A book on China’ s war survivors    1    (release) capturing the tales from witnesses in World War II in 2015. Li Genzhi, the author of the book entitled “Wartime Civilian Workers in Tengchong”, said it is a race    2     time before they are all gone.

The book draws its interviews from Tengchong,    3     county-level city in southwest China’ s Yunnan Province, which was home to one of the    4    (bad) battlefields in the Chinese People’ s War of Resistance Against   Japanese Aggression seventy years ago.

The book tells stories of civilians     5    voluntarily transported rice and other supplies along a dangerous mountain path for the Chinese Expeditionary Force (中国远征军) in 1944 as    6    planned to reclaim the China-Myanmar border town     7     (occupy)by invading Japanese troops during the war.     8    (continue) rain made it impossible    9    (deliver) food to the Chinese troops by air. So almost 30,000 local people, mostly women,     10     (old) and children, served as porters and took around 300, 000 kilograms of rice from a village on the other side of the mountain, which is 3,000 meters high.

3 . In 1999, journalist Nicholas D. Kristof reported a surprising encounter on a tiny African island. Here, Kristof met a number of elderly men who told him that they were descendants of Chinese sailors many centuries ago. Their ancestors had traded with local Africans, who had given them giraffes to take back to China.     1    

Six centuries ago, a large number of Chinese ships crossed the sea, then travelled west to East Africa.     2     These seven great expeditions brought a vast web of trading links under Chinese government control.

    3     Most of the trading involved spices (香料), wood, and medicines. Zheng He brought them back to the capital. Although these goods were mainly presented to the emperor for his consumption and disposal, foreign ambassadors who came to China were permitted to trade with locals in the capital for handsome profits, which also allowed ordinary Chinese to benefit from international trade.

    4     In the regions they visited, Zheng He and his fleet (船队) remained a long-lasting theme in popular Southeast Asia folk tales. Two surviving records of the expeditions provide detailed accounts of unique Chinese navigation technologies of the time, leaving Chinese rich maritime legacy (遗产) to later generations.

However, the Chinese expedition never sought to establish colonial rule over these oceans by military force.     5     China’s maritime dominance disappeared suddenly in the 1430s because of domestic changes, and the overseas expeditions were eventually ended by the court. All this happened only decades prior to the occurrence of the great age of European discovery and exploration.

The Silk Road was a network of trade routes     1    (connect) China and the Far East with the Middle East and Europe.     2    (establish) when the Han Dynasty in China     3    (official) opened trade with the West in 130 BCE, the Silk Road routes remained     4     use until 1453 CE, when the Ottoman Empire boycotted (抵制) trade with China and closed them. Although it’s been nearly 600 years since the Silk Road     5    (use) for international trade, the routes had a lasting impact on commerce, culture and history that resonates even today.

The Silk Road may have formally opened up trade between the Far East     6     Europe during the Han Dynasty,     7     ruled China from 206 BCE to 220 CE. Han Emperor Wu sent imperial ambassador Zhang Qian     8    (make) contact with cultures in Central Asia in 138 BCE, and his reports from his journeys conveyed valuable     9    (inform) about the people and lands that lay to the West. But the transport of goods and services along these routes     10    (date) back even further.

In the spring of 1944, the Allied powers in World War Ⅱ took the fight against Nazi into the fifth year.     1    (plan) for months or even years, the D-Day called “Operation Overlord” was designed     2    (free) north-west Europe from German occupation. After waiting for the perfect combination of weather, moon and tides, the date for the start of Operation Overlord     3    (set) for June 6, 1944.

With General Eisenhower’s encouraging words     4    (ring) in their ears, Allied soldiers prepared for     5     would become known as D-Day. The Allied invasion     6    (stretch) across five beaches code-named “Utah”, “Omaha”, “Gold”, “Juno” and “Sword”. The fiercest fighting was at Omaha Beach. Countless Allied soldiers gave their lives on D-Day in violent attacks. Even though they were     7     the terrible cost of human life, the D-Day landings were     8     success and were considered     9    (wide) as the beginning of the end of World War Ⅱ. By the end of August 1944, the Allies had reached the River Seine. Paris was liberated.

Seventy years later, people including     10    (survive) came together for memorial ceremonies in honour of those who fought and died on D-Day.

7 . “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue” is how the children’s nursery rhyme begins. However, more than 90 years before the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, a huge fleet of ships set sail from Nanjing. It was the first of a series of voyages that would, for a brief period, establish China as the leading power of the age. The voyage was led by Zheng He. In fact, some people think he was the original model for the legendary Sinbad the Sailor.

In 1371, Zheng He was born in what is now Yunnan Province to Muslim parents, who named him Ma Sanbao. When he was 11 years old, he was castrated and made to serve as a eunuch (宦官) in the imperial household. Ma befriended a prince who later became the Yong Le Emperor, one of the Ming Dynasty’s most distinguished. Brave, strong, intelligent and totally loyal, Ma won the trust of the prince who gave him a new name. Yong Le was an ambitious emperor who believed that China’s greatness would be increased with an “open­door” policy regarding international trade and diplomacy. In 1405, he ordered Chinese ships to sail to the Indian Ocean, and put Zheng He in charge of the voyage. Zheng went on to lead seven expeditions in 28 years, visiting more than 40 countries.

Zheng’s fleet had more than 300 ships and 30,000 sailors. The largest vessels, 133­meter­long “treasure ships”, had up to nine masts and could carry a thousand people. Along with a Han and Muslim crew, Zheng opened up trade routes in Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. The voyages helped expand foreign interest in Chinese goods such as silk and china. In addition, Zheng He brought foreign items back to China, including the first giraffe ever seen there. At the same time, the fleet’s obvious strength meant that the Emperor of China commanded respect and inspired fear all over Asia.

Though Zheng He died in 1433 and was probably buried at sea, a grave and small monument to him still exist in Jiangsu Province. Three years after Zheng He’s death, a new emperor banned the construction of oceangoing ships, and China’s brief era of naval expansion was over. Chinese policy turned inward, leaving the seas clear for the rising nations of Europe. Opinions vary on why this happened. Whatever the reason, conservative (保守的) forces gained the upper hand, and China’s potential for world domination was not realized. Records of Zheng He’s incredible voyages were burned. Not until the early 20th century did another fleet of comparable size take to the seas.

9 . French explorer Jacques Cartier is known mainly for exploring the St. Lawrence River and giving Canada its name.

Like many other European explorers, Jacques Cartier went to North America looking for gold and perhaps a shortcut to Asia.     1     It became France’s main route into Canada.

Jacques Cartier was born on December 31, 1491 in Brittany, a province of France. In about 1534, the king of France asked him to lead an expedition(远征) to the New World in search of riches and a new route to Asia.

    2     There he and his crew explored the land around the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and met Native Americans. When he sailed back to France, he took with him two Native Americans.

    3     This time, Cartier sailed deeper into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and into the Saint Lawrence River. The two Native Americans he had taken before had learned French, and they served as guides. About 260 miles inland, Cartier reached the Native American village of Stadacona. Today, the city of Quebec stands near that place.

Cartier and his men were among the first Europeans to winter in what is now Canada.     4     After returning to France he reported tales told by the native people of treasures farther inland.

Cartier once again crossed the Atlantic in 1541.     5     When he returned to France in 1542, he was told that they were just the common minerals pyrite(黄铁矿) (fool’s gold) and quartz(石英).