The China Zone |
Sichuan
is a province in western China with its capital in Chengdu.
The current name of the province, or "Four
circuits of rivers", which is itself abbreviated from (Chuanxiá
Sìlù), or "Four circuits of rivers and gorges",
named after the division of the existing circuit into four during
the Northern Song Dynasty. Shu's existence was unknown until an archaeological discovery in 1986 at a small village named Sanxingdui (San Xing Dui) in Guanghan County. It is believed to be an ancient city of the Shu Kingdom, where excavations have yielded invaluable archaeological information. Although the Qing Dynasty destroyed the civilizations of Shu and Ba, their cultures were preserved and inherited by people in Sichuan until today. The Qin government accelerated the technological and agricultural advancements of Sichuan making it comparable to that of the Huang He (Yellow River) Valley. The Dujiangyan Irrigation System, built in the 3rd century BC under the inspection of Li Bing, was the symbol of modernization of that period. Composed of a series of dams, it redirected the flow of the Min Jiang, a major tributary of the Yangtze River, to fields, relieving the damage of seasonal floods. The construction and various other projects greatly increased the harvest of the area which thus became the main source of provisions and men for Qin's unification of China. Various ores were abundant. Adding to its significance, the area was also on the trade route from the Huang He Valley to foreign countries of the southwest, especially India. The area's military importance matches its commercial and agricultural significance. As a basin surrounded by the Himalayas to the west, the Qinling Range to the north, and mountainous areas of Yunnan to the south, Sichuan is prone to fog. Since the Yangtze flows through the basin and is thus upstream of eastern China, navies could be easily sailed downstream. Therefore Sichuan was the base for numerous amphibious military forces and also served as the refuge of Chinese governments throughout history. A few independent regimes were founded; the most famous was Shu Han of the Three Kingdoms. The Jin Dynasty first conquered Shu Han on its path of unification. During the Tang Dynasty, it was a battlefront against Tibet. The
Southern Song Dynasty established coordinated defenses against
the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty in Sichuan and Xiangyang. The line
of defense was finally broken through after the first use of
firearms in history during the six-year siege of Xiangyang,
which ended in 1273. In the 20th century, the foggy climate
hindered the accuracy of Japanese bombing of the basin and the
city of Chongqing, where the capital of the Republic of China
had been relocated during World War II. A landslide dam on the Dadu River caused by an earthquake gave way on 10 June 1786. The resulting flood killed 100,000 people. Sichuan's borders have remained relatively constant for the past 500 years. This changed in 1997 when the city of Chongqing as well as the surrounding towns of Fuling and Wanxian were formed into the new Chongqing Municipality. The new municipality was formed to spearhead China's effort to develop its western regions as well as to coordinate the resettlement of residents from the reservoir areas of the Three Gorges Dam project. On Monday, May 12, 2008 at 2:28:01 PM local time, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9/8.0 hit just 72km northwest of the provincial capital of Chengdu. As of May 14, the official Xinhua news agency reported: 14,463 people were dead, another 14,051 were missing, 25,788 were buried in the debris and 64,746 had been injured, On May 31, the death toll was updated to 68,467 in Sichuan with a further ~17,000 people missing, and 354,045 injured.
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