Download Guangzhou Presentation Slide One (Overview) Located in Southern

Guangzhou Presentation
Slide One (Overview)
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Located in Southern China on the Pearl or Canton/Guangdong River
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Situated not far from Hong Kong
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Location near the mouth of the Pearl River at the South China Sea made the city an
important destination for sea traders
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Guangzhou was a busy city during the post-classical period and has continued to grow
o Today the city is a bustling metropolis with 12.8 million people (China’s 6th
Largest City)
Slide Two (History)
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Recorded history of the city began after the Qin dynasty conquered the region
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Eventually annexed by the Han Dynasty
o Became the governmental seat of the Guang Prefecture (administrative district
within China – Similar to counties)
o Held political significance in the region of Southern China for centuries
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City reached its prominence during the Tang Dynasty in the 8th Century
o Arab and Persian merchants began to appear in the city
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Continued to a critical port for Chinese traders through the Song Dynasty
o Was not as prominent politically during this time as most of the government was
situated farther to the North (Loyang – Sui Capital, Hangzhou – Southern Song
Dynasty)
Slide Three (Arab/Persian Cultural Influence)
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Sea faring merchants arrived in the 8th century eager to do business with the prospering
Tang Dynasty
o Their migration altered the culture of the city by making it almost exclusively a
city focused and designed for international sea trade
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Multiple Muslim geographers mentioned Guangzhou in their works describing SE Asia
and China
o Al-Masudi
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Persian women immigrated to Guangzhou in great numbers from the 10th-14th centuries
o They populated the city’s foreign quarter
o Chinese scholars did not differentiate between Persians and Arabs
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Called all women coming from the Persian Gulf region Dashi
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Title means master which suggests that Arab and Persian females
possessed a greater amount of influence in Guangzhou than other women
in the traditional Chinese culture did throughout the Empire
Slide Four (Guangzhou Massacre)
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By the end of the 9th Century, the Tang Dynasty began to collapse in China
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Many Chinese peasants blamed this collapse on the deteriorating economic system in the
Empire
o Looked for a scapegoat and found wealthy foreign merchants and traders
o Peasants felt that the foreigners (mainly Arabs/Persians but even Christians and
Jews too) were accumulating their fortunes by stealing from the economic
prosperity of their people
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Huang Choa
o Hope to cause chaos within the already deteriorating Tang Dynasty by
slaughtering the foreign merchants in Guangzhou
o Already hated the Tang Dynasty after failing the Imperial Examination several
times and therefore being denied an imperial government position
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Massacre occurred in 879 C.E.
o Around 120,000 foreigners were killed (most of the foreign population in the city)
Slide Five (Economic Role)
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Major center of trade
o Good location since it was the closest Chinese port to SE Asia (Areas in SE Asia
like Malacca were bustling with sea trade and Guangzhou was close to the
action)
o Located near the end of the Silk Route
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Title given to the trade routes from China, through SE Asia, past India
and finally reaching the Middle East
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Goods were even sent from Guangzhou by sea to Northern China where
they were shipped across land on the Silk Road
o Exported Chinese silk, spices, and even ceramics
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Direct ocean trade routes connected the Middle East to China
o Example of a Chinese POW who was captured in battle and confined in Iraq for
years and was able to returned to China on a ship which went all the way from
the Middle East to Guangzhou
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Although the city was located on a river delta, there was not much agricultural interests
in Guangzhou apart from exporting crops from other regions in China
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Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta came to Guangzhou in the 14th century
o Recounted the large industry of manufacturing ships in the city (main industry in
Guangzhou)
o This industry was ideal for a city which had a large market of sea-faring
merchants who would be in need of ocean going vessels