Nook HD+ on November 14, 2012.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: "Plants vs. Zombies" was announced for the Xbox 360 in July 2010, to be available both on its own and as part of a bundle with "Peggle" and "Zuma". The game was released on the Xbox 360 at Xbox Live on September 8, 2010. To ease use with the Xbox controller, the cursor was locked onto the lawn's grid pattern and sun would float towards the cursor. The port also featured Versus mode, a Co-op mode, and a new level in Mini-Games mode. Versus mode matched two players, one playing plants and one playing zombies. The zombie player's goal is reaching the house, while the plant player aims to kill three of the five target zombies on the right side of the lawn. A PlayStation Network port for the PlayStation 3 of "Plants vs. Zombies" was announced on January 28, 2011, with Sony Online Entertainment as its publisher and was released on February 8, 2011.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: The DS port of "Plants vs. Zombies" was announced in August 2010. The port was released on January 18, 2011, in North America and on May 6, 2011, in Europe and Australia. The port included the Zombatar feature and the versus mode from the Xbox Live version, also adding four exclusive mini-games. On March 14, 2011, the DSiWare port was released in North America. It was released on May 6, 2011, in Europe and Australia. The DSiWare version only kept the Adventure mode and Mini-Games mode; the mini-game levels consisted of the exclusive levels from the original DS and a new level called "Zombie Trap".


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: The PlayStation Vita port was announced in December 2011. It was released on February 21, 2012, in North America, and in Europe as a launch title on February 22, 2012; With Sony Online Entertainment serving as its publisher. The port allows the player to play using either the touch screen or the controllers. It also introduces the ability to shake the Vita to collect suns and money. Unlike other console versions, the game lacks a multiplayer setting.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: On May 20, 2009, "Plants vs. Zombies" was declared the fastest-selling video game created by PopCap Games, quickly becoming their best-selling video game; surpassing their previous popular games: "Bejeweled" and "Peggle". In a presentation at Game Developers Conference China 2010, James Gwertzman, the vice president of the Asia/Pacific division of PopCap Games, revealed the game had sold 1.5 million copies internationally. Fan estimated half of sales came from hardcore gamers. Larry Hryb, director of programming for Xbox Live, reported that "Plants vs. Zombies" was the thirteenth most purchased 2011 game on Xbox Live Arcade. "Plants vs. Zombies" was particularly successful on the App Store. According to PopCap, the iOS release of "Plants vs. Zombies" sold more than 300,000 copies during its first nine days, generating more than $1million in gross sales. It rose to number one in sales and money grossed from a mobile video game before losing the spot nine days after release. , nine million copies have been downloaded across all iOS platforms.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: "Plants vs. Zombies" received positive reviews. According to Metacritic, the only version that did not receive "generally positive reviews" or "universal acclaim" is the DSiWare version, which received "mixed or average reviews". It has since been considered one of the greatest video games of all time. Some reviewers found the core mechanic straightforward, but the game itself challenging. "GamesRadar+" Tom Francis said that "Plants vs. Zombies" was only casual in its easiness to understand its premise; he clarified, "There's nothing casual about the 30 goddamn hours we've spent, effectively, gardening." Seth Schisel from "The New York Times" said kids and adults alike would enjoy "Plants vs. Zombies". Others disagreed: "GameSpot" editor Chris Watters said, "Tower defense veterans will have to endure a lot of simple, familiar action in order to find a real challenge, and the wait may prove too long for some"; "GamePro" Tae Kim said that "Plants vs. Zombies" was not particularly easy or hard, and that he never had to restart despite being "terrible at these sorts of games." John Walker of "Rock Paper Shotgun" said the difficulty sometimes felt artificial.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: Despite his criticism of the game's difficulty, Watters praised "Plants vs. Zombies" constant introduction of new plants, which kept the game fresh. "Eurogamer" editor Christian Donlan agreed: every zombie challenges the player and each new plant allows for a new strategy. Many critics commended "Plants vs. Zombies" for its minimalistic tutorial allowing experimentation; some had believed the entire Adventure mode was a long tutorial, or a warmup, for other game modes. Many critics praised the game for the replay value offered by additional game modes; Francis said that by the time the player finishes Adventure mode; "the obscene wealth of other things to do already outweighs it for entertainment value."


