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Anhui - History
The province of Anhui was formed in the 17th century. Before then, there was no coherent concept of "Anhui". Northern Anhui was firmly a part of the North China Plain in terms of culture, together with modern-day Henan province. Central Anhui constituted most of the fertile and densely-populated Huai He River watershed. Southern Anhui, along the Yangtze, was closer to Hubei and southern Jiangsu provinces in culture. Finally, the hills of southeastern Anhui formed a unique and distinct cultural sphere of its own. The creation of the province of Anhui has not eroded these distinctions.
During the Shang Dynasty (16th century BC - 11th century BC) most of Anhui was populated by non-Sinitic peoples known collectively as the Dongyi. King Tang of Shang, the legendary founder of the Shang Dynasty, was said to have put his capital at Bo (亳), in the vicinities of Bozhou in modern northern Anhui.
During the Warring States Period, Shouchun (modern Shou County) in central Anhui became a refugee capital for the state of Chu after its heartlands in modern Hubei province was overrun by the powerful state of Qin in the west, in 278 BC. Qin nevertheless managed to conquer all of China in 221 BC, creating the Qin Dynasty.
Anhui was administered under several different commanderies during the Qin Dynasty and the Han Dynasty. Near the end of the Han Dynasty Shouchun became the base for the warlord Yuan Shu, who declared himself emperor at one point, but soon succumbed to illness, allowing his small realm to come under the powerful warlord Cao Cao, founder of the Wei Kingdom, one of the Three Kingdoms.
The 4th century saw the influx of nomadic tribes from Central Asia into North China. This began several centuries of political division of northern and southern China. Being at the juncture of north and south, the lands conprising modern Anhui changed hands frequently and was usually bisected through the middle politically. The Battle of Feishui, between the Former Qin of the north and the Eastern Jin Dynasty of the south, took place in 383 AD in modern Anhui.
The Sui Dynasty (581-618) and the Tang Dynasty (618-907) oversaw several centuries of relative peace and unity in China. During this period Anhui was once again ruled under several different jurisdictions.
During the division of China between the Jin Dynasty in the north and the Southern Song Dynasty in the south, Anhui was once again bisected, this time along the Huai He River. This lasted until Mongol reunification of China in 1279.
The Ming Dynasty drove out the Mongols in 1368. Due to a short stint as the capital of China by the city of Nanjing in nearby Jiangsu province, the entirety of Jiangsu and Anhui kept their special status as territory-governed directly by the central government, and were called Nanzhili (南直隸 "Southern directly-governed").
The Manchu Qing Dynasty, which conquered China in 1644, changed this situation by establishing Nanzhili as Jiangnan province; in 1666 Jiangsu and Anhui were split apart as separate provinces. This was the beginning of the contemporary Anhui province, which has since kept almost the same borders as today. The one significant change that occurred was the move of the provincial capital from Anqing to Hefei in 1946.
When the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, Anhui was briefly split into two separate administrative regions: Wanbei (North Anhui) and Wannan (South Anhui). They were merged into a province in 1952.
Other related archives11th century BC, 16th century BC, 17th century, 1950s, 221 BC, 278 BC, 383, 4th century, 581, 618, 907, Anhui University, Anhui University of Technology, Anhui cuisine, Anqing, Battle of Feishui, Beijing Opera, Bengbu, Bozhou, Cao Cao, Central Asia, Chaohu, Chinese, Chinese calligraphy, Chinese cuisine, Chinese opera, Chizhou, Chuzhou, Dongyi, Eastern Jin Dynasty, Former Qin, Fuyang, GDP, Gan, Han Chinese, Han Dynasty, Hanyu Pinyin, Hefei, Henan, Hongcun, Huai He, Huaibei, Huaihe River, Huainan, Huangshan, Huangshan City, Huangshan Mountains, Hubei, Hui, Hui dialects, Huizhou, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Jin Dynasty, July, June, Lake Chaohu, List of administrative divisions of Anhui, Lu'an, Ma'anshan, Manchu, Mandarin dialects, Ming Dynasty, Mongol, Mount Huangshan, Mount Jiuhua, Nanjing, North China, North China Plain, People's Republic of China, Postal System Pinyin, Qin Dynasty, Qing Dynasty, Shandong, Shang Dynasty, She, Simplified Chinese, Southern Song Dynasty, Sui Dynasty, Suzhou, Tang Dynasty, Three Kingdoms, Tongling, University of Science & Technology of China, Wade-Giles, Warring States Period, Wei Kingdom, World Heritage Site, Wu, Wuhu, Xidi, Xuancheng, Yangtze, Yangtze River, Yuan Shu, Zhejiang, coal, commanderies, copper, counties, county-level cities, county-level divisions, districts, ethnic townships, inkstones, iron, km², m, minorities, prefecture-level cities, prefecture-level city, prefecture-level divisions, province, rice, southern China, state of Chu, state of Qin, steel industry, subdistricts, sweet potatoes, towns, township-level divisions, townships, warlord, wheat, °C
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
