History of Fujian

Recent archaeological discoveries in 2011 demonstrate that Fujian had entered the Neolithic Age by the middle of the 6th millennium BC. From the Keqiutou site (7450–5590 BP), an early Neolithic site in Pingtan Island located about 70 kilometres (43 mi) southeast of Fuzhou, numerous tools made of stones, shells, bones, jades, and ceramics (including wheel-made ceramics) have been unearthed, together with spinning wheels, which is definitive evidence of weaving.

The Tanshishan site (5500–4000 BP) in suburban Fuzhou spans the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Age where semi-underground circular buildings were found in the lower level. The Huangtulun site (ca.1325 BC), also in suburban Fuzhou, was of the Bronze Age in character.

Tianlong Jiao (2013) notes that the Neolithic appeared on the coast of Fujian around 6,000 B.P. During the Neolithic, the coast of Fujian had a low population density, with the population depending on mostly on fishing and hunting, alongside with limited agriculture.

There were four major Neolithic cultures in coastal Fujian, with the earliest Neolithic cultures originating from the north in coastal Zhejiang.

Keqiutou culture 壳丘头文化 (c. 6000–5500 BP, or c. 4050–3550 BC)
Tanshishan culture 昙石山文化 (c. 5000–4300 BP, or c. 3050–2350 BC)
Damaoshan culture 大帽山文化 (c. 5000–4300 BP)
Huangguashan culture 黄瓜山文化 (c. 4300–3500 BP, or c. 2350–1550 BC)
There were two major Neolithic cultures in inland Fujian, which were highly distinct from the coastal Fujian Neolithic cultures. These are the Niubishan culture (牛鼻山文化) from 5000–4000 years ago, and the Hulushan culture (葫芦山文化) from 2050 to 1550 BC.

Minyue kingdom
Fujian was also where the kingdom of Minyue was located. The word “Mǐnyuè” was derived by combining “Mǐn” (simplified Chinese: 闽; traditional Chinese: 閩; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: bân), which is perhaps an ethnic name (simplified Chinese: 蛮; traditional Chinese: 蠻; pinyin: mán; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: bân), and “Yuè”, after the State of Yue, a Spring and Autumn period kingdom in Zhejiang to the north. This is because the royal family of Yuè fled to Fujian after its kingdom was annexed by the State of Chu in 306 BC. Mǐn is also the name of the main river in this area, but the ethnonym is probably older.

Han dynasty
Minyue was a de facto kingdom until one of the emperors of the Qin dynasty, the first unified imperial Chinese state, abolished its status. In the aftermath of the Qin dynasty’s fall, civil war broke out between two warlords, Xiang Yu and Liu Bang. The Minyue king Wuzhu sent his troops to fight with Liu and his gamble paid off. Liu was victorious and founded the Han dynasty. In 202 BC, he restored Minyue’s status as a tributary independent kingdom. Thus Wuzhu was allowed to construct his fortified city in Fuzhou as well as a few locations in the Wuyi Mountains, which have been excavated in recent years. His kingdom extended beyond the borders of contemporary Fujian into eastern Guangdong, eastern Jiangxi, and southern Zhejiang.

After Wuzhu’s death, Minyue maintained its militant tradition and launched several expeditions against its neighboring kingdoms in Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang, primarily in the 2nd century BC. This was stopped by the Han dynasty as it expanded southward. The Han emperor eventually decided to get rid of the potential threat by launching a military campaign against Minyue. Large forces approached Minyue simultaneously from four directions via land and sea in 111 BC. The rulers in Fuzhou surrendered to avoid a futile fight and destruction and the first kingdom in Fujian history came to an abrupt end.

The Han dynasty collapsed at the end of the 2nd century AD, paving the way for the Three Kingdoms era. Sun Quan, the founder of the Kingdom of Wu, spent nearly 20 years subduing the Shan Yue people, the branch of the Yue living in mountains.

Jin era
The first wave of immigration of the noble class arrived in the province in the early 4th century when the Western Jin dynasty collapsed and the north was torn apart by invasions by nomadic peoples from the north, as well as civil war. These immigrants were primarily from eight families in central China: Lin (林), Huang (黄), Chen (陈), Zheng (郑), Zhan (詹), Qiu (邱), He (何), and Hu (胡). The first four remain as the major surnames of modern Fujian.

Nevertheless, isolation from nearby areas owing to rugged terrain contributed to Fujian’s relatively undeveloped economy and level of development, despite major population boosts from northern China during the “barbarian” invasions. Population density in Fujian remained low compared to the rest of China. Only two commanderies and sixteen counties were established by the Western Jin dynasty. Like other southern provinces such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan, Fujian often served as a destination for exiled prisoners and dissidents at that time.

During the Southern and Northern Dynasties era, the Southern Dynasties reigned south of the Yangtze River, including Fujian.

Sui and Tang dynasties
During the Sui and Tang eras a large influx of migrants settled in Fujian.

The Tang dynasty (618–907) oversaw the next golden age of China, which contributed to a boom in Fujian’s culture and economy. Fuzhou’s economic and cultural institutions grew and developed. The later years of the Tang dynasty saw a number of political upheavals in the Chinese heartland, prompting another wave of Chinese to immigrate to Fujian.

