Before the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties
Legend has it that both the first emperor Yan Di and the Yellow Emperor came to Changsha. Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian (史记 - 五帝本纪) said that the Yellow Emperor had "passed through the mountains, traveled south to the river, and ascended the Xiong and Xiang rivers," and then gave his son, Shaohao, the land of Changsha (Luo Yu's "History of the Roads" from the Song Dynasty states that the Shaohao Clan "began in Yunyang, and blessed Changsha with a grant of land" (
Blessing means rewarding). According to this, the legendary Shao Hao was the leader of a clan in ancient Changsha and the first person to develop Changsha.
Changsha was the land of the ancient Sanmiao in the Xia Dynasty; in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the Sanmiao Kingdom disappeared, but the descendants of the Sanmiao still lived and reproduced on this land. At this time, Changsha belonged to the "Yang Yue" (also called "Jing Barbarians"), historically known as "Yang Yue Land", as the ancient Yue people (the ancient Changsha Yue people were a part of Yang Yue) created and formed a characteristic Yue culture at this time, and the geometrical patterned hard pottery of sealing is its most representative feature. During the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the northern central plains dynasty had frequent wars against the southern "Jing Barbarians" and "Yang Yue", and although they failed to establish their direct rule here, the "land of Yang Yue" once became the "southern costume" of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. Shang and Zhou's "southern service", forcing the "Jing barbarians" to submit and pay tribute. According to "Yi Zhou Shu - Wang Hui", when the construction of Luo Yi was completed at the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, all the lords came to congratulate us, and there was a kind of "Changsha turtle" in the tribute, which is the earliest record of the name of "Changsha" in the historical records.
Ancient Yue culture and Central Plains culture
The Central Plains culture spread during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and Truong Sa entered the Bronze Age. The Ancient Yue people of Truong Sa still lived in thatch-covered, semi-digested houses and led a clan life, mainly using stone tools as tools and relying on slash-and-burn farming for production. In the middle of the Shang Dynasty, the bronze casting technology of the Central Plains was introduced, and they began to use and manufacture bronze tools such as bronze axes, and in the late Western Zhou Dynasty, there appeared bronze hoes (an important tool for loosening the soil) and bronze plugs (i.e., rakes, which were used for loosening and lifting up the soil), and they also manufactured bronze containers and musical instruments with exquisite shapes and decorations. Changsha unearthed a large number of Shang and Zhou bronzes, most of them have a very high level of craftsmanship, rich in distinctive Yue style; 1938 Ningxiang out of the famous four-goat square Zun, is the treasure of the Shang and Zhou bronzes; since 1959, Ningxiang, Changsha County, out of a dozen pieces of bronze mirrors, generally weighing 70 ~ 80 kilograms, the largest 221.5 kilograms, China has so far found the largest bronze mirror of the Shang Dynasty.
Jingchu and Central Plains Culture
After the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the Spring and Autumn Period, which was also a time of turmoil in China's history, the power of Chu (Jingchu) entered Changsha at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period. At the beginning of the Warring States period, when Yue destroyed Wu and the confrontation between Chu and Yue began, Changsha became the stronghold of the southeastern border of Chu. In the middle of the Warring States period, the state of Chu practiced a change of law and became strong enough to launch a large-scale military campaign against the south, and the whole territory of Hunan was incorporated into the territory of the state of Chu. Changsha became the military town of the southern part of the state of Chu and the political and military center of the vast area including the northern, central and southern Hunan, and the state of Chu established a citadel in Changsha. The entry of the Chu into Changsha, coupled with the disappearance of the ancient Yue people after centuries of war, saw the replacement of Changsha's ancient Yue culture with Chu culture.
The southward invasion of the Chu people brought the production tools and production experience of the Central Plains and the Jianghan region, which made Changsha enter the Iron Age, and Changsha put an end to the primitive state that had lasted for more than 1,000 years since the Shang Dynasty and Zhou Dynasty, and entered directly into a feudal society.
