Qichun
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Qichun (蕲春) is the county town of Qichun County (蕲春县) which falls under the Huanggang (黃冈) Municipality (formerly Huanggang prefecture), in the eastern part of Hubei Province, China.
QICHUN COUNTY is the birthplace of famous herbalist Li Shizhen, who was born and lived in Qizhou town, on the southern edge of the County, alongside the Yangtze River. In turn, Qichun is a major center of the herbal industry in China.
Qichun County is known in China as the "County of Scholars" because more professors (400+) and doctors were born there than in any other county of China. The town of Qichun consists of Qichun proper, and Caohe precinct.
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[edit] History
The earliest known founding of Qichun was in 201 BC. Due to its strategic location, in history Qichun was referred to as “The Key Point in JinChu” (Jinchu was the ancient name for the region).
Centuries later, in the summer of 223 AD, from the famous classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms it is known that Sun Quan's general He Qi attacked and eliminated an outpost of Wei, in the new commandery territory of Qichun, on the southern slopes of the Dabie Shan mountains. But for the next twelve months the northern front remained quiet.
The Grand Administrator of Qichun was Jin Zong, a former officer of Sun Quan who had deserted and joined the Wei. It appears he was given the commandery appointment at this time, in the hill country of the Dabie Shan on the border region between Lujiang and Jiangxia, so that he could disturb the communications routes along the Yangtze and across that river to the south.
There is evidence that the Qichun commandery had been established a few years earlier, evidently on the basis of the county of that name in Jiangxia commandery of Later Han, but the territory had been abandoned by Cao Cao at the time of his withdrawal in 213 AD. From this time, after the defeat of Jin Zong's infiltration, the territory was held by Wu. One of the subordinate commanders in He Qi's attack on Qichun was Mi Fang, the erstwhile officer of Guan Yu who had surrendered Jiangling to Lü Meng in 219 AD. Qichun also was evidently a proving ground for renegades.
[edit] Geography
The total geographic area of Qichun County is 2,400 km². Of this, 560 km² are arable. Water covers 310 km² (there are hundreds of lakes in Qichun County, almost all used for acquaculture). Forested areas cover 1,040 km².
(Note: While not stated in government data, unless there is a statistical error, the remaining 490 km² must be hills/mountains, in the northern part of the County, or simply unusable land).
[edit] Climate
The local climate is classed as "subtropical mainland monsoon," with distinct seasons and abundant rainfall (average 134 centimeters per year). When the Yangtze River floods, Qichun County also experiences some flooding.
[edit] Population
Total County population was 949,700 at the last census. Qichun Town's population was 162,000, of whom 71,000 were engaged in agriculture (fisheries, crops, and herbs are the main agricultural sectors) and the remainder non-agriculture (which includes minerals and manufacturing of various kinds). About 40% of all the farmers of Qichun County are engaged in growing herbs.
[edit] Local character and folklore
The County has produced hundreds of scholars and doctors and is known as "The County of Scholars." Perhaps not surprisingly, the local character is considered "refined." Hubei people are known as (and refer to themselves as) "9-headed birds." This is meant as a compliment: they are both talkative and clever (9 mouths yacking; 9 brains thinking). Hubei people are said to be "square and sturdy" (that is, healthy, strong, and square-and-sturdy in appearance).
[edit] Famous people
In addition to Li Shizhen (medical expert and herbalist, 1518-1593; see more biographical information below), another Qichun scholar from ancient times was Gu Jingxing (1621-1687), a prolific author of hundreds of books, and an Imperial scholar from a long hereditary line of scholars going back several generations of the Gu family.
More-recent famous people from Qichun include:
- Wu Shu (writer and Communist revolutionary, 1902-1985);
- Hu Feng (literary theorist, 1902-1985);
- Huang Kan (Professor, newspaper founder, 1886-1935);
- Zhan Dabei (Kuomingtan/KMT leftist, 1887-1927);
- Tian Tong (1879-1937, author and Minister of Internal Affairs in the revolutionary government of Sun Yatsen);
- Dong Yuhua (leader of student movement and military commander, 1907-1939);
- Yuan Shu (government Minister, started Chinese Communist Party intelligence system, 1911-1987);
- Gao Huiyuan (born 1922, medical scientist and doctor to Premier Zhou Enlai).
[edit] Government
The town of Qichun is in the Caohe precinct of Qichun County, the towns of Qichun and Caohe essentially having amalgamated geographically. Qichun town is the "county seat", as it were, of Qichun County.
The government buildings for the County and the Town are adjacent to each other, and are just across the street from the relatively-new Qichun Hotel (below).
[edit] Hotels
There is only one hotel of any significance in Qichun (perhaps the only hotel) but it is a new hotel, built around 2001.
It has a spacious lobby, with a 10-pin bowling alley off one side, and a large banquet/dining hall on the other.
There is a large garden surrounding the property. Rooms are comfortable and the Hotel would be rated about 3-stars by Western standards.
[edit] Transportation
Qichun is reasonably well-served by rail, bus, and road transportation; there is no airport.
The main Beijing to Guangzhou rail line passes through Qichun, and there are local trains, west to the Hubei provincial capital of Wuhan and south-east into Jiangxi province.
