The city of Beijing has a long and rich history that dates back over 3,000 years.[1][2] Prior to the unification of China by the First Emperor in 221 BC, Beijing was for centuries the capital of the ancient state of Yan. During the first millennia of imperial rule, Beijing was a provincial city in northern China. Its stature grew in the 10th to the 13th centuries when the nomadic Khitan and Jurchen peoples from the steppes expanded southward, and made the city a capital of their dynasties, the Liao and Jin. When Kublai Khan made Dadu the capital of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368), all of China was ruled from Beijing for the first time. From this time onward, with the exception of two interludes from 1368 to 1421 and 1928 to 1949, Beijing would remain as China's capital, serving as the seat of power for the Ming Dynasty (1421–1644), the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty (1644–1912), the early Republic of China (1912–1928) and now the People's Republic of China (1949–present).
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UNESCO World Heritage Site of Beijing
The earliest remains of hominid habitation in Beijing Municipality were found in the caves of Dragon Bone Hill near the village of Zhoukoudian in Fangshan District, where the Homo erectus Peking Man (Sinanthropus pekinensis) lived from 770,000 to 230,000 years ago.[3] Paleolithic homo sapiens also lived in the caves from about 27,000 to 10,000 years ago.[4]
In 1996, over 2,000 Stone Age tools and bone fragments were discovered at a construction site at Wangfujing in the heart of downtown Beijing in Dongcheng District.[5] The artifacts date to 24,000 to 25,000 years ago and are preserved in the Wangfujing Paleolithic Museum in the lower level of the New Oriental Plaza.
Archaeologists have found Neolithic settlements throughout the plains of Beijing from Xiaoniantou and Shangzhai Village in Pinggu County in the east to Xueshan Village in Changping District in the north, and Zhenjiangying in Fangshan District in the southwest.[6] These sites indicate that farming was widespread in the area 6,000 to 7,000 years ago.
Beijing is first mentioned in history in the chronicles of the Zhou Dynasty's conquest of the Shang Dynasty in the 11th century BC. According to Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, King Wu of Zhou, in the 11th year of his reign, deposed the last Shang king and conferred titles to nobles within his domain, including the rulers of the city states Ji (蓟/薊) and Yan (燕).[7][8] The walled City of Ji or Jicheng (蓟城/薊城) was located in the southwestern part of present-day Beijing, just south of Guang'anmen in Xicheng and Fengtai Districts. According to Confucius, the rulers of Ji were descendants of the Yellow Emperor.[9] Some time during the late Western Zhou or early Eastern Zhou Dynasty, Ji was absorbed by neighboring Yan, which made the City of Ji, its capital.
Yan's capital was previously based to the south of Ji, in the village of Dongjialin in Liulihe Township of Fangshan District, where a large walled settlement and over 200 tombs of nobility have been unearthed.[10] Among the most significant artifacts from the Liulihe site is a bronze ding with inscriptions that recount the journey of the eldest son of the Duke of Yan who delivered offerings to the King of Zhou in present-day Xi'an, and was awarded a position in the king's court.[11] Both Yan and Ji were located along an important north-south trade route along the eastern flank of the Taihang Mountains from the Central Plain to the northern steppes. Ji, located just north of the Yongding River, was a convenient resting stop for trade caravans. Here, the route to the northwest through the mountain passes diverged from the road to the Northeast. Ji also had a steady water supply from the nearby Lotus Pond, which still exists south of the Beijing West Railway Station. Yan's old capital relied on the more seasonal flow of the Liuli River. Perhaps for these reasons, Yan chose to move its capital to Ji, which remains to be known as Jicheng or the City of Ji. Due to its historical association with the State of Yan, the city of Beijing is also called Yanjing (燕京) or "Yan Capital".
The State of Yan would continue to expand until it became one of the seven major powers during the Warring States Period (473-221 BC).[12] It stretched from the Yellow River to the Yalu.[13] Historical records show that the Yan capital was a wealthy city with at least two palaces. In 284 BC, the victorious Yan general Yue Yi, having conquered 70 cities of neighboring Qi, wrote to Duke of Yan to report that he had enough booty to fill two palaces and planned to bring home a new tree species to plant on the Hill of Ji, north of the city. The hill mentioned in the letter is believed to be the mound at the White Cloud Abbey, outside Xibianmen in Xicheng District. Like subsequent rulers of Beijing, the Yan also faced the threat of invasions by steppe nomads, and built walled fortifications across its northern frontier. Remnants of the Yan walls in Changping County date to 283 BC.[14] They predate Beijing's better known Ming Great Wall by more than 1,500 years.
In 226 BC, the City of Ji fell to the invading State of Qin and the State of Yan was forced to move its capital to Liaodong.[15] The Qin eventually ended Yan in 222 BC. The following year, the ruler of Qin, having conquered all the other states, declared himself to be the First Emperor.
During the first one thousand years of Chinese imperial history, Beijing was a provincial city on the northern periphery of China proper. The Qin Dynasty built a highly centralized state and divided the country into 48 commandaries (jun), two of which are located in present-day Beijing. The City of Ji became the seat of Guangyang Commandary (广阳郡/廣陽郡). To the north, in present-day Miyun County, was Yuyang Commandary.
The Han Dynasty, which followed the short-lived Qin in 206 BC, initially restored some local autonomy. Founding Emperor Liu Bang recognized a number of regional kingdoms including Yan.[Note 1] In 106 BC, under Han Emperor Wudi, the country was reorganized into 13 prefectural-provinces (zhou 州), and the City of Ji served as the prefectural capital for Youzhou (幽州). The tomb of Liu Jian, the Prince of Guangyang who ruled Youzhou from 73 to 45 BC. was discovered in 1974 in Fengtai District and has been preserved in the Dabaotai Western Han Dynasty Mausoleum.[16] In 1999, another royal tomb was found in Laoshan in Shijingshan District but the prince formerly buried there has not been identified.[17][18]
During the Three Kingdoms, the Kingdom of Wei controlled ten of the Han Dynasty's prefectures including Youzhou and its capital Ji. Ji was demoted to a mere county-seat in the Western Jin Dynasty (晋), which made neighboring Zhuo County, in present day Hebei Province, the prefectural capital of Youzhou. After 304 AD, the Western Jin Dynasty was overthrown by steppe peoples who had settled in northern China and established about sixteen short-lived kingdoms. During this period, Beijing was controlled successively by the Di-led Former Qin, the Jie-led Later Zhao, the Xianbei-led Former Yan and Later Yan. The Tanzhe Temple in the Western Hills of Beijing was built in 307 AD. The Northern Wei, another Xianbei regime, eventually united northern China in 386 AD, and restored Ji as the capital of Youzhou. With the creation of a separate prefecture called Jizhou (蓟州) in present-day Tianjin in 370 AD, however, the name Ji was transplanted from Beijing to Tianjin, where a Ji County (蓟县) still exists today. In Beijing, the City of Ji gradually became known as Youzhou. This designation continued through the Eastern Wei, Northern Qi, Sui and Tang Dynasties.
