Shanghai History

As it is commonly understood, the history of Shanghai extends back only as far as the nineteenth century. Cultural traces found in modem Shanghai life are falsely considered to be nothing more than the vestiges of colonial influence and bland homogenizing forces of urban living. However, if you could travel through time, you would discover that this piece of land off the East China Sea has seen human habitation as early as six thousand years ago. The beginnings of urban Shanghai appeared as early as the first half of the tenth century. This region's most ancient culture was excavated in 1957 in the northern end of Qingpu County's Songze Village. With characteristics representative of Tai Hu Lake Neolithic culture, the Songze discovery has proved to be the earliest culture to have lived in the Shanghai regions, and its archaeological significance runs deep. The Neolithic peoples living downstream of the Wusong River mouth survived on a lifestyle of fishing and hunting, and developed a fishing tool called a "hu", which was particularly suited for Shanghai's rising and falling tides. Local regions eventually came to adopt "hu" as a place name, which is still used today as an abbreviated way of writing "Shanghai". The Huangpu River can be traced back to the China's Chunqiu and Warring States Period (777 B.C.221 B.C.). At that time, the area comprising modem Shanghai was once the estate of the Chunshen Sovereign, Huangxie. The stretch of Huangpu River from Longhua to the Songjiang River was originally called "Huang Xie Pu" in memory of the ruler, and has been since simplified to "Huangpu". The word "Shen" is used like "hu", an abbreviated form of the word Shanghai.

Qin Dynasty

In 223 B.C., several years after the Qin state defeated the Chu, the Huiji Prefecture was created and the seat of the local government was established in Suzhou. The Huiji Prefecture administered Miao Xian, Youquan Xian, and Haiyan Xian counties. Miao Xian County included territory making up today's Jiading and Shanghai counties, most of Qingpu and Songjiang counties, and some of urban Shanghai.

After Qin Shihuang (China's first Emperor) had united the six states into China's first empire, a wide imperial highway was built running from Xianyang through Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu and Shanghai. According to historical records, the highway was fifty paces wide, with trees planted at every 10 meters, and ran through the northwest of Shanghai's Songjiang. In 210 B.C., the Emperor Qin Shihuang led a group of civilian ministers and military officers south on an inspection of Heng Shan, the Xiaokun Mountains, and Sanmao along the eastern border of Songjiang and the southern border of Qingpu. Records show that the region had a wealth of natural resources, and the busy populace could be seem bustling around, with people conducting trade on the river. Urban Shanghai, at this time, was clearly a long time coming.

Jin Dynasty

During the Jin Dynasty, the Shanghai regions relied upon fishing and harvesting salt to develop a strong economy. In 585, the first year of Southern Dynasty Emperor, Liang Datong, Haiyan Xian County was divided up into Qingpu and Qianjing Counties.

Tang Dynasty

During the Tang Dynasty, the southern part of Kunshan, the east of Jiaxian, and the north of Haiyan were combined into the new Huating County which then formed a county seat in today's Singjiang County.

In 746 A.D., Qinglong Zhen Town was founded in the northeast of today's Qingpu under the southern bank of Wusong River. Originally an anchoring point for the Three Kingdomsera King of the Wu, Sun Quan's warships, Qinglong Harbor is the starting point of the Wusong River's downstream region, and was a thriving port of trade during the Tang Dynasty. Boats that stopped here not only moved on to important coastal and inland towns, but also to destinations in Japan and the Korean Peninsula. At this time, Shanghai was still nothing more than a seaport and fishing village in Huating County.

There were two rivers in eastern Shanghai that emptied into the Huating Sea in the northwest. The easternmost of the two rivers was called Xaihaipu, and the westernmost of the two rivers was called Shanghaipu. This small fishing village derived its name from the closer of the two rivers — the western Shanghaipu River — and thus was called Shanghai.

Song Dynasty

At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, Huating Xian County was taken in by Zhejiang's Luxiu Zhou Prefecture. Huating's beach in its east was then an important salt producer. The river's commerce increased by the day as it became thick with people and incoming boats. With the Songjiang channel's dredging in 1119, Qinglong Zhen Town saw even more rapid development. According to Song Dynasty poet, Mei Yanchen, Qinglong Zhen had twentytwo bridges, thirty six workshops, three pavilions, seven pagodas, thirteen temples, and crowds of people. Mei Yanchen's contemporaries referred to this thriving town as "little Hangzhou". While Qinglong Zhen enjoyed its prosperity, Shanghai remained desolate.

Silt buildup in the Wusong River gradually led to a change of fortunes in Qinglong Zhen as the river became shallower and river traffic had more difficulty passing through. Eventually, its harbor became less accessible and Qinglong Zhen's status fell as it sunk into rapid decline. During the reign of Song Emperor Xi Ning (10681077), Huating's trade center shifted to Shanghai in its northeast, attracting more residents, and allowing this small fishing village to grow into a town. In 1267, during the Southern Song Dynasty, a town government and military garrison were established in the western part of Shanghaipu, and the town was officially given the name Shanghai Zhen. A seaport customs office was set up in Shanghai in 1277, and it became one of the seven largest official seaport offices in China.

Ming & Qing Dynasty

Shanghai really began to prosper in the Ming Dynasty. A forest of commercial taverns sprang up around town, and Shanghai came to be known as "the southeastern city".

At the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing Dynasties, the Shanghai administrative region continued to develop, and its dimensions grew to approximately those of modem Shanghai. In 1840, on the eve of the Opium War, Shanghai had already turned into a big town with 63 streets and lanes, a forest of shops, and was a pivotal center for ocean traffic.

Colonial Times

After suffering defeat in the Opium War, the Qing Dynasty government ordered capitulators, Shi Ying and Yi Libu, along with British envoy, Sir Henry Pottinger, to sign the infamous Treaty of Nanking. The treaty established Britsh extraterritoriality in China and opened the five ports of Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo, and Shanghai to free trade.

Under the guise of reparations, the Qing Government signed the Treaty of Humen which stipulated that the British were able to establish homes in certain areas of the five newlyopened commercial ports.

According to the original terms of the treaty, local Chinese authorities had to work together with the British to define the terms of each plot and locale before allowing the British to lease out a property. But, on November 8 of that year, the first British Consul of Shanghai, Captain George Balfour, approached Mu Jiu, the official in charge of Shanghai and demanded that a special "settlement" be drawn up exclusively for British use. Mu Jiu surprisingly acquiesced to Bafuer's demands, reasoning that separating the British from the Chinese would help avoid trouble. As a result, on November 14, Baufour released an announcement declaring that as of November 17, 1843 Shanghai opened for business.

After the Shanghai port was finally forced open, there was a one hundred year period where colonials from different countries poured into Shanghai, vying with each other to develop their own concession areas. The British were first to set up their settlement area in 1845, and they were quickly followed by the United States (1848) and France (1849). The British and American Concessions eventually merged to form the International Settlement. Over the course of the century, Shanghai was turned into the "playground of adventurers".

Today

he May Fourth Movement shook the country to its roots in 1919 when Shanghai workers and students went on a general strike. On July 7, 1921, the Chinese Communist opened its first party congress in Shanghai. In January 1925, the "Feng Jun" troops from the northeast marched into Shanghai, and the Beijing government temporarily changed Shanghai's name to Songhu City. Shanghai's temporary city government was set up in 1927. Finally, the Shanghai People's Government was founded in 1949, and General Chen Yi became its first mayor.