There is a local bus service and also frequent express buses into Wuhan via the new inter-provincial expressway running east-west across the province. A journey by express bus to Wuhan takes less than three hours; by car the journey is less than 2.5 hours.
Local roads (including that into town from the expressway) are rough and full of pot holes. However, downtown streets are well paved with good sidewalks. There are few cars thus far in Qichun, but many motorbikes. Taxis are of the 3-wheel motorbike-with-cab type.
[edit] Economy
The herbal industry, centered on Qizhou, is the biggest component of the Qichun County economy. Some 200,000 herb farmers live in Qichun County. They produce more than 700 varieties. The local herb wholesale market is the third largest in China, with more than 800 million yuan (US$100 million, as of 2006) of annual trading volume.
[edit] Social welfare
Qichun County has its own Social Welfare Institute (SWI) to accommodate elderly people, handicapped persons, the homeless, and orphans. The Social Welfare Institute constructed a new building in 2004, designed mainly for the elderly and handicapped children and adults. Children which are abandoned or orphaned, and are awaiting adoption either domestically or internationally, are placed with local foster families. But they visit the SWI weekly for medical checks and group playtime activities. About 400 orphans have been adopted internationally from Qichun County SWI. These children now live with families all over the world: in Canada and the U.S.A., in Australasia, and in most countries of Western Europe. There is a discussion group for adoptive parents of these children at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/QichunHubeiPRC
[edit] Li Shizhen (herbalist)
Li Shizhen (1518-1593), author of Ben Cao Gang Mu (Compendium of Materia Medica), was a pharmacist and naturalist of the late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
He was born into a family of doctors in Qizhou. Both his grandfather and father were doctors. His grandfather was a travelling doctor who carried medicine pills and acupuncture needles from place to place. Such doctors were called Lingyi (bell doctors), announcing their presence by ringing a bell.
Li Shizhen's father, Li Yenwen attained the rank of a subordinate medical officer of the Imperial Medical Academy. He was widely respected by his peers and wrote several famous medical works such as Tale of the Ginseng, Tale of the Aiye, and Si Zhun Faming.
As a boy, Li Shizhen went to the mountains with his father to pick herbs and acquired knowledge on plants and medicine. In 1531, when only 14 years old, he passed the imperial examination at the county level (Xiucai), but failed the provincial exam (Juren) three times. Nevertheless, he started to work in a hospital and read many medical books. Finding a mess and confusion in the naming and categorization of herbs, he resigned in 1561 and devoted all his time to writing a new book about herbs.
Consulting some 800 medical books and travelling extensively, he consulting experts in each area of interest and people who worked with field plants, animals, snakes, birds, and minerals. After 27 years, the first draft of Ben Cao Gang Mu was completed in 1578, when Li was 61 years old, and it was later revised three times. The book raised Chinese medical science to a new level.
Three years after Li died, in 1593, Ben Cao Gang Mu was published and then re-published numerous times. In the 17th century, the book was introduced to Japan. In the 18th century, it reached Europe and was translated into several languages.
In all, Li Shizhen wrote more than ten books, but only three survived — Bin Hu Mai (a book on pulse diagnosis), Study on the Eight Extra Channels, and Ben Cao Gang Mu — established Li's incomparable position in the history of Chinese medicine.
[edit] Herb garden data bank
Li Shizhen's image is to be found at every traditional medical college in China. And "Li Shizhen" also is the leading brand name of herbs.
Li's birthplace of Qizhou is the center of China's leading herbal garden and data bank. Called Bencao Garden, it was founded in 1956.
Since then, researchers scoured China to collect varies types of herbs, some from remote mountain areas and as far away as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
Of the approximately 1,900 types of Chinese medicinal herbs on record, more than 1,000 are grown in the 40,000 m² garden at the botanical research institute in Qizhou.
The garden is designed to recreate the natural habitats of the herbs to help preserve as much of their natural medicinal qualities as possible. Scientists there use gene technology to optimize the curative qualities of the herbs.
[edit] Qichun snake
According to Li Shizhen's Ben Cao Gang Mu, the long-noded pit viper was known as "Qi long-noded pit vipers" or the Qichun Snake. Those located in Qi Prefecture during his time (in southern Qichun County) had the most powerful medicinal effects of any long-noded pit viper. By comparison to other types, which have their nostrils pointing downwards, the long-noded pit vipers are distinguished by deep pits on each side of their heads between the eye and the nostril, which makes their noses appear to point upwards. The long-noded pit viper thus also was known as the "nostril snake." In addition, all other snakes close their eyes after they are dead, but a Qichun Snake does not, even after it withers and dries up. As Li described it, the Qichun Snake has "a head like a dragon, a mouth like a tiger, a black body with white patterns, 24 bead-shaped spots on its abdomen, the tip of its tail resembles a Buddha’s fingernail with a length of 1 to 2 cm, and its intestine is in the shape of stringed beads."
[edit] External links
- "Hubei Sheng: Qichun Xian difang zhibian zuan wei yuan hui bian zuan." ("History of Qichun County in Hubei Province" in Chinese), published at Wuhan, by "Hubei kexue jishu chuban she" in 1997. (ISBN C47267C56)
- Qichun Government website (Chinese)
- Huanggang Government website (Chinese)
- Huanggang Government website (bilingual, Chinese-English)