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: The art style and music of "Plants vs. Zombies" have also been praised. Susan Arendt from "The Escapist" said "the music is excellent, [and] the art is charming and adorable." Many reviewers have called the graphics from "Plants vs. Zombies" "adorable". Watters praised the unit animation, elaborating that they had a "great sense of personality". Some drew attention to the game's humor. "Wired" Earnest Cavalli said that while the idea behind "Plants vs. Zombies" sounds macabre, "every level of the game offers something to laugh about". Marc Saltzman from "Gamezebo" found humor in the game's many killing methods. "IGN" editor Daemon Hatfield praised the game's music; he called it a "catchy, organic soundtrack that becomes more intense as your yard is flooded with enemies". In contrast, Walker found the soundtrack "disappointing" and stated, "After the promise of the gorgeous music video, the hope of similarly catchy in-game tunes is not kept."


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: Critics commended the iPhone port of "Plants vs. Zombies" for being faithful to the PC version and for its Quick Play mode, but many were disappointed by its omission of the other game modes. Many reviewers praised the iPad port's inclusion of the Mini-Games mode and the Survival mode, along with "Buttered Popcorn", the exclusive mini-game. The Xbox 360 port of "Plants vs. Zombies" was praised for its addition of exclusive game modes, including a Co-op mode and a Versus mode. The Nintendo DS port was commended for its four new mini-games and its versus mode from the Xbox 360 version, but was considered inferior in its animation and graphics. The port was also criticized for its comparatively high price, for the DS top screen's sole usage as an indicator of level progression, and for unstable frame rate. Many critics found the PS Vita version faithful to the PC version, though unsure about whether or not there enough significant additions in this version to recommend to someone who already has "Plants vs. Zombies" on another platform.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: "Plants vs. Zombies" was nominated for various categories in the "GameSpot" Best of 2009, 2009 Spike Video Game Awards, the 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the 10th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards, and the 6th and 7th British Academy Games Awards. It won the categories of "Download Game of the Year" and "Strategy Game of the Year" in the Golden Joysticks Awards 2010, and the category of "Best Casual Game" in the 7th International Mobile Gaming Awards. Electronic Arts (EA) claims that "Plants vs. Zombies" has won over 30 Game of the Year awards.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: PopCap Games and its assets were bought by EA on July 12, 2011, for $750million. Fifty employees were laid off from PopCap Games' Seattle studio on August 21, 2012, marking a switch of focus to mobile and social gaming. After a statement by Edmund McMillen, creator of "The Binding of Isaac", rumors circulated that Fan was fired by EA because he opposed implementing pay-to-win mechanics in "Plants vs. Zombies 2". Fan confirmed in a 2017 tweet that he had been laid off, and that he opposed the freemium aspects of "Plants vs. Zombies 2", but did not link the two events.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: Three former PopCap employees debunked the notion that Fan was fired because of his concerns over the game, including Allen Murray, a former producer of "Plants vs. Zombies 2". They said Fan was fired as part of the systematic lay-offs in August 2012, and he was not even part of the "Plants vs. Zombies 2" team; he was working on other ideas for games at the time, including a game called "Full Contact Bingo". He had lost interest in "Plants vs. Zombies" when EA began envisioning the game as a huge franchise. Fan worked on the arcade action-strategy game "Octogeddon" after being laid off, initially as part of a Ludum Dare contest. The game idea was received positively and Fan formed a company along with Werner, the artist of "Plants vs. Zombies", and Kurt Pfeiffer, the programmer of the Xbox 360 port. They developed "Octogeddon" for several years, releasing it on February 8, 2018, to generally positive reviews, according to Metacritic.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: Since EA's acquisition of PopCap Games, "Plants vs. Zombies" has expanded into a franchise spanning many consoles and several genres. "Plants vs. Zombies Adventures", a spin-off and social game, was released for Facebook on May 20, 2011, and closed on October 12, 2014. A mainline sequel named "Plants vs. Zombies 2" was released for iOS on August 14, 2013. "", a multiplayer third-person shooter, was released on February 25, 2014, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Xbox One, and its sequel was released on February 23, 2016, for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A digital collectible card game, "Plants vs. Zombies Heroes", was released internationally for the iOS on October 18, 2016. The franchise released its third third-person shooter, "", on October 18, 2019, for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A third mainline title is currently in development for Android and iOS as of October 2020.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: According to Metacritic, nearly all the sequels and spin-offs of "Plants vs. Zombies" received generally positive reviews. Despite his opposition to "Plants vs. Zombies 2" freemium model, Fan has praised the series for delving into different genres, particularly "Plants vs. Zombies Heroes" entering digital card-collecting; he hopes EA will continue the series into more genres while keeping the charm of the original.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: Zen Studios and PopCap made a downloadable content (DLC) interactive pinball table, based on "Plants vs. Zombies" and using PopCap assets, during development of "Zen Pinball 2" and "Pinball FX 2". The DLC was released on September 4, 2012, in North America and September 5 in Europe.