The state of Chu was weakening by the time of King Huai of Chu, and the vassal states, especially the state of Qin, launched many wars against the state of Chu. In the year of 222 BC, Qin general Wang Jian led an army southward, defeating the remnants of Chu's army in the south of the Yangtze River, and the south of the Yangtze River where Changsha was the political and military center of the Chu state was conquered by Qin, which led to the demise of the state of Chu. Changsha (Hunan) was the military center of Chu for more than 800 years.
Qin and Han Dynasties
Changsha County in the Qin Dynasty
The Qin Dynasty destroyed the state of Chu and set up " Changsha County" in the former land of the south of the Chu River, followed by the birth of the Qin Dynasty, with Changsha as one of the 36 counties of the Qin Dynasty, from which Changsha began to be included in the political map of the united China, and was for the first time explicitly enshrined as an administrative region in history. During the Qin Dynasty, Changsha County covered most of present-day Hunan, the south of Hubei Province, the northwest of Jiangxi Province, Lian County in Guangdong Province, and Quanzhou in Guangxi Province, an area almost equivalent to the entire province of present-day Hunan, with Linxiang County as the seat of governance.
The State of Changsha and the King of Changsha in the Western Han Dynasty
The Qin Dynasty fell and the Han Dynasty was established. After Liu Bang became the emperor, he appointed Wu Rui, the founding minister of the Western Han Dynasty, as the King of Changsha in 202 BC, and established the Changsha Kingdom in the former Changsha County of the Qin Dynasty, with Linxiang County as the capital of the kingdom, which also marked the emergence of the first vassal state in the history of Hunan, and Changsha became the capital of the kingdom. The King of Changsha was the supreme ruler (the highest official) of Changsha Kingdom, and his throne was hereditary, but after the Han Dynasty changed the system of vassal kingdoms in the Eastern Han Dynasty, i.e., in 144 B.C., he actually became a famous but not a real king. The Changsha Kingdom existed for more than 200 years, from 202 BC to its abolition in 7 AD, and was successively divided into two periods: the "Wu's Changsha Kingdom" and the "Liu's Changsha Kingdom".
Wu's Changsha State
Ancient Changsha City was the capital of Han Dynasty, and Linxiang Ancient City was located in the center of Changsha State, which was the residence of Changsha Kings and the political and military center of Changsha State. According to the ancient book "Shui Jing Ji", Linxiang City (i.e. Ancient Changsha City, historically known as Linxiang Old City) was built by Wu Rui, the first king of Changsha. In 157 BC, Wu's Changsha Kingdom was abolished.
The period of Wu's Changsha Kingdom was a glorious period in the history of ancient Changsha, which was a loyal vassal kingdom of the Western Han Dynasty by unswervingly upholding the unity of the country politically. The eight vassal kings Zangtan, Han Xin, Yingbu, and seven other vassal kings appointed by Liu Bang were all annihilated, but only Wu's Changsha Kingdom was loyal to the court from the beginning to the end, that is, Yingbu, the king of Huaiyin (i.e., the son-in-law of Wu Rui, the king of Changsha), rebelled, and Wu Chen, the king of Changsha (Wu Rui's son), even killed his relatives in a righteous manner. Wu's Changsha Kingdom was first sealed by Wu Rui, and by the death of his fifth grandson Wu Zhi in 156 B.C., who was removed for lack of sons,*** it was passed on for 5 generations and lasted for 46 years. The official system of the kingdom was the same as that of the Western Han Dynasty, with a prime minister (once called Zhuguo in the early days of Han Gaozu), directly appointed by the court, named as an auxiliary to the kings, but in fact sent to hold the real power of the country to control the localities.