After the Sui dynasty reunited China in 589 AD, the Emperor Yang of Sui built a network of canals from the Central Plain to Youzhou to carry troops and food for the massive military campaigns against Goguryeo (Korea). Though the campaigns proved to be ruinous, they were continued by the Tang Dynasty. In 645 AD, the Tang Emperor Taizong built the Fayuan Temple 3 km southeast of Youzhou to remember the war dead from the Korean Campaigns. The Fayuan Temple, now within Xicheng District, is one of the oldest temples in urban Beijing. The Tang Dynasty reduced the size of a prefecture as an administrative division from a province to a commandary. Youzhou was one of over 300 Tang Prefectures.[19] In 742, Youzhou was briefly renamed Fanyang Commandary (范阳郡), but reverted back to Youzhou in 758. To guard against barbarian invasions, the imperial court arranged six frontier military commands in 711 AD, and Youzhou became the headquarter of the Fanyang Jiedushi, who was tasked to monitor the Khitan and Xi nomads just north of present-day Hebei Province. In 755, the local commander An Lushan, launched a rebellion from Youzhou after losing a power struggle in the imperial court. He declared himself the emperor of the Great Yan Dynasty and went on to conquer Luoyang and Xi'an. The An Shi Rebellion lasted ten years and severely weakened the Tang dynasty. It also paved the way for Khitan expansion into northern China, which prompted the rise of Beijing in Chinese history.
After the demise of the Tang Dynasty fell in 907, China was divided into ten kingdoms, mostly in the south, and five short-lived dynasties in the north.[Note 2] One of these dynasties, Later Jin Dynasty (936-947), a weak regime led by Shatuo Turk Shi Jingtang, ceded a large part of the northern frontier across present-day Hebei and Shanxi Provinces, including Youzhou (modern Beijing) to the Khitan in exchange for military support.
Though Beijing was but a peripheral city to Chinese dynasties centered in Luoyang and Xi'an, it was to the nomads, an important entryway into China. The city's stature grew from the 10th century with successive invasions of China by Khitan, Jurchen and Mongols. In 938, the ascendant Khitan having unified the steppes founded the Liao Dynasty.[20] It elevated Youzhou to be one of its four secondary capitals, renaming it Nanjing (南京) or the "Southern Capital". Thus, the City of Ji, ceded to the Liao as Youzhou, continued as Nanjing in what is today the southwest part of urban Beijing. Some of the oldest landmarks in southern Xicheng (formerly Xuanwu) and Fengtai Districts date to the Liao era. They include Sanmiao Road, one of the oldest streets in Beijing[21] and the Niujie Mosque, founded in 996, and the Tianning Temple, built from 1100-1119.
The Song Dynasty, after unifying the rest of China in 960, sought to recapture the lost northern territories. In 979, Song Emperor Taizong personally led a military expedition that reached and laid siege to Nanjing (Youzhou) but was defeated in the decisive Battle of Gaoliang River, just northwest of present-day Xizhimen. In 1122, the Song entered the Alliance on the Sea with the Jurchens, a nomadic people living northeast of the Liao in modern-day Manchuria. The two nations agreed to jointly invade the Liao and if successful, cede the Sixteen Prefectures to the Song.[22] The Song faltered in their campaigns but the Jurchens were victorious and drove the Liao to Central Asia. The Jurchens captured Nanjing, looted the city and handed it to the Song, in exchange for tribute.[23] Song rule of the city, renamed Yanshan (燕山), was short-lived.
The Jurchens founded Jin (金) Dynasty, and sensing Song weakness, invaded the Central Plains in 1125. They quick retook Beijing and renamed it Yanjing. In 1153, Jin Emperor Wanyan Liang moved his capital from Shangjing (near present-day Harbin) to the city, which was renamed Zhongdu (中都) or the "Central Capital."[12] For the first time in its history, the city of Beijing became a political capital of a major dynasty.
The Jin expanded the city to the west, east, and south, doubling its size. On today's map of urban Beijing, Zhongdu would extend from Xuanwumen in the northeast to the Beijing West Railway Station to the west, and south to beyond the southern 2nd Ring Road. The walled city had 13 gates, four in the north and three openings in each of the other sides. Remnants of Zhongdu city walls are preserved in Fengtai District.[24] The Jin emphasized the centrality of the regime by placing the walled palace complex near the center of Zhongdu. The palace was situated south of present-day Guang'anmen and north of the Grand View Garden.[25] Paper money was first issued in Beijing during the Jin.[26] The Lugou Bridge, over the Yongding River southwest of the city, was built in 1189.
Genghis Khan at Zhongdu
Zhongdu served as the Jin capital for more than 60 years, until the onslaught of the Mongols in 1214.[27] The Mongols, a tribal nomadic people in southern Siberia, had assisted the Jurchen in the war against the Khitans, but were not given the promised compensation. In 1211, the Mongols led by Genghis Khan took revenge against the Jin by invading northern China. By 1213, he had controlled most of Jin territory north of the Yellow River with the exception of the capital Zhongdu. In March 1214, he set up headquarters in the northern suburbs and with brother Hasar and three eldest sons, Jochi, Chagatai and Ögedei, began to beseige the city.[28] Though the Jin court was weakened by a palace coup, the city was protected by three layers of moats and 900 towers.[29] When disease broke out within the Mongol ranks, Genghis Khan sent Muslim envoy Ja'far into the city to negotiate, and the Jin court agreed to a peace treaty by ceding territory and accepting vassal status. Among Genghis Khan's demands was marriage to a Jurchen princess. The Qicheng Princess, daughter of Jin Emperor Weishaowang, was designated for the Mongol chieftain.[30][31] She along with 100 guards, 500 boys and girl servants, 3,000 bolts of cloth, and 3,000 horses were sent to Mongol camp.[32] The Qicheng Princess became one of the four main wives of Genghis Khan, who lifted the seige and withdrew north of the Juyong Pass.
The Jin Emperor Xuanzong, after considerable debate, decided to move the capital from Zhongdu to Kaifeng further to the south. In June 1214, as the Jin imperial procession departed the city, a detachment of Khitan guards rebelled at the Lugou Bridge and defected to the Mongols. Genghis Khan believed the Jin was trying to rebuild military strength further south in breach of the terms of peace and decided to reinvade the Jin. By winter, Mongol troops were again besieging Zhongdu.[33]
In 1215, after a bitter siege in which many of the city's inhabitants starved, Zhongdu's 100,000 defenders and 108,000 households surrendered.[34] The city was still looted and burned by the invaders.[35] Zhongdu was renamed Yanjing. Among the captives taken from the city was a Khitan named Yelu Chucai, who persuaded Genghis Khan that while China could be conquered from the saddle, it could not be ruled from the saddle. Rather than converting northern China into pastures, it would be more beneficial for Mongols to tax the agrarian population. Genghis Khan took heed of Yelu Chucai's advice and Mongol pillaging eased. The Mongols continued to the campaign against the Jurchens until the capture of Kaifeng in 1234 which ended the Jin dynasty.
When Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan visited Yanjing in 1261, much of old Zhongdu, including the imperial palace, lay in ruin.[36] He stayed in the Taining Palace located on Qionghua Island in the Gaoliang River northeast of Zhongdu.[37] The palace was built by the Jin in 1179 as a country retreat, much like the later Summer Palace of the Qing.[38] Unlike other Mongol leaders who wanted to retain the traditional tribal confederation based in Karakorum, Kublai Khan was eager to become the emperor of a cosmopolitan empire. He spent the next four years waging and winning a civil war against rival Mongol chieftains, and in 1264 ordered advisor Liu Bingzhong to build his new capital at Yanjing. In 1260, he had already begun construction of his capital at Xanadu, some 275 km due north of Beijing on the Luan River in present-day Inner Mongolia, but he preferred the location of Beijing. With the North China Plain opening to the south and the steppes just beyond the mountain passes to the north, Beijing was an ideal midway point for Kublai Khan's new seat of power. In 1271, he declared the creation of the Yuan Dynasty and named his capital Dadu (大都, Chinese for "Grand Capital",[39] or Daidu to the Mongols[40]). It is also known by the Mongol name Khanbaliq (汗八里), spelled Cambuluc in Marco Polo's accounts. After the construction of Dadu, Xanadu, also known as Shangdu, became Kublai Khan's summer capital.
