Míng Qīng liǎng dài de guānhuà yǐ Nánjīng huà hé Běijīnghuà wéi jīchǔ.
The guanhua of the Ming and Qing was based on Nanjing and Beijing speech.
Tips
history
Originally the koiné spoken by late-imperial officials across dialect regions - the ancestor of modern 普通话. The political-evasion sense ('empty bureaucratic talk') developed by analogy: what officials say in public.
usage
In linguistics, 官话 is also the name of the Mandarin branch (Northern/Jianghuai/Zhongyuan/Southwestern etc. 官话) of Chinese.