Liu's Changsha State
In 158 B.C., Emperor Jing, son of Emperor Wen, succeeded to the throne and reset the Changsha State, which was called "Liu's Changsha State", and in 155 B.C., Liu Fa, son of Emperor Jing, was appointed as King of Changsha. Liu Fa's Changsha Kingdom was at the time when the Western Han Dynasty was greatly reducing the power of the vassal kingdoms. From 155 B.C. to 145 B.C., with the change of the court's management system for the vassal states, the jurisdiction of Changsha Kingdom at this time was greatly reduced, and it had already been analyzed out of Guiyang and Zuoling Counties, and there were only 13 counties, such as Linxiang, Luo, Shimojun, Yiyang, Liandao, Shannan, Ancheng, Chengyang, Chaleng, You and Zhaoling, etc.; the king of Changsha Kingdom was also cut off from actual power, and could not intervene in the kingdom of Changsha Kingdom. The king of the Changsha Kingdom had by now reduced his real power and was not allowed to intervene in the political affairs of the vassal states under his jurisdiction, and became a king in name only, with all the ministers (the highest administrative officials who managed the political affairs, which was known as "minister-philosophers" before the reorganization), down to the magistrates, being appointed and dismissed by the imperial court. The "Liu's Changsha Kingdom", from the beginning of Liu Fa's reign to the abolition of Liu Shun, was passed down from 7 generations to 8 kings over a period of 164 years, and was dismantled with the demise of the Western Han Dynasty. In 8 A.D., Wang Mang usurped the throne and established himself as the emperor to build a "new dynasty", and Changsha Kingdom was renamed "Fuban County", and its capital, Linxiang, was renamed "Fumu County".
The Eastern Han Dynasty's Changsha King, Changsha Kingdom and Linxiang Marquis
Wang Mang's regime was soon overwhelmed by the peasant uprisings at the end of the Western Han Dynasty. In 25 A.D., Liu Xiu (Emperor Guangwu), a descendant of Liu Fa, King of Changsha Ding, a member of the royal family of the Western Han Dynasty, took up the title of Emperor and established another Han Dynasty, which is known as the Eastern Han Dynasty because it had Luoyang as its capital. As there were peasant revolts of various sizes and armed clans spreading all over the country, Liu Xiu started another war to unify the whole country. In 26 A.D. (the second year of Jianwu), Liu Xiu remotely appointed Liu Xing, the son of Liu Shun, the last king of Changsha in the Western Han Dynasty, as the king of Changsha, and restored the Changsha Kingdom to control the situation south of Dongting. In the 29th year, Hou Deng, the governor of Jiangxia, Wang Tang, the governor of Wuling, Han Fu, the governor of Changsha, Zhang Long, the governor of Guiyang, Tian Xie, the governor of Zuoling, Du Mu, the governor of Cangwu, and Xiguang, the governor of Jiaotong, etc., were sent to make contributions to the state, and all of them were conferred with the title of Liege Marquis. At this point, including Changsha, the entire territory of Hunan formally returned to the Eastern Han Dynasty, Changsha's return to the Han Dynasty, Liu Xiu unification of the war played an important role, Liu Xiu in 40 years (Jianwu sixteen years) to unify China. As early as 37 years ago, Liu Xiu changed the title of Changsha King Liu Xing to Marquis of Linxiang, and abolished Changsha Kingdom and replaced it with Changsha County.
The Three Kingdoms, the Western Jin Dynasty and the Five Dynasties of the Tang Dynasty
During the Three Kingdoms and the Western Jin Dynasty, Changsha was the county seat of Changsha County, which belonged to the ancient Jing Prefecture. During the late Western Jin Dynasty and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Changsha was the county seat of Changsha County and the capital of Xiangzhou Prefecture. In the early Sui Dynasty, Changsha became the governor of Tanzhou when the county was abolished; in the later period, Changsha became the county seat of Changsha Prefecture when the prefecture was changed to a county. During the Tang Dynasty, it was set up as the capital of Tanzhou, and was once part of the Jiangnan Road and the Western Jiangnan Road.