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: In July and August 2013, Dark Horse Comics released six issues of a comic book adaptation miniseries onto an iOS app. The miniseries was called "Lawnmageddon", written by Paul Tobin and drawn by Ron Chan. Dark Horse Comics continued releasing issues for the next two years. In 2015 Dark Horse Comics started a monthly release of the comic series, in both digital and print; every three issues formed a separate miniseries. The first print miniseries was called "Bully for You".


title: Plants vs. Zombies (video game)

text: According to Chris Carter, editor-in-chief of "Destructoid", "Plants vs. Zombies" is frequently referenced in pop culture. Fan said his favorite homage to the game is the "Magic: The Gathering" card "Grave Bramble", created as part of the "Innistrad" expansion. A re-creation of "Plants vs. Zombies" was added as a mini-game quest known as "Peacebloom vs. Ghouls" to "World of Warcraft" as part of the "" expansion. Shigihara provided some music for the quest.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: Emperor Wu of Han (156 – 29 March 87BC), formally enshrined as Emperor Wu the Filial (), born Liu Che (劉徹) and courtesy name Tong (通), was the seventh emperor of the Han dynasty of ancient China, ruling from 141 to 87 BC. His reign lasted 54 years – a record not broken until the reign of the Kangxi Emperor more than 1,800 years later and remains the record for ethnic Chinese emperors. His reign resulted in a vast expansion of geopolitical influence for the Chinese civilization, and the development of a strong centralized state via governmental policies, economical reorganization and promotion of a hybrid Legalist–Confucian doctrine. In the field of historical social and cultural studies, Emperor Wu is known for his religious innovations and patronage of the poetic and musical arts, including development of the Imperial Music Bureau into a prestigious entity. It was also during his reign that cultural contact with western Eurasia was greatly increased, directly and indirectly.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: During his reign as Emperor, he led the Han dynasty through its greatest territorial expansion. At its height, the Empire's borders spanned from the Fergana Valley in the west, to northern Korea in the east, and to northern Vietnam in the south. Emperor Wu successfully repelled the nomadic Xiongnu from systematically raiding northern China, and dispatched his envoy Zhang Qian into the Western Regions in 139 BC to seek an alliance with the Greater Yuezhi and Kangju, which resulted in further diplomatic missions to Central Asia. Although historical records do not describe him as being aware of Buddhism, emphasizing rather his interest in shamanism, the cultural exchanges that occurred as a consequence of these embassies suggest that he received Buddhist statues from Central Asia, as depicted in the murals found in the Mogao Caves.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: Emperor Wu is considered one of the greatest emperors in Chinese history due to his strong leadership and effective governance, which made the Han dynasty one of the most powerful nations in the world. Michael Loewe called the reign of Emperor Wu the "high point" of "Modernist" (classically justified Legalist) policies, looking back to "adapt ideas from the pre-Han period." His policies and most trusted advisers were Legalist, favouring adherents of Shang Yang. However, despite establishing an autocratic and centralised state, Emperor Wu adopted the principles of Confucianism as the state philosophy and code of ethics for his empire and started a school to teach future administrators the Confucian classics. These reforms had an enduring effect throughout the existence of imperial China and an enormous influence on neighbouring civilizations.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: The personal name of Emperor Wu was Liu Che (劉徹). The use of "Han" (漢) in referring to emperor Wu is a reference to the Han dynasty of which he was a part. His family name is "Liu"; the ruling family or clan of the Han dynasty shared the family name of "Liu", the family name of Liu Bang, the founding father of the Han dynasty. The character "Di" (帝) is a title: this is the Chinese word which in imperial history of China means "emperor". The character "Wu" (武) literally means "martial" or "warlike", but is also related to the concept of a particular divinity in the historical Chinese religious pantheon existing at that time. Combined, "Wu" plus "di" makes the name "Wudi", the emperor's posthumous name used for historical and religious purposes, such as offering him posthumous honours at his tomb. The emperor's temple tablet name is Shizong (世宗)


