Cultural Background Zhejiang Province History

Cultural Background

China is one of the oldest continuing civilizations in the world.  It is the third largest country in the world and comprises many different zones, from desert to mountain, including the Gobi Desert and the Himalayas.  Other well known landmarks in China include the Yangtze River, one of the longest rivers in the world and the Great Wall, until recently the only man-made structure in the world visible to the naked eye from outer space.

1.2 billion people live in China of whom 92% are the ethnic Han Chinese.  The other 8% are comprised of 55 officially classified minorities of which 15 have a population greater than one million.

Seventy percent of the Chinese population speak or understand Mandarin which is the official language of China.  Chinese is quickly becoming a language to know; China a country and culture to understand.

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Zheijiang Province

Zhejiang (Chekiang) Province, the province whose capital is Hangzhou, is one of the most economically successful provinces in modern day China.  It is here that tea and silk are produced in abundance and paper goods and light industrial products are now being manufactured in large quantities. 

The name of the province is derived from the name of its chief river, the Zhe, better known today as the Quintang at the mouth and as the Fuchun and Xin'an further inland.  The Qiantang enters the East China Sea through Hangzhou bay and, at the confluence of river and sea, a cluster of islands obstructs its flow.  Four hundred of these islands, large and small, make up the Zhoushan (Chusan) Archipelago, of which Putuo Shan, one of the sacred mountains of Buddhism, is perhaps the most famous.

The landscape of Zhejiang province is varied.  Hills and mountains make up two thirds of the province, while offshore islands number over 2000.  Pine and spruce clothe some mountain slopes, tea and bamboo cover others.  Most Chinese, however, imagine a green and fertile land webbed with lakes and canals upon hearing the name "Zhejiang."  Northwest Zhejiang, often called "the water country," is the epitome of this landscape.  It lies in the fertile Yangzi (Yangtse) delta and adjoins China's richest province, Jiangsu.  It was here in the 4th and 5th centuries that the Hemudu people cultivated rice -- the earliest known cultivation of rice in history.

Zhejiang has another claim to fame - its capital is Hangzhou which Marco Polo visited about 700 years ago.

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History

The name Yue -- as in Yue opera -- is often used to refer to Zhejiang Province.  It is the name of an ancient state which, when it conquered the kingdom of Wu (whose heartland was in Jiangsu) in 473 BC,  brought northern Zhejiang under its sway.  Later Yue was itself annexed by the state of Chu, during the Warring States Period (475-221 BC), when one kingdom was pitted against another, until the powerful Qin dynasty ended the fighting once and for all with the unification of all China, laying the foundation of the first real Chinese empire.

Under the first Qin emperor, the area now known as Zhejiang was divided into three provinces, of which Kuaiji, a name we still hear today, was one.  Later, during the period of the Three Kingdoms (220-265 AD), when the empire was once more divided into contending factions, Zhejiang came under the rule of the eastern state of Wu.  Thereafter the various succeeding dynasties imposed their own administrative order upon Zhejiang, sometimes dividing it into smaller entities, other times uniting those entities.

Northern Zhejiang leapt into prominence at the turn of the sixth century.  Under the political impetus of the Sui Dynasty (581-618) the grand Canal was built extending from Beijing down through the various towns of "the land of fish and rice" south of the Yangzi (Yangtse) River to terminate at Hangzhou (Hangchow).  At the same time intensive agriculture was introduced for the first time in the remarkably fertile lands to the north of Hangzhou.

It was from the Five Dynasties Period (906-960) that Zhejiang began to approach the peak of its development, a process greatly accelerated by the shift of the southern Song court to Nanjing and then Hangzhou.  The Song Dynasty was culturally brilliant, but militarily weak, and the Nuzhen Tartars captured its original capital, Kaifeng, in 1126.  With the Mongol conquest in 1279 the whole of China came under foreign domination for the first time, but Zhejiang continued to prosper.  Silk production flourished, as did coastal trade.  But as the centuries passed, continued development was hindered by riots and rebellions which disrupted the Grand Canal traffic and ruined the economy revolving around it, by crippling taxes, and by the Japanese pirates who descended in waves upon the coast.  Zhejiang began to decline gradually until the onslaught of the Taiping Rebellion reached the northern part of the province in the 19th century and caused it to plunge hopelessly downhill in a welter of bloodshed and destruction.  The Taiping were a revolutionary army of southern Chinese peasants, led by the "Younger Brother of Jesus Christ," who challenged both the existing social order and the authority of the Qing Dynasty.  Zhejiang was one of the main battlefields of the insurrection, and the city of Hangzhou was of great strategic importance.

Zhejiang's cultural development was less troubled.  "The southeast is a land of riches; Jiangsu and Zhejiang are the home of men of letters" is a well-known Chinese saying.  Scholars abounded in Zhejiang, especially after the court's southward move; and for centuries afterwards candidates from here dominated the honor lists of the imperial examinations, their number outranked only by people Jiangsu.  Hangzhou became famous for its growing population of artists, in whose picturesque setting the genius of many painters, calligraphers and poets could flourish.

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