The Changsha kiln in the Five Dynasties period of the Tang Dynasty was once prosperous and became the birthplace of underglaze colors. During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Changsha was the capital of the state of Chu, which was the only state established with Changsha as its capital.
Song Dynasty to Modern Times
Changsha was the capital of Tanzhou in the Song Dynasty. In the Northern Song Dynasty, the Yuelu Academy was established, bringing Changsha's culture and education to its heyday.
In 1274, the Yuan Dynasty, Changsha was renamed Tanzhou Road, the seat of the Hukuang Province; in 1281, it was still Tanzhou Road, the seat of the Xuanwu Division of the Hunan Province, and subordinate to the Hukuang Province; in the second year of the Tianli era of the Emperor Wenzong, the name was changed to Tianlin Road because of "the Emperor's blessing", and at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, it was renamed as the seat of the Tanzhou Prefecture.
In the early Ming Dynasty, it was changed to Changsha Prefecture, which was subordinate to Hubei Province.
Qing Dynasty Kangxi three years built "Hunan Province", Changsha is the same as Changsha Prefecture and Hunan Province. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Changsha was known as one of the four major rice markets and four major tea markets, making it one of the most important rice markets in China.
In the late Qing Dynasty, when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom army attacked Changsha, Zeng Guofan became the "first man in Hunan", and Changsha Prefecture saw the emergence of important figures in China's history, such as Zeng Guozuan, Zuo Zongtang, and Hu Linyi, etc., who eliminated the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, initiated the Foreign Affairs Movement, and recaptured Xinjiang, which had far-reaching effects on China in the late Qing Dynasty.
Toward the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, Changsha became an important place for political and revolutionary activities. Chen Baocheng and Tan Sitong, the reformers of the Hundred Days' Reform, organized the School of Current Affairs in Changsha. Later, the uprising of the Self-supporting Army, the Huaxing Society, the public mourning of Chen Tianhua and Yao Hongye, the Liu Pingli Uprising, and the rice grabbing fad were all very influential activities. Huang Xing carried out a series of anti-Qing activities in the late Qing Dynasty and made significant contributions to the establishment of the Republic of China.
In the 22nd year of the Republic of China, Changsha County and the city of Changsha were divided into two parts, and "Changsha City" was set up as a municipality directly under the central government of Hunan Province, and Changsha has been the capital of Hunan Province since then.
Changsha was one of the political and revolutionary centers of China during the Republic of China period; on October 22, 1911, the rebel army led by Jiao Dafeng and Chen Zuoxin restored Changsha; in 1915, Cai E, who studied at the School of Current Affairs, launched the National Protection Movement; in 1919, a large number of youths of the May Fourth Movement were sent to France to work and study; and Changsha was one of the founding places of the ****productivist group. Mao Zedong, He Shuheng, Ren Bishi, Cai Hesen, Xiang Xuanyu and other early Chinese leaders studied or engaged in political activities in Changsha, and in 1927 Mao Zedong launched the Autumn Harvest Uprising and attempted to attack Changsha; after that failed, he shifted to the realistic policy of "encircling the city from the countryside".
1937 was the heyday of Changsha's development, with a booming economy and an early role as a backwater for the war effort, but the "Wenshi Fire" on the night of November 12, 1938 was the city's most tragic event, with the loss of almost all of the city's historical and cultural sites. 1939-1944 was the year Changsha became the main battlefield of the war against Japan. From 1939 to 1944, Changsha was the main battlefield of the Anti-Japanese War, and the Chinese and Japanese sides fought four large-scale battles centered on Changsha, with the Chinese side winning the first three battles.