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: One of Han Wudi's innovations was the practice of changing reign names after a number of years, as deemed auspicious or to commemorate some event. Thus the practice for dating years during the reign of Wudi was represented by the "n" year of the [Reign Year Name] (where "n" stands for an ordinal integer) and "Reign Year Name" for the specific name of that regnal year.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: Liu Che was the 11th son of Liu Qi, the oldest living son from Emperor Wen of Han. His mother Wang Zhi (王娡) was initially married to a commoner named Jin Wangsun (金王孫) and had a daughter from that marriage. However, her mother Zang Er (臧儿) (a granddaughter of one-time Prince of Yan, Zang Tu, under Emperor Gao) was told by a soothsayer that both Wang Zhi and her younger sister would one day become extremely honoured. She then got the idea to offer her daughters to the then crown prince Liu Qi, and forcibly divorced Wang Zhi from her then husband. After being offered to Liu Qi, Wang Zhi bore him three daughters – Princess Yangxin, Princess Nangong (南宫公主) and Princess Longlü.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: On the day of Liu Qi's accession to the throne as Emperor Jing of Han (upon the death of his father Emperor Wen in 156 BC), Wang Zhi gave birth to Liu Che, and was promoted to a consort for giving birth to a royal prince. While she was pregnant, she claimed that she dreamed of a sun falling into her womb. Emperor Jing was ecstatic over the divine implication, and made the young Liu Che the Prince of Jiaodong (胶东王) in 153 BC. An intelligent boy, Liu Che was considered to be Emperor Jing's favourite son from a very young age.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: Emperor Jing's formal wife, Empress Bo, was childless. As a result, Emperor Jing's oldest son Liu Rong, born to Lady Lì (栗姬, Emperor Jing's favorite concubine and mother of three of his first four sons), was made crown prince in 153 BC. Lady Li, feeling certain that her son would become the future emperor, grew arrogant and intolerant, and frequently threw tantrums at Emperor Jing out of jealousy over him bedding other women. Her lack of tact provided the opportunity for Consort Wang and the young Liu Che to gain the emperor's favour.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: When Emperor Jing's older sister, Eldest Princess Guantao (馆陶长公主) Liu Piao (刘嫖), offered to marry her daughter with the Marquess of Tangyi Chen Wu to Liu Rong, Lady Li rudely rejected the proposal out of her dislike of Princess Guantao, who often procured new concubines for Emperor Jing and was diffusing the favor received by Lady Li. Insulted by the rejection, Princess Guantao then approached the next favorite of Emperor Jing's concubines – none other than Consort Wang, who had been observing these developments quietly from the sidelines. Guantao offered to marry her daughter to the consort's young son, Liu Che, then aged only 5. Seizing the opportunity, Consort Wang accepted the offer with open arms, securing a crucial political alliance with Princess Guantao.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: Princess Guantao's daughter Chen Jiao, also known by the milk name A'Jiao (阿嬌), was of marriageable age (which was legally marked at the time by menarche), making her at least eight years older than the young prince. Due to this age difference, Emperor Jing initially did not approve of this union. According to the Wei-Jin era fable "Hanwu Stories" (漢武故事 / also called "Stories of Han Wudi"), during a subsequent royal gathering, Princess Guantao held the 5-year-old Liu Che in her arms and asked the nephew whether he wanted to marry his first cousin A'Jiao. The young prince boasted that he would "build a golden house for her" if they were married. Princess Guantao then used the boy's response as a divine sign to convince Emperor Jing to finally agree to the arranged marriage between Liu Che and Chen Jiao. This inspired the Chinese idiom "putting Jiao in a golden house" ().


