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HANGZHOU
, capital of the province, southern terminus of the Grand Canal,
and one of China's leading tourist attractions, lies in the north
of Zhejiang at the head of Hangzhou Bay. The canal has been the
instrument of the city's prosperity and fortunes, establishing it
for more than a thousand years as a place of great wealth and
culture. Apart from the fact that Yu the Great, tamer of floods,
is said to have moored his boats here, however, Hangzhou has
little in the way of a legendary past or ancient history for the
simple reason that the present site, on the east shore of Xi Hu
(West Lake), was originally under water. Xi Hu itself started life
as a wide shallow inlet off the bay, and it is said that Emperor
Qin Shihuang sailed in from the sea and moored his boats on what
is now the northwestern shore of the lake. Only around the fourth
century AD did river currents and tides begin to throw up a
barrier of silt which eventually resulted in the formation of the
lake.
However,
the city rapidly made up for its slow start. The first great
impetus came from the building of the Grand Canal at the end of
the sixth century, and Hangzhou developed with spectacular speed
as the centre for trade between north and south, the Yellow and
Yangzi river basins. Under the Tang dynasty it was a rich and
thriving city, but its location between lake and river made it
vulnerable to the fierce equinox tides in Hangzhou Bay. When
Tang-dynasty governors were building locks and dykes to control
the waters round Hangzhou, a contemporary writer, describing the
beginning of a sea wall in 910 AD, explained that "archers
were stationed on the shore to shoot down the waves while a poem
was recited to propitiate the King of Dragons and Government of
the Waters; the waves immediately left the wall and broke on the
opposite bank so the work could go on." The problem of floods
- and the search for remedies - was to recur down the centuries.
During
the Song dynasty, Hangzhou received its second great impetus when
the encroachment of the Tartars from the north destroyed the
northern capital of Kaifeng and sent remnants of the imperial
family fleeing south in search of a new base. The result of this
upheaval was that from 1138 until 1279 Hangzhou became the
imperial capital . There was an explosion in the silk and brocade
industry, and indeed in all the trades that waited upon the court
and their wealthy friends. When Marco Polo wrote of Hangzhou
towards the end of the thirteenth century, he spoke of "the
City of Heaven, the most beautiful and magnificent in the world.
It has ten principal market places, always with an abundance of
victuals, roebuck, stags, harts, hares, partridge, pheasants,
quails, hens and ducks, geese… all sorts of vegetables and
fruits… huge pears weighing ten pounds apiece. Each day a vast
quantity of fish is brought from the ocean. There is also an
abundance of lake fish." So glorious was the reputation of
the city that it rapidly grew overcrowded. On to its sandbank
Hangzhou was soon cramming more than a million people, a
population as large as that of Chang'an (Xi'an) under the Tang,
but in a quarter of the space - tall wooden buildings up to five
storeys high were crowded into narrow streets, creating a ghastly
fire hazard.
After
the Southern Song dynasty was finally overthrown by the Mongols in
1279, Hangzhou ceased to be a capital city, but it remained an
important centre of commerce and a place of luxury, with parks and
gardens outside the ramparts and hundreds of boats on the lake. In
later years, the Ming rulers repaired the city walls and deepened
the Grand Canal so that large ships could go all the way from
Hangzhou to Beijing. Two great Qing emperors, Kangxi and Qianlong,
frequented the city and built villas, temples and gardens by the
lake. Although the city was largely destroyed by the Taiping
Uprising (1861-63), it recovered surprisingly quickly, and the
foreign concessions which were established towards the end of the
century - followed by the building of rail lines from Shanghai and
Ningbo - stimulated the growth of new industries alongside the
traditional silk and brocade manufacturers.
Since
1949 the city has grown to attain a population of around one
million, much the same as under the Song. As is often the case in
China, the modern city is not of much interest in itself, but Xi
Hu and its shores still offer wonderful Chinese vistas of trees,
hills, flowers, old causeways over the lake, fishing boats,
pavilions and pagodas - all within a walk of the city centre. No
tour of China would be complete without coming here and
appreciating the lake's stunning natural beauty - still largely
intact despite the ever-increasing flood of tourists - and its
subsequent impact on the evolution of Chinese literature and
culture. Today, understandably, Hangzhou is one of China's busiest
resorts, particularly at weekends and in summer, when the city is
packed with trippers escaping from the concrete jungle of
Shanghai. This has pushed up hotel prices, but it also brings
advantages: there are plenty of restaurants, the natural
environment is being protected and the bulk of the Taiping
destruction on the lakeside has been repaired (the temples rebuilt
and the gardens replanted). Most of the places to visit are on the
lake or immediately around its shores, and can be visited on foot
or bicycle; for those attractions farther afield city buses are
very convenient
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