On August 5, 1949, Changsha was formally established as a ****producer regime, and the reconstruction and development of Changsha began after the founding of the People's Republic of China*** and the State of China. Changsha is considered a revolutionary memorial site as the place where Mao Zedong, one of the main founders of the People's Republic of China*** and the State of China, studied and engaged in revolutionary activities in his early days. In the 1980s, during the early period of reform and opening up, the gap between Changsha's economy and that of the coastal cities began to widen gradually; in the late 1990s, Changsha began to enter a period of rapid development and became one of the important cities in the central and western parts of the country.
Changsha's development was relatively slow at the beginning of the reform and opening up period, and it gradually lagged behind the coastal cities. After the rapid development that began in the mid-1990s, the total GDP rose from 54.285 billion yuan in 1998 to 110.885 billion yuan in 2004, accounting for about one-fifth of the province's total; per capita 18,296 yuan based on the household population; agricultural GDP of 17.207 billion yuan, industrial output value of 100.606 billion yuan, and per capita disposable income of 11,029.06 yuan, the highest among the cities in the central and western part of the country. According to the adjusted calculation of the first economic census, Changsha's GDP reached 151.99 billion yuan in 2005. The total retail sales of consumer goods amounted to 74.343 billion yuan, surpassing Zhengzhou for the first time and ranking second in central China. The per capita disposable income of urban residents was 12,434 yuan, an increase of 12.8% year-on-year. The year completed the whole society fixed asset investment of 88.144 billion yuan, an increase of 31.93%. The body economy continues to maintain the momentum of faster, steady growth.
Preliminary accounting, Changsha City annual gross domestic product (GDP) 179.066 billion yuan, an increase of 14.8% over the previous year, an increase of 4.1 percentage points faster than the country, faster than the province 2.7 percentage points. In the GDP, the primary industry realized an added value of 12.325 billion yuan, an increase of 5.7%; the secondary industry realized an added value of 77.466 billion yuan, an increase of 15.9%, of which the industry realized an added value of 58.441 billion yuan, an increase of 19.4%; the tertiary industry realized an added value of 89.275 billion yuan, an increase of 15.3%. In the GDP growth, the primary, secondary and tertiary industries pulled 0.4, 6.7 and 7.7 percentage points respectively, and the contribution rate of the three industries to the GDP growth was 2.9%, 45.3% and 51.8% respectively. The ratio of the three industries was 6.9:43.3:49.8. Compared with the previous year, the proportion of the primary and tertiary industries decreased by 0.6 and 0.5 percentage points respectively; the secondary industry increased by 1.1 percentage points. The cumulative GDP growth rate for the four quarters of the year was 14.1%, 15.0%, 14.8% and 14.8% respectively, with the city's economy in general maintaining a relatively fast and steady growth momentum. Based on the resident population, the per capita GDP amounted to 27,853 yuan, an increase of 3,885 yuan or 13.3% over the previous year.
The leading position in the province has become more prominent, and the advantage of taking the lead in development has been accelerated and expanded. Changsha's total economic output in the province is 23.9%, up 0.6 percentage points from the previous year; compared with other cities and states, Changsha's GDP growth rate of 14.8% is far ahead.
Market prices were basically stable. The city's total consumer price index for the year was 101.2, with the price increase dropping 1.1 percentage points from the previous year; the city's retail price index for residential goods was 101.2, with the price increase dropping 0.5 percentage points.
The city's total consumer price index was 101.1, price increases fell 0.8 percentage points from the previous year. In the total consumer price index of the eight classified indicators, rose in food (prices rose by 1.7%), household equipment and maintenance services (prices rose by 2.3%), housing (prices rose by 7.2%), tobacco, alcohol and supplies (prices rose by 0.3%), transportation and communications (prices rose by 0.4%), health care and personal goods (prices rose by 1.5%) of six major categories; fell in the Entertainment, education and cultural goods and services (prices fell 0.7%), clothing (prices fell 3.1%) two categories. The retail price index of goods for urban residents was 101.1, with a price increase of 0.7 percentage points.
