section_path: Year-numbering systems/Epochs
section_name: Epochs
paragraph_text: Epochs
  
  An epoch is a point in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era, thus serving as a reference point from which subsequent time or dates are measured. The use of epochs in Chinese calendar system allow for a chronological starting point from whence to begin point continuously numbering subsequent dates. Various epochs have been used. Similarly, nomenclature similar to that of the Christian era has occasionally been used:
  
  No reference date is universally accepted. The most popular is the Gregorian calendar (公曆; 公历; gōnglì; ' common calendar ').
  
  During the 17th century, the Jesuit missionaries tried to determine the epochal year of the Chinese calendar. In his Sinicae historiae decas prima (published in Munich in 1658), Martino Martini (1614–1661) dated the Yellow Emperor 's ascension at 2697 BCE and began the Chinese calendar with the reign of Fuxi (which, according to Martini, began in 2952 BCE). Philippe Couplet 's 1686 Chronological table of Chinese monarchs (Tabula chronologica monarchiae sinicae) gave the same date for the Yellow Emperor. The Jesuits' dates provoked interest in Europe, where they were used for comparison with Biblical chronology. Modern Chinese chronology has generally accepted Martini's dates, except that it usually places the reign of the Yellow Emperor at 2698 BCE and omits his predecessors Fuxi and Shennong as "too legendary to include".
  
  Publications began using the estimated birth date of the Yellow Emperor as the first year of the Han calendar in 1903, with newspapers and magazines proposing different dates. Jiangsu province counted 1905 as the year 4396 (using a year 1 of 2491 BCE, and implying that 2025 CE is 4516), and the newspaper Ming Pao (明報) reckoned 1905 as 4603 (using a year 1 of 2698 BCE, and implying that 2025 CE is 4723). Liu Shipei (劉師培, 1884–1919) created the Yellow Emperor Calendar (黃帝紀元, 黃帝曆 or 軒轅紀年), with year 1 as the birth of the emperor (which he determined as 2711 BCE, implying that 2025 CE is 4736). There is no evidence that this calendar was used before the 20th century. Liu calculated that the 1900 international expedition sent by the Eight-Nation Alliance to suppress the Boxer Rebellion entered Beijing in the 4611th year of the Yellow Emperor.
  
  Taoists later adopted Yellow Emperor Calendar and named it Tao Calendar (道曆).
  
  On 2 January 1912, Sun Yat-sen announced changes to the official calendar and era. 1 January was 14 Shíyīyuè 4609 Huángdì year, assuming a year 1 of 2698 BCE, making 2025 CE year 4723. Many overseas Chinese communities like San Francisco's Chinatown adopted the change.
  
  The modern Chinese standard calendar uses the epoch of the Gregorian calendar, which is on 1 January of the year 1 CE.