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: Now sealed in the marriage alliance with Consort Wang, Princess Guantao began incessantly criticising Lady Li in front of Emperor Jing. Over time, Emperor Jing started to believe his sister's words, so he decided to test out Lady Li. One day he asked Lady Li whether she would happily foster-care the rest of his children if he were to pass away, only to have her rudely refuse to comply. This made Emperor Jing angry and worried that if Liu Rong were to inherit the throne and Lady Li to become empress dowager, many of his concubines might suffer the tragic fate of Consort Qi in the hands of Empress Lü. Princess Guantao then began to openly praise her son-in-law-to-be to her royal brother, further convincing Emperor Jing that Liu Che was a far better choice for heir apparent than Liu Rong.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: Taking advantage of the situation, Consort Wang put in place the final step to defeat Lady Li — she persuaded a minister to officially advise Emperor Jing that he make Lady Li empress, as Liu Rong was already the crown prince. Emperor Jing, already firm in his view that Lady Li must not be made empress, was enraged and believed that Lady Li had conspired with government officials. He executed the clan of the minister who had made that proposal, and deposed Liu Rong from the crown prince to the Prince of Linjiang (臨江王) and exiling him from the capital city Chang'an in 150 BC. Lady Li was stripped of her titles and placed under house arrest; she died of depression not long after. Liu Rong was arrested two years later for illegal seizure of imperial shrine lands and committed suicide while in custody.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: As Empress Bo had been deposed one year earlier in 151 BC, the position of empress was left open and Emperor Jing made Consort Wang empress four months later. The seven-year-old Liu Che, now legally the oldest son of the Empress, was made crown prince in 149 BC.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: In 141 BC, Emperor Jing died and Crown Prince Liu Che ascended to the throne as Emperor Wu at the age of 15. His grandmother Empress Dowager Dou became the grand empress dowager, and his mother became Empress Dowager Wang. His cousin-wife A'Jiao from the political child marriage officially became Empress Chen.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: The Han dynasty up to this point was run according to a Taoist "wu wei" ideology, championing economic freedom and government decentralization. With regard to foreign policy-wise, periodic "heqin" was used to maintain a "de jure" "peace" with the powerful Xiongnu confederacy to the north. These policies were important in stimulating economic recovery following the post-Qin dynasty civil war, but had their drawbacks. The non-interventionist policies resulted in loss of monetary regulation and political control by the central government, allowing the feudal vassal states to become powerful and unruly, culminating in the Rebellion of the Seven States during Emperor Jing's reign. Nepotism among the ruling class also stagnated social mobility and encouraged nobles' rampant disregard of laws, leading to the rise of local despots who bullied and oppressed the population. The "heqin" policy also failed to protect the Han borders against nomadic raids, with Xiongnu cavalries invading as close as 300 "li" (100 miles, 160 km) from the capital during Emperor Wen's reign, and over 10,000 border residents abducted or enslaved during Emperor Jing's reign. Prominent politicians like Jia Yi and Chao Cuo had both previously advised on the necessity of important policy reforms, but neither Emperor Wen nor Emperor Jing was willing to risk implementing such changes.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: Unlike the emperors before him, the young and vigorous Emperor Wu was unwilling to put up with the "status quo". Only a year into his reign in late 141 BC, Emperor Wu took the advice of Confucian scholars and launched an ambitious reform, known in history as the Jianyuan Reforms (建元新政). The reforms included:


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: However, Emperor Wu's reforms threatened the interests of the nobles and were swiftly defeated by his powerful grandmother Grand Empress Dowager Dou, who held real political power in the Han court and supported the conservative factions. Most of the reformists were punished: Emperor Wu's two noble supporters Dou Ying (窦婴) and Tian Fen (田蚡, Empress Dowager Wang's half-brother and Emperor's uncle) lost their positions, and his two mentors Wang Zang (王臧) and Zhao Wan (赵绾) were impeached, arrested and forced to commit suicide in prison.