Rather than continuing on the foundation of Zhongdu, the new capital Dadu was shifted to the northeast and built around the old Taining Palace on Qionghua Island in the middle of the Gaoliang River. This move set in place Beijing's current north-south central axis. Dadu was nearly twice the size of Zhongdu. It stretched from present-day Chang'an Avenue in the south to the earthen Dadu city walls that still stand in northern and northeastern Beijing, between the 3rd and 4th Ring Roads.[41] The city had earthen walls 24 m thick and 11 city gates, two in the north and three each in the other cardinal directions. Later, the Ming Dynasty lined portions of Dadu's eastern and western walls with brick and reused four of their gates. Thus, Dadu had the same width as the Beijing of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The geographic center of the Dadu was marked with a pavilion, which is now the Drum Tower.
The most striking physical feature of Dadu is the string of lakes in the heart of the city. These lakes were created from the Gaoliang River inside the city. They are now known as the six seas ("hai") of central Beijing: Houhai, Qianhai and Xihai (the Rear, Front, and West Seas) which are collectively known as Shichahai, Beihai (North Sea) Park, and the Zhongnanhai (South Central Seas) compound. Qionghua Island is now the island in Beihai Park on which the White Dagoba stands. Like today's Chinese leaders, the Yuan imperial family lived west of the lakes in the Xingsheng and Longfu Palaces.[42] A third palace east of the lakes, called the Danei, in the location of the Forbidden City, housed the imperial offices. The city's construction drew builders from all over the Mongols' Asian empire, including local Chinese as well as those from places such as Nepal and Central Asia.[43] Liu Bingzhong was appointed as the supervisor of the construction of the imperial city and a chief architect was Yeheidie'erding. The pavilions of the palaces took on various architectural styles from across the empire. The entire palace complex occupied the south central portion of Dadu. Following Chinese tradition, the temples for ancestral rites and harvest rites were built, respectfully, to west and east of the palace.[44]
The inclusion of the Gaoliang River in the city gave Dadu a larger supply of water than the Lotus Pool which had nourished Ji, Youzhou and Nanjing for the previous two thousand years. To boost water supply even more, Yuan hydrologist Guo Shoujing built channels to draw spring water from the Yuquan Mountain in the northwest through what is today the Kunming Lake of the Summer Palace through the Purple Bamboo Park to Jishuitan, which was a large reservoir inside Dadu.[45] The expansion and extension of the Grand Canal from Dadu to Hangzhou enabled the city to import greater volumes of grain to sustain a larger population.
The city's residential districts were laid out in a checkerboard pattern divided by avenues 25 m in width and narrow alleyways, called hutongs, 6–7 m wide.[46] One of the best surviving examples of such a district is Dongsi, which has 12 parallel hutongs, called the 12 tiao of Dongsi. The name hutong is unique to Yuan-era city. In older neighborhoods that date to the Liao and Jin eras, narrow lanes are still called jie or streets. Each of the large avenues had underground sewers which carried rain and refuse to the south of the city.[47] The main markets were located in Dongsi, Xisi and the north shore of Jishuitan.[45]
Construction of Dadu began in 1267 and the first palace was finished the next year. The entire palace complex was completed in 1274 and the rest of the city by 1285.[48] In 1279, when Mongol armies finished off the last of the Song Dynasty in southern China, Beijing became for the first time, the capital of the whole of China.
As Kublai Khan had intended, the city was a showcase of the cosmopolitan Yuan Empire. A number of foreign travelers including Giovanni di Monte Corvino, Odoric of Pordenone, Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta left written accounts of their visits to the city. Some of the most famous writers of the Yuan era including Ma Zhiyuan, Guan Hanqing, and Wang Shifu, lived in Dadu. The Mongols commissioned the building of an Islamic observatory and Islamic academy. The White Stupa Temple near Fuchengmen was commissioned by Kublai Khan in 1271. Its famous white stupa was designed by Nepali architect Araniko, and remains one of the biggest stupas in China.[49] The Confucius Temple and Guozijian were founded during the reign of Emperor Chengzong, Kublai's successor.
In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang founded the Ming Dynasty in Nanjing and his general Xu Da captured Dadu. The last Yuan court fled to the steppes. Dadu's imperial palace was razed and the city was renamed Beiping (北平 or "Northern Peace").[50] Nanjing, also known as Yingtian Fu became the Jingshi or the capital of the new dynasty. Two years later, the founding Hongwu Emperor, conferred Beiping to his fourth son, Zhu Di, who at the age of ten became the Prince of Yan. Zhu Di did not move to Beiping until 1370 but quickly built up his military power in defense of the northern frontier. The Hongwu Emperor was predeceased by his three eldest sons, and when he died in 1398, the throne was passed down to Zhu Yunwen, the heir of his crown prince. The new emperor sought to curtail his uncle's power in Beiping, and a bitter power struggle ensued. In 1402, after a four-year civil war, Zhu Di seized Nanjing and declared himself the Yongle Emperor. As the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty, he was not content to stay in Nanjing. He executed hundreds in Nanjing for remaining loyal to his predecessor, who was reportedly killed in a palace fire but was rumored to have escaped. The Yongle Emperor sent his eunuch Zheng He on the famed voyages overseas in part to investigate the rumors of the Jianwen Emperor abroad.
In 1403, the Yongle Emperor renamed his home base, Beijing, (北京, or the "Northern Capital") and elevated the city to the status of centrally-administered city, on par with Nanjing. For the first time, Beijing took on its modern name, though it was also known as Shuntian Fu (顺天府). From 1403 to 1421, Yongle prepared Beijing to be his new capital with a massive reconstruction program. Some of Beijing's most iconic historical buildings, including the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven, were built for Yongle's capital. In 1421, Yongle moved the Jingshi of the Ming to Beijing, which made Beijing the main capital of the Ming dynasty. The move to the north also enabled the Ming regime to pay closer heed to the defense of the north against the Mongols. Most of the Great Wall in northern Beijing Municipality were built during the Ming Dynasty. The Temple of the Sun, Earth and Moon were later added by the Taoist Emperor Jiajing in 1530.
UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Beijing
During the early Ming dynasty, the northern part of old Dadu was depopulated and abandoned. The northern wall of the Ming city was built 2.5 km to the south. The southern wall of the city was moved half a kilometer to the south. These changes completed the Inner City of Beijing, which had 12 gates (two to the north, four to the south and three each to the east and west). These walls withstood a major test following the Tumu Crisis of 1449 when the Zhengtong Emperor was captured by Oirat Mongols during a military campaign near Huailai.
