Shan-Tung
Shan-Tung or Shandong (Chinese: 山东), is a coastal province of China, and is part of the East China region.
Location
The province is located on the eastern edge of the North China Plain and in the lower reaches of the Yellow River (Huang He) and extends out to sea in the form of the Shandong Peninsula. Shandong borders the Bohai Sea to the north, Hebei to the northwest, Henan to the west, Jiangsu to the south, and the Yellow Sea to the southeast; it also shares a very short border with Anhui, between Henan and Jiangsu.
Origin of name
The two Chinese characters in the name "Shandong" mean "mountain" and "east". Shandong could hence be translated literally as "east of the mountains" and refers to the province's location to the east of the Taihang Mountains.[1] English speakers in the 19th century called the province, Shan-tung.[2]
History
Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese Buddhism, and Confucianism.
Shandong's Mount Tai is the most revered mountain of Taoism and one of the world's sites with the longest history of continuous religious worship. The Buddhist temples in the mountains to the south of the provincial capital of Jinan were once among the foremost Buddhist sites in China.
The city of Qufu is the birthplace of Confucius, and was later established as the center of Confucianism.
Shandong's location at the intersection of ancient as well as modern north–south and east–west trading routes have helped to establish it as an economic center. After a period of political instability and economic hardship that began in the late 19th century, Shandong has emerged as one of the most populous (95,793,065 inhabitants at the 2010 Census) and most affluent provinces in the People's Republic of China with a GDP of CN¥5.942 trillion in 2014, or USD967 billion, making it China's third wealthiest province.
Early History
With its location on the eastern edge of the North China Plain, Shandong was home to a succession of Neolithic cultures for millennia, including
- the Houli culture (6500–5500 BCE),
- the Beixin culture (5300–4100 BCE),
- the Dawenkou culture (4100–2600 BCE),
- the Longshan culture (3000–2000 BCE), and the
- Yueshi culture (1900–1500 BCE).
The earliest dynasties (the Shang dynasty and Zhou dynasty) exerted varying degrees of control over western Shandong, while eastern Shandong was inhabited by the Dongyi peoples who were considered "barbarians". Over subsequent centuries, the Dongyi were eventually sinicized.
During the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, regional states became increasingly powerful. At this time, Shandong was home to two major states: the state of Qi at Linzi and the state of Lu at Qufu. Lu is noted for being the home of Confucius. The state was, however, comparatively small, and eventually succumbed to the state of Chu from the south. The state of Qi was, on the other hand, a major power throughout the period. Cities it ruled included Linzi, Jimo (north of modern Qingdao) and Ju.
The Qin dynasty conquered Qi and founded the first centralized Chinese state in 221 BCE.
The Han dynasty that followed created a number of commanderies supervised by two regions in what is now modern Shandong: Qingzhou in the north and Yanzhou in the south. During the division of the Three Kingdoms, Shandong belonged to the Cao Wei, which ruled over northern China.
After the Three Kingdoms period, a brief period of unity under the Western Jin dynasty gave way to invasions by nomadic peoples from the north. Northern China, including Shandong, was overrun. Over the next century or so Shandong changed hands several times, falling to the Later Zhao, then Former Yan, then Former Qin, then Later Yan, then Southern Yan, then the Liu Song Dynasty, and finally the Northern Wei Dynasty, the first of the Northern Dynasties during the Northern and Southern Dynasties Period. Shandong stayed with the Northern Dynasties for the rest of this period.
In 412 CE, the Chinese Buddhist monk Faxian landed at Laoshan, on the southern edge of the Shandong peninsula, and proceeded to Qingzhou to edit and translate the scriptures he had brought back from India.
The Sui dynasty reestablished unity in 589, and the Tang dynasty (618-907) presided over the next golden age of China. For the earlier part of this period Shandong was ruled as part of Henan Circuit, one of the circuits (a political division). Later on China splintered into warlord factions, resulting in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. Shandong was part of the Five Dynasties, all based in the north.
The Song dynasty reunified China in the late tenth century. In 1996, the discovery of over two hundred buried Buddhist statues at Qingzhou was hailed as a major archaeological find. The statues included early examples of painted figures, and are thought to have been buried due to Emperor Huizong's repression of Buddhism (he favored Taoism).
The Song dynasty was forced to cede northern China to the Jurchen Jin dynasty in 1142. Shandong was administered by the Jin as Shandong East Circuit and Shandong West Circuit – the first use of its current name.