Min kingdom
As the Tang dynasty ended, China was torn apart in the period of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. During this time, a second major wave of immigration arrived in the safe haven of Fujian, led by General Wang, who set up an independent Kingdom of Min with its capital in Fuzhou. After the death of the founding king, however, the kingdom suffered from internal strife, and was soon absorbed by Southern Tang, another southern kingdom.

Quanzhou city was blooming into a seaport under the reign of the Min Kingdom[citation needed] and was the largest seaport in the world.[when?] For a long period of time its population was also greater than Fuzhou. Due to the Ispah Rebellion, Quanzhou city lost foreign interest of trading and its formerly welcoming international image as the foreigners were all massacred or deported.

Song dynasty
The Lý dynasty monarchs of Vietnam were of Chinese ethnicity. Jinjiang district of Quanzhou prefecture was the origin of Lý Thái Tổ 李公蘊, the ancestor of the Lý dynasty ruling family. China, Fujian was the home of Lý Công Uẩn. The ethnic Chinese background of Lý Công Uẩn has been accepted by Vietnamese historian Trần Quốc Vượng.

The founder of the Trần Dynasty in Vietnam, Emperor Trần Thái Tông, was the great-grandson of a Chinese person who came to Vietnam from Fujian from the Chinese Chen clan. Several members of the family, like the prince Trần Quốc Tuấn, continued to know how to speak Chinese. The name of the prince’s great grandfather was Trần Kinh.

People from the Song dynasty of China, like Zhao Zhong and Xu Zongdao, fled to the Trân dynasty after the Mongol invasion of China. The Daoist cleric Xu Zongdaowho, who recorded the Mongol invasion and called them “Northern bandits”, also came from Fujian.

Fujian or Guangxi was the origin of the ethnic Chinese Tran who migrated to Vietnam along with a large number of other Chinese, during the Vietnamese Ly dynasty, where they served as officials. Distinctly Chinese last names are found in the Tran and Ly dynasty Imperial exam records. Ethnic Chinese are recorded in Tran and Ly dynasty records of officials. Clothing, food, and language were all Chinese dominated in Van Don where the Tran had moved after leaving their home province of Fujian. The Chinese language could still be spoken by the Tran in Vietnam. The side of Vietnam that borders the ocean was colonized by Chinese migrants from Fujian. This included the Tran among them who settled in the capital’s southeastern area. The Red River Delta was subjected to migration of people from different provinces all over China through Fujian’s major city port. The Tran and Van Don port arose as a result of this interaction. Fujian and Guangdong Chinese moved to the Van Don coastal port during Ly Anh Tong’s rule to engage in commerce. The usurpation of the Ly occurred after they married with the fishing Fujianese Tran family.

In 1172 Fujian was attacked by Pi-she-ye pirates from Taiwan.

Ming dynasty
In the early Ming dynasty, Quanzhou was the staging area and supply depot of Zheng He’s naval expeditions. Further development was severely hampered by the sea trade ban, and the area was superseded by nearby ports of Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai despite the lifting of the ban in 1550.[citation needed] Large-scale piracy by Wokou was eventually wiped out by Chinese military and Japanese authority of Toyotomi Hideyoshi.[citation needed]

An account of Ming dynasty Fujian was written by No In 鲁认.

The Pisheya appear in Quanzhou Ming era records.

Qing dynasty
The late Ming and early Qing dynasty symbolized an era of large influx of refugees and another 20 years of sea trade ban under the Kangxi Emperor, a measure intended to counter the refuge Ming government of Koxinga in the island of Taiwan.

The seaban implented by the Qing forced many people to evacuate the coast in order to deprive Koxinga’s Ming loyalists of resources. This has led to the myth that it was because Manchus were “afraid of water”.

Incoming refugees did not translate into a major labor force, owing to their re-migration into prosperous regions of Guangdong. In 1683, the Qing dynasty conquered Taiwan and annexed it into the Fujian province, as Taiwan Prefecture. Settlement of Taiwan by Han Chinese followed. Today, most Taiwanese are descendants of Hokkien people from Southern Fujian. Fujian arrived at its present extent after Taiwan was developed into an independent province (Fujian-Taiwan-Province) starting in 1885.[31] Just ten years later, the Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan via the Treaty of Shimonoseki after losing the First Sino-Japanese War.

Republic of China
See also: Fujian People’s Government and Fujian Province, Republic of China
The Xinhai revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty brought the province into the rule of the Republic of China.

Fujian briefly gained independence from China again under the Fujian People’s Government until it was recontrolled by Republic of China.

It came under Japanese sea blockade during World War II.

People’s Republic of China
Fujian’s slow development in its early days has proved a blessing for the province’s ecology; today, the province has the highest forest coverage rate and the most diverse biosphere in China whereas central China suffers from severe overpopulation and displays severe signs of soil erosion, with frequent droughts and floods due to lack of forest coverage.

Development has been accompanied by a large influx of population from the overpopulated areas in the north and west, and much of the farmland and forest, as well as cultural heritage sites such as the temples of king Wuzhu, have given way to ubiquitous high-rise buildings. The government faces challenges at all levels to sustain development while at the same time preserving Fujian’s unique and vital natural and cultural heritage.