The Oirat chieftain, Esen Tayisi, then drove through the Great Wall and marched on the Ming capital with the captive emperor in hand. Defense Minister Yu Qian rejected Esen's demands for ransom despite the emperor's pleadings. Yu said the responsibility to protect the country took precedence over the emperor's life. He rejected calls by other officials to move the capital to the South. Instead, Zhengtong's younger half-brother was elevated to the throne, and 220,000 troops were assembled to defend the city. Ming forces with firearms and artillery ambushed the Mongol cavalry outside Deshengmen, killing Esen's brother in the barrage, and repelled another attack on Xizhimen. Esen retreated to Mongolia and three years later, returned the captive emperor, with no ransom paid. In 1457, the Zhengtong Emperor reclaimed the throne and had Yu Qian executed for treason. Yu Qian's home near Dongdan was later made into a temple in his honor.[51]
In 1550, Altan Khan led a Khalkha Mongol raid on Beijing that pillaged the northern suburbs but did not attempt to take the city. To protect the city's southern suburbs, including neighborhoods from the Liao and Jin-eras and the Temple of Heaven, the Outer City wall was built in 1553. The Outer City wall had five gates, three to the south and one each to the east and west. The Inner and Outer Ming city walls stood until in the 1960s when they were pulled down to build the Beijing Subway and the 2nd Ring Road.[52]
Jesuit missions reached Beijing at the turn of the 16th century. In 1601, Matteo Ricci became an advisor to the Ming Court of Emperor Wanli and became the first Westerner to have access to the Forbidden City.[53] He established the Nantang Cathedral in 1605, the oldest Catholic church in the city. Other Jesuits later became directors of Beijing's Imperial Observatory.
It is believed that Beijing was the largest city in the world from 1425 to 1650 and from 1710 to 1825.[54] To feed the growing population, Ming authorities built granaries known as the Jingtong storehouses near the terminus of the Grand Canal. The government administered the granaries, which fed a growing population and sustained the military. The granaries helped to control prices and prevent inflation, but as the population grew and demand for food exceeded supply, price controls became less effective.
Before the mid-15th century, Beijing residents relied on wood for heating and cooking. However, a population boom quickly led to a massive logging of the forests around the city, and by the mid-15th century the forests had largely disappeared. As a substitute, residents began to use coal, which was mined in the Western Hills. The use of coal caused many environmental problems and changed the ecological system around the city.
During the Ming dynasty, 15 epidemic outbreaks occurred in the city of Beijing, including smallpox, "pimple plague," and "vomit blood plague" - the latter two were possibly bubonic plague and pneumonic plague. In most cases, the public health system functioned well in gaining control of the outbreaks, except in 1643. That year, epidemics claimed 200,000 lives in Beijing, thus compromising the defense of the city from the attacks of the peasant rebels and contributing to the downfall of the Ming dynasty.
During the 15th and 16th centuries, banditry was common near Beijing despite the presence of imperial government. Due to inadequate supervision and economic privation, imperial troops in the capital region to protect the throne would often turn to brigandage. Officials responsible for eradicating banditry often had ties to brigands and other marginal elements of Ming society.[55]
In 1629, Li Zicheng launched a peasant rebellion in northwest China and captured Beijing in March 1644. The last Ming Emperor Chongzhen committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in Jingshan. Li proclaimed himself emperor of the Shun Dynasty, but he was defeated shortly thereafter at Shanhaiguan by Ming general Wu Sangui and the Manchu Prince Dorgon. Wu defected to the Manchus, a semi-nomadic people from Northeast China, and allowed them inside the Great Wall. They drove Li Zicheng from Beijing in late April.
UNESCO World Heritage Site of Beijing
On May 3, 1644, the Manchus seized Beijing in the name of freeing the city from the bandit Li Zicheng.[56] Dorgon held a state funeral for Ming Emperor Chongzhen and reappointed many Ming officials. In October, he moved the boy emperor Shunzhi from the old capital Shenyang into the Forbidden City and made Beijing the new seat of the Qing Dynasty. In the following decades, the Manchus would conquer the rest of the country and ruled China for nearly three centuries from the city.[57] During this era, Beijing was also known as Jingshi which corresponds with the Manchu name Gemun Hecen.[58]
The Qing largely retained the physical configuration of Beijing inside the city walls. Each of the Eight Manchu Banners was assigned to guard and live near the eight gates of the Inner City.[56] Outside the city, the Qing Court seized large tracts of land for Manchu noble estates.[56] Northwest of the city, Qing emperors built several large palatial gardens. In 1684, Kangxi Emperor built the Shangchun Garden on the site of the Ming Dynasty's Qinghua (or Tsinghua) Garden. In the early 18th century, he began building the Yuanmingyuan, also known as the "Old Summer Palace", which the Qianlong Emperor expanded with European Baroque-style garden pavilions. In 1750, Qianlong built the Yiheyuan, commonly referred to as the "Summer Palace". The two summer palaces represent both the culmination of Qing imperial splendor and its decline. Both were ransacked and razed by invading Western powers in the late Qing.
The Qing Dynasty maintained a relatively stable supply of food for the population of the capital during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The government's grain tribute system brought food from the provinces and kept grain prices stable. Soup kitchens provided relief to the needy. The secure food supply helped the Qing court maintain a degree of political stability.[59] Temple fairs such as the Huguo Fair, which are like monthly bazaars held around temples, added to the commercial vibrance of the city.
In 1790, the Qing Court's Nanfu office, which was in charge of organizing entertainment for the emperor, invited the dramatic opera troupes from Anhui to perform for Qianlong. Under Qianlong, the Nanfu had up to a thousand employees, including actors, musicians, and court eunuchs. In 1827, Emperor Daoguang, Qianlong's grandson, changed the name from Nanfu to Shengpingshu, and reduced the number of performances.[60] Nevertheless, the court invited opera troupes from Hubei came to perform. The Anhui and Hubei operatic styles eventually blended together in the mid-19th century to form Peking Opera.
In 1813, some 200 adherents of the White Lotus sect launched a surprise siege on the Forbidden City but were repelled.[56] In response, authorities imposed the baojia system of social surveillance and control.
Lord Macartney's mission to China arrived in Beijing in 1792, but failed to persuade the Qianlong Emperor to ease trade restrictions or to permit a permanent British Embassy in the city. Nevertheless, Macartney observed weaknesses within the Qing regime, which informed later, more forceful British efforts to enter China.
The Second Opium War
The Boxer Rebellion
In 1860, during the Second Opium War, Anglo-French forces annihilated the Qing army at Baliqiao east of Beijing. They captured the city and looted the Summer Palace and Old Summer Palace. The British consul Lord Elgin ordered the burning of the Old Summer Palace in retaliation of Qing mistreatment of Western prisoners. He spared the Forbidden City, saving it as a venue for the treaty-signing ceremony. Under the Convention of Peking that ended the war, the Qing government was forced to allow Western powers to establish permanent diplomatic presence in the city. The foreign embassies were based southeast of the Forbidden City in the Beijing Legation Quarter.
In 1886, the Empress Dowager had Summer Palace rebuilt using funds originally designated for the imperial navy.[56] After the Qing government was defeated by Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War and forced to sign the humiliating Treaty of Shimonoseki, Kang Yuwei assembled 1,300 scholars outside Xuanwumen to protest the treaty and drafted a 10,000 character appeal to the Guangxu Emperor. In June 1898, Guangxu adopted the proposals of Kang Yuwei, Liang Qichao and other scholars and launched the Hundred Days' Reform. The reforms alarmed the Empress Dowager who, with the help of her cousin Ronglu and Beiyang military commander Yuan Shikai, launched a coup. Guangxu was imprisoned, Kang and Liang fled abroad, and Tan Sitong and five other scholar reformers were publicly beheaded at Caishikou outside Xuanwumen. One legacy of the short-lived reform era was the founding of Peking University in 1898. The university would have a profound impact on the intellectual and political history of the city.