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: Emperor Wu, deprived of any allies, was now the subject of conspiracies designed to have him removed from the throne. For example, his first wife Empress Chen Jiao was unable to become pregnant. In an attempt to remain his first love, she had prohibited him from having other concubines. Emperor Wu's political enemies used his childlessness as an argument to seek to depose him, as the inability of an emperor to propagate a royal bloodline was a serious matter. These enemies of Emperor Wu wished to replace him with his uncle Liu An, the King of Huainan, who was renowned for his expertise in Taoist ideology. Even Emperor Wu's own maternal uncle Tian Fen switched camps and sought Liu An's favor, as he predicted the young emperor would not be in power for long. Emperor Wu's political survival now relied heavily on the lobbying of his influential aunt / mother-in-law, Princess Guantao (Liu Piao), who served as a mediator in seeking the Emperor's reconciliation with his powerful grandmother. Princess Guantao took every opportunity to influence the Grand Empress and also constantly made demands on behalf of her nephew / son-in-law.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: Emperor Wu, already unhappy with his lack of an heir and Empress Chen's spoiled behavior, was further enraged by her mother Princess Liu Piao's greed, that she took a lot from him in everything she did for him. However, Emperor Wu's mother, Empress Dowager Wang, convinced him to tolerate Empress Chen and Liu Piao for the time being, as his aging grandmother was declining physically and would soon die. He spent the next few years pretending to have given up any political ambition, playing the part of a docile hedonist, often sneaking out of the capital Chang'an to engage in hunting and sightseeing and posing as an ordinary nobleman.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: Knowing that the conservative noble classes occupied every level of the Han court, Emperor Wu changed his strategy. He secretly recruited a circle of young loyal supporters from ordinary backgrounds and promoted them to middle-level positions in order to infiltrate executive ranks in the government. These newly established officials, known as the "insider court" (内朝), took orders and reported directly to Emperor Wu. They had real influence over the operation of government affairs though lower in rank. They became a powerful counter against the "outsider court" (外朝) made up of the Three Lords and Nine Ministers that, at the time, were mostly composed of anti-reformists. Furthermore, Emperor Wu sent out nationwide edicts appealing to grassroots scholars such as Gongsun Hong to enrol in government services in an attempt to break the stranglehold that the older-generation noble class had on the nation's levers of power.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: In 138 BC, the southern autonomous state of Minyue (in modern-day Fujian) invaded the weaker neighbouring state of Dong'ou (in modern-day Zhejiang). After their king Zuo Zhenfu (驺贞复) died on the battlefield, the battered Dong'ou desperately sought help from the Han court. After a heated court debate over whether to offer military intervention for such a distant vassal state, Emperor Wu dispatched a newly promoted official Yan Zhu (严助) to Kuaiji (then still located in Suzhou, rather than Shaoxing) to mobilize the local garrison. However the tiger tally, which was needed to authorize any use of armed forces, was in Grand Empress Dowager Dou's possession at the time. Yan Zhu, as the appointed imperial ambassador, circumvented this problem by executing a local army commander who refused to obey any order without seeing the tiger tally and coerced the governor of Kuaiji to mobilize a large naval fleet to Dong'ou's rescue. Seeing that superior Han forces were on the way, Minyue forces became fearful and retreated. This was a huge political victory for Emperor Wu and set the precedent of using the Emperor's decrees to bypass the tiger tally, removing the need for cooperation from his grandmother; Of course, this did not mean that Grand Empress Dowager Dou's influence and intervention would disappear, she was a serious and insurmountable obstacle and competing authority in administration for Emperor Wu until the end of her life. But now with the military firmly in his control, Emperor Wu's political survival was assured, and his grandmother or anyone else could no longer threaten to dethrone him as directly, easily and quickly as before.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: In the same year, Emperor Wu's newly favoured concubine Wei Zifu became pregnant with his first child, effectively clearing his name and silencing any political enemies who had schemed to use his alleged infertility as an excuse to have him removed. When this news reached the state of Huainan, Liu An, who was hoping the young Emperor Wu's infertility would allow him to ascend to the throne, went into a state of denial and rewarded anyone who told him that Emperor Wu was still childless.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: In 135 BC, Grand Empress Dowager Dou died, removing the last major obstacle against Emperor Wu's ambition for reform.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: After the death of Grand Empress Dowager Dou in 135 BC, Emperor Wu had full and unrivaled control of the government. While his mother, Empress Dowager Wang, and his uncle Tian Fen were still heavily influential, they also benefited from the death of the old woman, especially the mother of Emperor Wu, but they lacked the ability to restrain the Emperor's actions.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: Emperor Wu began military campaigns focused on territorial expansion. This decision nearly destroyed his empire in its early stages. Reacting to border incursions by sending out the troops, Emperor Wu sent his armies in all directions but the sea.