Fuzhou tourist information

The exact foundation date of this city is not known. When Yue to the north of Fujian was annexed by Chu in 306 BC, a branch of the royal family of the defeated Yue fled Fujian and became the Minyue tribe.

The first city wall of Fuzhou was built in 202 BC when Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Han Dynasty, gave permission to Wuzhu, the king of Minyue, to set up his capital in Fuzhou. The city was named Ye, meaning "The Beautiful". The name has changed many times, but the city has been continuously occuppied since 202 BC and has never suffered major destruction by wars or natural disasters.

The Minyue was annexed by Han in 110 BC and became a part of China, and Fuzhou became Ye County. During the Jin Dynasty, West Lake, East Lake (now silted up) and numerous canals in the city were constructed (282 AD).

When the Jin Dynasty collapsed, the first wave of immigrants of the gentile class arrived in Fujian (308 AD). During Tang Dynasty (725 AD), it started to be called Fuzhou.

More immigrants arrived from the north in 892 AD when the Tang Dynasty collapsed. The Wang family managed to established a kingdom called Min (909 – 947 AD) with its capital in Fuzhou. Min is still used as another name for the province of Fujian, in names of dialects such as minnan, and the river that runs through Fuzhou is called Min Jiang.

New city walls were built in 282 AD, 901 AD, 905 AD, and 974 AD, so the city had many layers of walls — more than the Chinese capital.

The emperor of the Song Dynasty ordered destruction of all the walls in Fuzhou in 978 AD but new walls were rebuilt later. The latest was built in 1371 AD.

During the Southern Song Dynasty, Fuzhou became more prosperous; many scholars came here to live and work. Among them were Zhu Xi, the most celebrated Chinese philosopher after Confucius, and Xin Qiji, the greatest composer of ci (a specialized form of poem). After them came Marco Polo, who transcribed the placename in Italian as Fugiu according to the local dialect.

Hualin Temple in the original Ye city, which has been declared a national heritage site, was built in 964 AD according to documentation, but was Carbon-dated to the 4th or 5th century AD. It is probably the oldest existing wooden structure in China.

Between 1405 and 1433 AD, the Chinese (Ming) navy fleet, led by Zheng He, sailed from Fuzhou to the Indian Ocean seven times; on three occasions the fleet landed in the East coast of Africa. Before the last sailing, Zheng erected a stele dedicated to Goddess Tian-Fei near the seaport.

In the 19th century, Lin Zexu, a native of Fuzhou, led an unsuccessful attempt to resist the British fleet at Canton Bay, and Lin was exiled to the Russian border. At the end of the First Opium War, Fuzhou became one of the five Chinese treaty ports opened by the Treaty of Nanjing (signed in 1842). Lin Zexu died on November 22, 1850 at age of 66.

On November 8, 1911, revolutionaries staged an uprising in Fuzhou. After an overnight street battle, the Qing (Manchu) army surrendered. On November 22, 1933, the leaders of the 19th army set up a short-lived Republic of China in Fuzhou (compare the name to Chiang’s “Republic of China”, which literally means “People’s State of China”); it collapsed in two months.