In 1898, a millenarian group called the Righteous Harmony Society Movement rebelled in Shandong Province in reaction to Western imperialist expansion into China.[61] They attacked Westerners especially missionaries and converted Chinese, and were called the "Boxers" by Westerners. The Qing court initially suppressed the Boxers but the Empress Dowager attempted to use them to curtail foreign influence and permitted them to gather in Beijing. In June 1900, they tried to storm the Legation Quarter, which sheltered several hundred foreign civilians and soldiers and about 3,200 Chinese Christians. An international army of the Eight-Nation Alliance eventually defeated the Boxers and Qing troops and lifted the siege. The foreign armies looted the city and occupied northern China. The Empress Dowager fled to Xian and did not return until after the Qing government had signed the Boxer Protocol which compelled it to pay reparations of 450 million taels of silver with interest at 4 percent. The Boxer indemnities stripped the Qing government of much of its tax revenues and further weakened the state.[62]
The United States used its portion of the proceeds to fund scholarships for Chinese students studying in America. In 1911, the Boxer Indemnity Scholar Program established the American Indemnity College in the Qinghua Gardens northwest of Beijing as a preparatory school for students planning to study abroad. In 1912, the school was renamed Tsinghua University, and remains to this day, one of the finest institutions of higher learning in China.
After the Boxer Rebellion, the struggling Qing Dynasty accelerated the pace of reform and became more receptive to foreign influence. The centuries-old imperial civil service examination was abolished in 1905, and replaced with a Western-style curriculum and degree system. Public education for women received greater emphasis and even drew support from reactionaries like the Empress Dowager.[63] Beijing's school for girls in the late Qing period made unbound feet an entrance requirement. The Beijing Police Academy, founded in 1901 as China's first modern institution for police training, used Japanese instructors became a model for police academies in other cities. The Peking Union Medical College, founded by missionaries in 1906 and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation from 1915, set the standard for the training of nurses.[64] The Metropolitan University Library in Beijing, founded in 1898, was China's first modern academic library with a clear goal of serving public higher education.[65][66]
Also in 1905, the Board of Revenue and private investors founded the Hubu Bank, China’s first central bank and largest modern bank.[67] This bank was renamed the Bank of China after the Xinhai Revolution, and began Beijing’s tradition as the center of state banks in China. Large foreign banks including the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. (HSBC), National City Bank (Citibank), Deutsch-Asiatische Bank and Yokohama Specie Bank opened branches in the Legation Quarter. The building of railroads was capital intensive and required large-scale financing and foreign expertise. Beijing’s earliest railroads were designed, financed and built under the supervision of foreign concerns.
The city's first commercial railway, Tianjin-Lugouqiao Railway, was built from 1895 to 1897 with British financing.[68] It ran from the Marco Polo Bridge to Tianjin. The rail terminus was extended closer to the city to Fengtai and then to Majiapu, just outside of Yongdingmen, a gate along the Outer City wall.[68] The Qing court resisted the extension of railways inside city walls.[68] To secure the support of the Empress Dowager for railway construction, Viceroy Li Hongzhang had imported a small train set from Germany and built a narrow-gauge railway from her residence in Zhongnanhai to her dining hall in Beihai.[68] The Empress, concerned that the locomotive's noise would disturb the geomancy or fengshui of the imperial city, required the train be pulled by eunuchs instead of steam engine.[68] Foreign powers who seized the city during the Boxer Rebellion extended the railway inside the outer city wall to Yongdingmen in 1900 and then further north to Zhengyangmen (Qianmen) just outside the Inner City wall in 1903.[68] They built an eastern spur to Tongzhou to carry grain shipped from the south on the Grand Canal. This extension breached the city wall at Dongbianmen.[68] The Lugouqiao-Hankou Railway, financed by French-Belgian capital and built from 1896 to 1905, was renamed Beijing-Hankou Railway after it was routed to Qianmen from the west.[69] This required the partial demotion of the Xuanwumen barbican. The completion of the Beijing-Fengtian Railway in 1907 required a similar break in Chongwenmen’s fortification.[69] Thus, began the tearing down of city gates and walls to make way for rail transportation. Imperial Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, built from 1905 to 1909, terminated just outside Xizhimen.[69] This line, designed by Jeme Tien Yow was the first railway in China to be built without foreign assistance. By the late Qing Dynasty, Beijing with rail connection to Hankou (Wuhan), Pukou (Nanjing), Fengtian (Shenyang) and Datong, was a major railway hub in North China.
The Qing Dynasty was overthrown in the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 but capital of the newly-founded Republic of China remained in Beijing as former Qing general Yuan Shikai took control of the new government from revolutionaries in the south. Yuan and successors from his Beiyang Army ruled the republic from Beijing until 1928 when Chinese Nationalists reunified the country through the Northern Expedition and moved the capital to Nanjing. Beijing was renamed Beiping. In 1937, a clash between Chinese and Japanese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge outside Beiping triggered the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Japanese occupiers created a collaborationist government in northern China and reverted the city’s name to Beijing to serve as capital for the puppet regime. After Japan's surrender in 1945, the city returned to Chinese rule and was again renamed Beiping. During the subsequent civil war between the Chinese Nationalists and Communists, the city was peacefully transferred to Communist control in 1949 and renamed Beijing to become the capital of the People's Republic of China.
When the Wuchang Uprising erupted in October 1911, the Qing court summoned Yuan Shikai and his powerful Beiyang Army to suppress the insurrection. As he fought revolutionaries in the south, Yuan also negotiated with them. On January 1, 1912, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who returned from exile, founded the Republic of China in Nanjing and was elected provisional president. The new government was not recognized any foreign powers, and Sun agreed to cede leadership to Yuan Shikai in exchange for the latter's assistance in ending the Qing Dynasty. On February 12, Yuan compelled the Qing court, under the regency of Prince Chun, to abdicate. Empress Dowager Longyu signed the abdication agreement on behalf of the five-year old Last Emperor Puyi. The following day Sun resigned from the provisional presidency and recommended Yuan for the position. Under the terms of the imperial abdication, the Puyi would retain his dignitary title and staff and receive an annual stipend from the republic of 4 million Mexican silver dollars. He could continue to reside in the Forbidden City for a time but must eventually move to the Summer Palace. His tomb and rituals were to be maintained at the expense of the republic. The abdication ended the Qing Dynasty and averted further bloodshed in the revolution.
As a condition of his resignation, Sun insisted that the provisional government must remain in Nanjing, but on February 14, the Provisional Senate voted 20-5 in favor of Beijing over Nanjing, with two votes going for Wuhan and one for Tianjin.[70] The majority wanted to secure the peace agreement by taking power in Beijing.[70] Zhang Jian and others added that having the capital in Beijing would check against Manchu restoration and Mongol secession. But Sun and Huang Xing argued in favor of Nanjing to balance against Yuan's power base in the north.[70] Li Yuanhong presented Wuhan as a compromise.[71] On February 15, the provisional senate voted 19-6 in favor of Nanjing with two votes for Wuhan.[70] Sun sent a delegation led by Cai Yuanpei and Wang Jingwei to persuade Yuan to move to Nanjing.[72] Yuan welcomed the delegation and said he would accompanying them back south.[73] Then on the evening February 29, riots and fires broke out in all over the city.[73] They were allegedly started by disobedient troops of Cao Kun, a loyal officer of Yuan.[73] Disorder among military ranks spread to Tongzhou, Tianjin and Baoding.[73] These events gave Yuan the pretext to stay in the north to guard against unrest. On March 10, Yuan was inaugurated in Beijing as the provisional president of the Republic of China.[74] Yuan based the executive office and residence in Zhongnanhai, next to the Forbidden City. On April 5, the provisional senate in Nanjing voted to make Beijing the capital of the Republic and convened in Beijing at the end of the month.
