When and how modern Chinese began to develop?

The definition of “Modern Chinese” must take into consideration the definition of Old Classical Chinese, New Classical Chinese, Old Vernacular and New Vernacular. The “Instructions on the spread of Standard Chinese (Putonghua)” (1956/2/6) of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China set the following definition of Modern Chinese and Putonghua: “Putonghua has Beijing’s speech as its standard pronunciation, northern dialect as its base dialect, modern vernacular literary classics as its grammatical norm”. This definition labels the phonology, the lexicon and the grammar of Modern Chinese. This study will not discuss the phonological formation of Modern Chinese which has “Beijing’s speech as its standard pronunciation”, but will attempt to analyse the formation of Modern Chinese lexicon that has “northern dialect as its base dialect” and the formation of Chinese basic syntax that has “modern vernacular literary classics as its grammatical norm”.