Purchase prices of raw materials, fuels and power rose 6.47 percent over the previous year. Ex-factory prices of industrial goods rose 4.29 percent. Fixed asset investment prices rose 3.1 percent. Housing sales prices rose 5.8%. Land grant prices rose by 21.4%. Housing rental prices rose by 3.3%. Property management prices were flat.
Labor and employment developed healthily. At the end of the year, the city's workforce amounted to 3,628,800, an increase of 38,800 over the previous year, of which 1,286,900 were employed in cities and towns. The urban registered unemployment rate at the end of the year was 3.62%.
Secondary Industry
Zoomlion Changsha, located in Lugu Valley on the west side of the river, has two state-level development zones: Changsha Economic and Technological Development Zone (located in Xingsha) and Changsha High-tech Industrial Development Zone (located in Lugu Valley on the west side of the river). Changsha Economic and Technological Development Zone is located in Xingsha Town in Changsha County, and its comprehensive evaluation index of investment environment ranks second among the 16 national development zones in central and western China, with GDP increasing at a rate of 33.2% in the last three years. 21 Fortune 500 companies were stationed in Changsha by the end of 2005, including LG of South Korea, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, COFCO, Electrolux, Danone of France, Total of France, Philips of the Netherlands, Triple A of Japan, and Coca-Cola of the United States. Philips of the Netherlands, Mitsubishi of Japan, Bosch of Germany, Nissho Iwai, Mitsui of Japan, Lotus of Japan, ****13 of them are stationed in Xingsha.
Changsha Cigarette Factory is one of the largest tobacco producers in China, paying 545,514,000 yuan in taxes in 2004, ranking 13th among all taxpaying enterprises in China[1]. Automobile companies such as Japan's Mitsubishi, Germany's Bosch, Changfeng Cheetah, and Beiqi Foton have made Changsha a new automobile production base in southern China. Large investments by Electrolux, LG Philips Aurora, Hitachi Appliances, and Yuanda Group have also made Changsha's electronics manufacturing industry begin to take off. At present, Changsha's proportion of secondary industry is slightly lower than that of tertiary industry, and its development speed exceeds that of tertiary industry.
Tertiary industry
Changsha has one of the highest per capita incomes among the cities in central and western China, and the high incomes have driven consumption. The commercial core of Changsha is the pedestrian commercial street from Huangxing South Road to Wuyi Square. The number and density of footbaths and massage parlors in Changsha are far ahead of those in large and medium-sized cities, and some people jokingly call Changsha the "Foot Capital". The food and beverage industry is also full, whether it is street food or hotel stalls, have a large number of customers. Carrefour, Wal-Mart, Metro and Poolsmart four major international supermarket chains have one and more branches in Changsha, well-known domestic or provincial supermarket chains such as Xinyijia, BBK, Jialunduo, etc. have also participated in the competition, Suning and Gome and other electrical appliances monopoly supermarkets with a number of outlets. Currently both Shangri-La and Sheraton will open new hotels in Changsha. The media industry is also nationally renowned, represented by Hunan TV, the Golden Eagle Festival and Sports Weekly.
China's homegrown animation is growing fast in Changsha, leading the government to resolve to create an animation capital. Changsha is home to two of the first nine animation industry bases approved for establishment by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT). Changsha is also home to one of the four national digital media technology industrialization bases approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology (the other three are in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu), and it is the only national base featuring cartoon animation; in November 2005 the Changsha Cartoon Art Festival was held.
Economic Cooperation
Changsha is the core city of Hunan Province's "One Point, One Line" construction and the core city of ChangZhuTan economic integration, with the main city less than 20 kilometers away from Zhuzhou and Xiangtan. Changsha is accelerating the creation of the "One Hour Economic Circle" and has joined the Wuhan Economic Collaboration Zone for economic cooperation with various central cities. Hunan has also joined Guangdong's Pan-Pearl River Delta (PPRD) to receive economic radiation from Guangdong.