In August, Sun Yat-sen traveled to Beijing where he was welcomed by Yuan Shikai and a crowd of thousands.[75] At the Huguang Guild Hall, the Revolutionary Alliance (Tongmenghui) led by Sun, Huang Xing and Song Jiaoren joined several smaller parties to form the Chinese Nationalist Party (Guomindang).[76] The first national assembly elections were held from December 1912 to January 1913. Adult males over the age of 21 who were educated or owned property and paid taxes and who could prove two-year residency in a particular county could vote.[77] An estimated 4-6% of China's population were registered for the election.[78] The Nationalist Party won a majority in both houses of the National Assembly, which convened in Beijing in April 1913.[78]
As the assembly set out to ratify the constitution, Yuan resisted efforts to share power. Without the assembly’s knowledge, he arranged for the large and expensive Reorganization Loan from a consortium of foreign lenders to fund his military. The loan, signed into effect at the HSBC Bank in the legation quarter, effectively surrendered the government's collection of salt tax revenues to foreign control.[79] His agents assassinated Nationalist leader Song Jiaoren in Shanghai.[80] In response, Sun Yat-sen launched a Second Revolution in July 1913, which failed and forced him into exile. Yuan then forced the National Assembly to elect him as the president, and expelled Nationalist members. In early 1914, he dissolved the National Assembly and abolished the provisional constitution in May.[81] On December 23, 1915, Yuan declared himself emperor, and his regime, the Empire of China (1915–1916). This declaration provoked the National Protection War as provinces in the south rebelled. Yuan was forced to step down from emperor to president in March 1916. He died in Beijing in June 1916, leaving military men from the Beiyang Army to vie for control of the government. Over the next 12 years, the Beiyang Government in Beijing had no fewer than eight presidents, five parliaments, 24 cabinets, at least four constitutions and one brief restoration of the Manchu Monarchy.[82]
After Yuan's death, Li Yuanhong became president and Duan Qirui, the Prime Minister, and the National Assembly was reconvened. The government soon faced a crisis over whether to enter World War I on the side of the allies. Li dismissed Duan, who favored entry into the war, and invited warlord Zhang Xun to the capital to mediate. Zhang and his pig-tailed loyalist army marched into Beijing, dissolved the National Assembly and restored Puyi as Qing emperor on July 1.[83] Li fled to the Japanese Embassy in the legation. The imperial restoration lasted just 12 days as Duan Qirui's army reclaimed the capital, and sent Zhang seeking refuge in the Dutch Embassy. Under Duan's command, China declared war on the axis powers and sent 140,000 Chinese laborers to work on the Western Front. With financial backing from Japan, Duan then engineered the election of a new parliament in 1918 that was stacked with supporters. The so-called Anfu Parliament was named after Anfu Hutong, near Zhongnanhai where Duan's Anhui-based supporters congregated.
In the spring of 1919, the Republic of China, as a victor nation sent a delegation to the Paris Peace Conference seeking the return of German concession in Shandong Province to China. Instead, the treaty gave those possessions to Japan. News of the treaty sparked outrage in the Chinese capital. On May 4, 3,000 students from 13 universities in Beijing gathered in Tiananmen Square to protest the betrayal of China by the other Western powers and the corruption of the Anfu government by Japanese financial support. They marched toward the foreign legation but were blocked and proceeded to the home of deputy foreign minister Cao Rulin, who had attended the Peace Conference and was known to be friendly to Japanese interests. They razed Cao's residence and beat up Zhang Zongxiang, another pro-Japanese diplomat. The police arrested 32 students, which provoked further protests and arrests. Within weeks, the movement had spread to 200 cities and towns in 22 provinces. Workers in Shanghai struck and merchants closed shops in support of the protests. By late June, the government pledged not to sign the treaty, removed Cao and Zhang from office and released students from jail.
The May Fourth Movement began a tradition of student activism in Beijing and had a profound political and cultural impact on modern China. The movement encouraged the development of new culture to replace the traditional order and heightened the appeal of Marxism-Leninism to Chinese intellectuals. Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, prominent figures of May 4 in Beijing, became early leaders of the Chinese Communist Party. Among the many youth who flocked to the Chinese capital during this period was a student from Hunan named Mao Zedong who worked as a library assistant under Li Dazhao at Peking University. Mao left the city for Shanghai in 1920 where he helped found the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. He did not return until almost 30 years later.
In the 1920s, military strongmen of the Beiyang Army split into cliques and vied for control of the Republican government and its capital. In July 1920, Duan's government, weakened by the May 4th Protests, was driven out of Beijing by Wu Peifu and Cao Kun of the Zhili Clique in the Zhili-Anhui War. Two years later, the Zhili Clique fought off a challenge by Zhang Zuolin and his Manchuria-based Fengtian Clique in the First Zhili-Fengtian War. In 1924, the two sides squared off again but this time, one of Wu's officers Feng Yuxiang launched the Beijing Coup. On October 23, Feng seized the capital, imprisoned President Cao Kun, restored Duan Qirui as the head of state and invited Sun Yat-sen to Beijing for peace talks. At that time, Sun was building a Nationalist regime in Guangzhou with the assistance of the Soviet Comintern and support of the Chinese Communist Party. Sun was stricken with cancer when he arrived in Beijing in early 1925 for one last effort to heal the north-south divide. He was welcomed by 500 organizations and insisted in talks with Duan Qirui that political reconstruction efforts include broad segments of civil society. He died in Beijing on March 12, 1925 and was entombed at the Temple of Azure Clouds.
Zhang Zuolin and Wu Peifu joined forces against Feng Yuxiang, who relied on support from the Soviet Union. Feng took a generally accommodating stance toward the Nationalist and Communist parties which were active in spreading influence in the city. During this period, Beijing was a hotbed of student activism. In the May 30th Movement of 1925, 12,000 students from 90 schools marched through Wangfujing to Tiananmen in support of protesters in Shanghai.[84] With the opening of private colleges such as Yenching University in 1919 and Furen Catholic University in 1925, the student population in Beijing grew substantially in the early 1920s.[84] Middle school students also joined the protests.[84] In October, students protested against imperialism during an international conference on customs and tariffs held in the city.[85] In November, Li Dazhao organized the "Capital Revolution" a protest by students and workers demanding Duan's resignation. The protest was more violent, burning down a major newspaper office, but was disbanded.[86]
The alliance between the Nationalists and Communists was not without tension. In November 1925, a group of right-wing Nationalist leaders met in the Western Hills and called for the expulsion of Communists from the Nationalist Party and severance of ties with the Comintern including advisor Mikhail Borodin.[85][87] This manifesto was denounced by the Nationalists' party center in Guangzhou led by Chiang Kai-shek, Wang Jingwei, and Hu Hanmin, and members of the Western Hills group were either expelled or left out of the party leadership.[88] They moved to Shanghai and regained power during the rupture between the Nationalists and Communists in April 1927.