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: Following the successful manoeuvre against Minyue in 138 BC, Emperor Wu resettled the people of Dang'an into the region between the Yangtze and Huai Rivers. In 135 BC, Minyue saw an opportunity to take advantage of the new and inexperienced king of Nanyue, Zhao Mo. Minyue invaded its south-western neighbour and Zhao Mo sought help from the Han court.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: Emperor Wu dispatched an amphibious expedition force led by Wang Hui (王恢) and Han Anguo (韩安国) to address the Minyue threat. Again fearing the Han intervention, Luo Yushan (雒余善), the younger brother of Minyue's King Ying, orchestrated a coup with other Minyue nobles, killed his brother with a spear, decapitated the corpse and sent the severed head to Wang. Following the campaign, Minyue was split into a dual monarchy: Minyue was controlled by a Han proxy ruler, Zou Chou (驺丑), and Dongyue (东越) was ruled by Luo Yushan.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: As Han troops returned from the Han–Nanyue War in 111 BC, the Han government debated military action against Dongyue. Dongyue, under King Lou Yushan, had agreed to assist the Han campaign against Nanyue, but the Dongyue army never reached there, blaming the weather while secretly relaying intelligence to Nanyue. Against the advice of General Yang Pu (杨仆), Emperor Wu rejected a military solution, and the Han forces arrived home without attacking Dongyue, though border garrisons were told to prepare for any military conflicts. After King Yushan was informed of this, he became overly confident and proud and responded by revolting against the Han, proclaiming himself emperor and assigned his "Han-devouring generals" (吞汉将军) to invade neighbouring regions controlled by the Han. Enraged, Emperor Wu sent a combined army led by generals Han Yue (韩说), Yang Pu, Wang Wenshu (王温舒) and two marquesses of Yue ancestry. The Han army crushed the rebellion, and the Dongyue kingdom began to fragment after King Yushan stubbornly refused to surrender. Elements of the Dongyue army defected and turned against their ruler. Eventually, the king of the other Minyue state, Zou Jugu (驺居股), conspired with other Dongyue nobles to kill King Yushan before surrendering to the Han forces. The two states of Minyue and Dongyue were then completely annexed under the Han rule.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: In 135 BC, when Minyue attacked Nanyue, Nanyue also sought assistance from Han even though it probably had enough strength to defend itself. Emperor Wu was greatly pleased by this gesture, and he dispatched an expedition force to attack Minyue, over the objection of one of his key advisors, Liu An, a royal relative and the Prince of Huainan. Minyue nobles, fearful of the massive Chinese force, assassinated their king Luo Ying (骆郢) and sought peace. Emperor Wu then imposed a dual-monarchy system on Minyue by creating kings out of Luo Ying's brother Luo Yushan (雒余善) and nobleman Zou Chou (驺丑), thus ensuring internal discord in Minyue .


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: Although initially launched as a punitive expedition by Emperor Wu against the autonomous kingdom of Nanyue, the entire Nanyue territory (which includes modern Guangdong, Guanxi, and North Vietnam) had been conquered by the Emperor's military forces and annexed into the Han Empire by 111 BC.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: Military tension had long existed between China and the northern "barbarians", mainly because the fertile lands of the prosperous agricultural civilization presented attractive targets for the poorer but more militaristic horseback nomads. The threat posed to the Xiongnu by the northward expansion of the Qin Empire ultimately led to the consolidation of the many tribes into a confederacy. Following the end of the Chu-Han Contention, Emperor Gao of Han realized that the nation was not yet strong enough to confront the Xiongnu. He therefore resorted to the so-called "marriage alliance", or "heqin", in order to ease hostility and buy time for the nation to "rest and recover" (休养生息). Despite the periodic humiliation of appeasement and providing gifts, the Han borders were still frequented by Xiongnu raids for the next seven decades. Following the death of his powerful grandmother, Emperor Wu decided that Han China had sufficiently recovered enough to support a full-scale war.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: He first ended the official policy of peace with the Battle of Mayi in 133 BC, which involved a failed plan to trick a force of 30,000 Xiongnu into an ambush of 300,000 Han soldiers. While neither side suffered any casualties, the Xiongnu retaliated by increasing their border attacks, leading many in the Han court to abandon the hope for peace with the Xiongnu.


title: Emperor Wu of Han

text: The failure of the Mayi operation prompted Emperor Wu to switch the Han army's doctrine from the traditionally more defensive chariot–infantry warfare to a highly mobile and offensive cavalry-against-cavalry warfare. At the same time, he expanded and trained officers from his royal guards.