On March 17, 1926, Feng Yuxiang's Guominjun troops at Dagu Fort near Tianjin exchanged fire with Japanese warships carrying Zhang Zuolin's Fengtian troops. Japan accused the Chinese government of violating the Boxer Protocol and, with the other seven Boxer Powers, issued an ultimatum demanding the removal of all defenses between Beijing and the sea as set forth under the Protocols. The ultimatum provoked student protests in Beijing that were jointly-organized by the left-wing Nationalists and Communists. Two thousand students marched on Duan Qirui's executive office and called for the abrogation of the unequal treaties.[89] Police opened fire and killed over 50 and wounded 200 in what became known as the March 18 Massacre.[90] The government issued warrants for the arrest of Nationalists and Communists including Li Dazhao, who fled to the Soviet Embassy in the legation quarters.[89] Within weeks, Feng Yuxiang was defeated by Zhang Zuolin and Duan's government fell. After Zhang took power on May 1, 1926, both the Nationalists and Communists were driven underground.[91] A year later, Zhang Zuolin raided the Soviet Embassy in the legation and seized Li Dazhao. Li and 19 others Communist and Nationalist activists were executed in Beijing on April 25, 1927.
Zhang Zuolin controlled the Beiyang Government until June 1928 when the Nationalists on the Northern Expedition led by Chiang Kai-shek and allies Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang jointly advanced on Beijing. Zhang left the city for Manchuria and was assassinated enroute by the Japanese Kwantung Army. Beijing was handed over peacefully to the victorious Nationalists.[92] They moved the national capital and Sun Yat-sen's tomb to Nanjing. For the first time since 1421, Beijing was renamed Beiping 北平 (Wade-Giles: Peip'ing),[93] or "Northern Peace".[94] The city was made the provincial capital of Hebei Province, but lost that status to Tianjin in 1930. During the Central Plains War in 1930, Shanxi warlord Yan Xishan briefly seized Beiping and tried to establish a rival national government but Chiang Kai-shek's ally Zhang Xueliang retook the city.[95]
During the Beiyang period, Beijing transitioned from a planned imperial city into a modern metropolis. The city’s population grew from 725,235 in 1912 to 863,209 in 1921.[96] The municipal government sought to modernize the city through public works. The authorities reconfigured city walls and gates, paved and widened streets, installed trolley service and introduced urban planning and zoning rules. They built modern water utilities, improved urban sanitation, educated the public about the proper handling of food and waste and monitored outbreaks infectious diseases. With these public health measures, infant mortality and life expectancy of the general population improved.[97]
The modernist transformation was driven by a mix of Western and traditional influences, by the state's increasing role in urban affairs, and by new technologies transmitted from the West.[98] Urban development also reflected changes in political attitudes as the republican form of government prevailed over the monarchy and attempts to reintroduce imperial rule.
One example of the new found emphasis on civic rights over imperial tradition is the development of city parks in Beijing. The idea of the public park as a place where common people could relax in a pastoral setting came to China from the West via Japan. The Beijing municipal government, local gentry and merchants all promoted the development of public parks in Beijing. The Beijing municipal council argued that parks would provide wholesome entertainment and reduce alcoholism, gambling, and prostitution. Public parks in Beijing were almost all converted from imperial gardens and temples, which had previously been off-limits to most commoners. Now they were being opened for the good health and morals of all citizens. After the Beijing Coup of 1924, Feng Yuxiang evicted Puyi from the Forbidden City, which was opened to the public as the Palace Museum. Parks also provided places for commercial activities and the open exchange of political and social ideas for the middle and upper classes.[99]
The demotion of Beijing from national capital to a mere provincial city greatly constrained urban planners' initiatives to modernize the city. Along with political stature, Beiping also lost government revenue, jobs and jurisdiction. In 1921, large banks headquartered in Beijing accounted for 51.9% of bank capital held by the 23 most important banks in China.[100] That proportion fell to just 2.8% in 1928 and 0% in 1935, as wealth followed political power out of the city.[101] The city's jurisdiction also shrank as surrounding counties were redrawn into Hebei. For the first time since the Ming Dynasty, city no longer had control over agricultural regions and watershed.[102] Even the power plant for the city's trolley system in Tong County fell outside the city's jurisdiction.[95] Appeals to Nanjing for the recovery of towns like Wanping and Daxing were denied.[103] The city, anchored by its historical relics and universities, remained a center for tourism and higher education and became known as "China's Boston."[104]
After Japan seized Manchuria through the Mukden Incident in 1931, Beiping was threatened by steady Japanese encroachment into northern China. The Tanggu Truce of 1933 gave control of the Great Wall to the Japanese and imposed a 100-km demilitarized zone south of the wall. This deprived Beiping of its northern defenses. The secret He-Umezu Agreement of May 1935 required the Chinese government to remove Central Army units from Hebei Province and suppress anti-Japanese activities by the Chinese public.[105] The Qin-Doihara Agreement of June 1935 compelled the Nationalist 29th Army, a former unit of Feng Yuxiang's Guominjun, to evacuate from Chahar Province. This army was relocated and confined to an area south of the Beiping near Nanyuan.[106] In November 1935, the Japanese created a puppet regime based in Tongzhou called the East Hebei Autonomous Council, which declared its independence from the Republic of China and controlled 22 counties east of Beiping, including Tongzhou and Pinggu in modern-day Beijing Municipality.
In response to the growing threat, the Palace Museum's art collection was removed to Nanjing in 1934 and air defense shelters were built in Zhongnanhai.[107] The influx of refugees from Manchuria and presence of university campuses made Beiping a hotbed for anti-Japanese sentiment. On December 9, 1935, the university students in Beiping launched the December 9th Movement to protest the creation of another puppet regime in north China and called for national salvation.
On July 7, 1937, the 29th Army and the Japanese army in China exchanged fire at the Marco Polo Bridge near the Wanping Fortress southwest of the city. The Marco Polo Bridge Incident that triggered the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II as it is known in China. In late July, Japanese reinforcements with air support launched a full-scale offensive against Beiping and Tianjin. In fighting south of the city, deputy commander of the 29th Army Tong Lin'ge and division commander Zhao Dengyu were both killed in action. They along with Zhang Zizhong, another 29th Army commander who died later in the war, are the only three modern personages after whom city streets named in Beijing.[Note 3] The collaborationist militia of the East Hebei Council refused to attack the 29th Army and mounted a mutiny in Tongzhou, but the Chinese forces had retreated to the south.[94][108] The city itself was spared of urban fighting and destruction that many other Chinese cities suffered in the war.
The Japanese created another puppet regime, the Provisional Government of the Republic of China, to manage occupied territories in northern China and designated Beiping, renamed Beijing, as its capital.[109] This government was later merged with Wang Jingwei’s Reorganized National Government of China, a collaborationist government based in Nanjing, though effective control remained with the Japanese military.[109] During the war, Peking and Tsinghua Universities relocated to unoccupied areas and formed the National Southwestern Associated University. Furen University was protected by the Holy See’s neutrality with the Axis Powers. After the outbreak of the Pacific War with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Japanese shut down Yenching University and imprisoned its American staff. Some were rescued by Communist partisans that waged guerrilla warfare in rural outlying areas. The village of Jiaozhuanghu in Shunyi District still has a labyrinth of tunnels with underground command posts, meeting rooms, and camouflaged entrances from the war.[110]
After the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II, the city reverted to Chinese Nationalist control and was renamed back to Beiping. The official surrender of Japanese forces in Beiping took place on October 10, 1945 at the Forbidden City.[111]
The Nationalists and Chinese Communists were allies during the Sino-Japanese War, but their domestic rivalry resumed after the defeat of Japan. To prevent the resumption of civil war, the U.S. government sent George C. Marshall to China to mediate.[112] Marshall’s Mission was headquartered in Beiping where a truce was brokered on January 10, 1946 and a three-person committee, consisting of a Nationalist, a Communist and an American representative, was created to investigate breaches in the ceasefire in North China and Manchuria.[113] The truce began to unravel in June 1946 and the Marshall Mission ultimately failed to create a coalition government. After Marshall’s departure in February 1947, full-scale civil war erupted.
Beiping was the headquarters of the Nationalists’ North China military operations led by Fu Zuoyi who commanded 550,000 troops. On November 29, 1948, the Chinese Communists' People's Liberation Army (PLA), fresh off a decisive victory in Manchuria, launched the Pingjin Campaign. They captured Zhangjiakou to the northwest on December 24 and Tianjin to the southeast on January 15, 1949. With the defeat of the Nationalists in the Huaihai Campaign further south, Fu Zuoyi and over 200,000 Nationalist defenders were surrounded in Beiping. After weeks of intensive negotiations, Fu agreed on January 22, 1949 to pull his troops out of the city for “reorganization by the PLA.” His defection spared the city and its historical architecture from imminent destruction. On February 3, the PLA marched into Beiping.
In the spring of 1949, Nationalist leader Li Zongren attempted a last ditch effort to secure a truce. Peace talks were held at the Six Nations Hotel in Beiping from April 1–12, but the Communists could not be persuaded to halt their advance at the Yangtze River and concede southern China to the Nationalists.[114] On April 23, the PLA resumed the offensive across the Yangtze and captured the Nanjing on the following day.
As the PLA continued to gain control over the rest of the country, Communist leaders, friendly Nationalists and third party supporters convened the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference at Zhongnanhai in Beiping on September 21. In preparation for establishment of a new regime, they agreed to a new name, flag, emblem, anthem and capital for the nation.
On October 1 of the same year, Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China at the gates of Tiananmen. The name of Beiping was restored to Beijing, and the city was again designated as the capital of China.[115]
As the capital of the new Communist state, the Communists began a major building campaign to modernize the city. The old city wall encircling the city was demolished and replaced by what is now the 2nd Ring Road.[116] Some older neighborhoods were also demolished and replaced by modern apartment buildings. Several modern monuments, including the Monument to the People's Heroes, the Great Hall of the People, and the National Museum of China were completed by 1959. The Mausoleum of Mao Zedong was built much later in 1979.
During the late years of the Cultural Revolution decade (1966–76), political life in China was dominated by contention between radical and conservative factions in the Communist Party. Mao Zedong's ambivalence, first supporting one faction and then the other, has long puzzled scholars.
China's Red Guard movement of 1966-68 shows that rapid shifts in the properties of political institutions can alter choices and actors' interests, rapidly transforming the political landscape. New evidence about the origins of the movement in Beijing's universities indicates that factions emerged when activists in similar structural positions made opposed choices in ambiguous contexts. Activists subsequently mobilized to defend earlier choices, binding them to antagonistic factions. Rapid shifts in the contexts for political choice can alter prior connections between social position and interests, generating new motives and novel identities.[117]
Andreas (2006) argues that factional contention was being institutionalized, creating a system that pitted administrators against rebels: veteran cadres were put in charge of the political and economic bureaucracies, while radicals were given institutional means to mobilize political campaigns against these officials, pressing Mao's radical agenda. Andreas examines in detail the system of governance implemented at Qinghua University in Beijing. Power was divided between veteran university officials and a "workers' propaganda team," composed of workers and soldiers drawn from outside the school, and the propaganda team was charged with mobilizing students and workers to criticize their teachers, supervisors, and university officials. The result was a tumultuous system very much at odds with the conventional practice of ruling Communist parties (including the Chinese Party before the Cultural Revolution), which had been guided by ideals of monolithic unity and a clear hierarchy of authority.[118]
Beijing was the center of Red Guard activity during the Cultural Revolution. Following the death of the popular Zhou Enlai, frustration with the excesses of the Cultural Revolution precipitated into a spontaneous protest at the Monument to the People's Heroes on 1976 April 5, known as the Tiananmen Incident.[119] From 1977 until 1979, Beijing was also the site of the Beijing Spring and Democracy Wall Movement, a short-lived easing of political censorship in the city. The Beijing democracy movement (1978–81) constructed a progressive Marxist identity, and its individual participants used it to prove the movement's historical necessity and justify its democratic agenda. Combined with the related identity of socialist citizens, the proponents defended the movement against adversaries from without and the right-wing minority within. The way the movement activists defined their collective identity offered them a progressive Marxist platform to champion their cause. This collective identity not only precluded confrontational opposition to the Communist Party, it enabled a more constructive use of both classical Marxist and Western democratic thinking in the movement's agenda.[120]
On May 4, 1989, students from Beijing area universities began gathering in Tiananmen Square to publicly mourn the recent death Hu Yaobang, an ambitious political reformer and the former Secretary-General of the Chinese Communist Party. Over the next few days, the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 would attract many thousands of protesters from throughout Beijing society. The protests were dispersed by force by the People's Liberation Army on June 4, 1989 .
The 1990s and the start of the new millennium were a period of rapid economic growth in Beijing. Following the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping, what was once farmland surrounding the city was developed into new residential and commercial districts.[121] Modern expressways and high-rise buildings were built throughout the city to accommodate the growing and increasingly affluent population of the city. Foreign investment transformed Beijing into one of the most cosmopolitan and prosperous cities in the world.
Rapid modernization and population growth thus created numerous problems associated with heavy industry such as heavy traffic, pollution, the destruction of historic neighborhoods, and a large population of impoverished migrant workers from the countryside. By early 2005, the city government attempted to control urban sprawl by restricting development to two semicircular bands to the west and east of the city center, instead of the concentric rings of suburbs that had been built in the past.[122]
The rapid growth of population, motor vehicles and factories has created high polluation levels. Days with gray, acrid skies, with an eye-reddening pollution score over 400, are common, as health officials advise wearing masks and staying indoors. Heavy trucks are allowed in only at night but their diesel fuels create much of the problem. By 2008 for the city’s 12 million residents, pollution was not only an inescapable health and quality-of-life issue, but a political issue tied in with the Summer Olympics scheduled for August 2008. The city's bid for the 2000 Olympics in 1993 failed partly because of high pollution levels, and in response the city began a massive cleanup campaign. That campaign has been successful in terms of 2000 standards, but the city's economy is 2.5 times larger now, with millions more people. Over 3 million cars and trucks clog the streets, and 400,000 more are added annually as the wealth shoots up rapidly. Old dirty, coal-burning furnaces have been replaced, lowering the city’s sulfur dioxide emissions. Factories and power plants were changed to burn cleaner, low-sulfur coal; sulfur dioxide emissions fell by 25% 2001-2007, even though much more coal is burned, reaching 30 million tons in 2006. Furthermore, fine-particle pollution has been exacerbated by a staggering citywide construction program which saw more than 160 million square meters (1.7 billion square feet) of new construction begun 2002-2007. Athletes may have some breathing problems, but in the long-run air quality is expected to remain a critical issue as the city grows to a projected population of 20 million.[123]
Beijing hosted the Olympic Games in August 2008. Several landmark sports venues, such as the Beijing National Stadium or the "Bird's Nest", were built for these games.[124]
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