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The first town to be located within modern Guilin administrative region was Taoyang in Quanzhou. According to historical records, this town has existed since the Warring States Period. It is the frontier town of the southern Chu State, and one of the oldest towns in Guangxi. In 111 BC, Taoyang County was established, and it belonged to Lingling Jun i , as did Shi’an County. The site is located on a rocky hill in the east of Meitan Village,Yongsui Township, and 15 kilometers north of today’s Quanzhou. To the east is the Xiangjiang River, and to the southwest is the place where the Taoshui flows into the Xiangjiang River.
In 507 AD, the Southern Dynasty established Guizhou in the present location of Guilin.Guizhou is believed to be the first town built on the present location of Guilin, with historical evidence. Previously, between 111 BC and 507 AD, although the capital has been confirmed as Shi’an, debate over whether its city site was in the same location as modern Guilin city has never ceased. Since the Southern Dynasties, the city developed along the axis formed by three mountains: Diecai Mountain, Fubo Mountain and Duxiufeng Peak.
未若独秀者，峨峨郛邑间。
南朝·颜延之
These two verses were written by the poet Yan Yanzhi (384—456) in the Southern Dynasties (420—589) when he was Taishou (the administrator of a jun) of Shi’an County. The word “Duxiu” was used to name this mountain, unfortunately, the rest of the poem has been lost, and only the two verses containing the word “Duxiu” are left. This is the earliest recorded landscape poem about Guilin. Since then, the word “Duxiu” has appeared a lot in the poems of later generations. Duxiufeng Peak has become both the spatial center and cultural origin point for the city ever since.
千峰环野立，一水抱城流。
南宋·刘克庄：《簪带亭》
These two verses, cited the most whenever the Guilin water system is referred to, were written by poet Liu Kezhuang (1187—1269) in 1221 during his short-term tenure in Guizhou.As early as the Tang Dynasty, excavation had been done to form Haotang moat to the west of the city. In the Northern Song Dynasty (960—1127) and the Southern Song Dynasty (1127—1279), the continuous dredging formed a moat around the whole city. The concept of the Two Rivers and Four Lakes comes from the restoration of the grand boat trip in the Northern Song Dynasty described by the literati.
桂州子城，自卫国公 iii 所制，号曰始安郡城。
唐·莫休符：《桂林风土记》
In 622, during Li Jing’s (571—649) tenure in Guizhou as Zongguan (Commander in Chief), he built Guizhou Zicheng, which is the earliest fortification with a relatively definite location within modern Guilin recorded in the literature. The city is located to the south of Duxiufeng Peak and west of Lijiang River. The circumference of the city wall is about 1,390 meters, three-quarters the size of Jingjiang Palace. The center is located at the intersection of what is now Jiefang Xi Road and Zhengyang Road. Later, it underwent three major expansions,adding to the foundation of Zicheng built by Li Jing. Two of them were in the Tang Dynasty,and the last was in the Northern Song Dynasty from 1054 to 1056. This expansion determined the basic layout of the ancient city of Guilin.
In the Ming Dynasty (1368—1644), Zhu Shouqian was installed as the Prince of Jingjiang by Zhu Yuanzhang, his granduncle, in 1370. The construction on the Jingjiang Fu was started in 1372, and completed in 1376. In the same year, Zhu Shouqian left the capital (now Nanjing) for Guilin. The palace was burned by Kong Youde in 1652, with only the city wall and the four city gates left. None of the main buildings survived. From 2015 to 2017, the City Wall was fully renovated in the style of the Ming Dynasty.
Guilin became one of the most important military, transport and cultural centers of China from October 1938 to December 1944 during World War II. The city drastically expanded as refugees from all over China poured in, and by 1944 its population had grown from 70,000 pre-war to more than 500,000. It hosted intellectuals and artists, including Guo Moruo, Mao Dun, Ba Jin, Tian Han, Xu Beihong, Feng Zikai, Ouyang Yuqian and many others.
i According to Records of the Grand Historian , Lingling County was built during the Western Han Dynasty. It was inherited from Lingling County of the Qin Dynasty. According to Records of the Grand Historian , when Emperor Shun was 100 years old,he lived in this place before he died and a mausoleum was built for him there. The place is called Lingling Mausoleum.
ii The Zhou and Jun in the Tang and Song dynasties usually had inner and outer city walls:the outer city, called “Luocheng”; the inner city, called “Zicheng”. The government office was set in Zicheng, where the governors and officials worked, and Zicheng became the center of political power in a given place. Zicheng is both the literal and political center of a city. The Forbidden City in Beijing is the typical example.
iii The honorable title of Lijing was granted by Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty in 637.
After the Qin campaign against Baiyue in 214 BC, and before the Ming and Qing dynasties, a large number of Han people immigrated into Lingnan. The main reasons for this were the frontier garrison, banishment of bureaucrats, and refugees. The dominating forms varied in dif erent periods. Leading up to the Ming and Qing dynasties, ethnic groups came into being through a long evolutionary process. The trend of immigration has slowed down since then.
Qin-Han Dynasty: Mainly Garrisoned Troops
①Qin: After the Qin campaign against Nanyue, the number of immigrants to the region was 650,000. Garrison troops made up 500,000 of these immigrants; 30,000 to 50,000 households of banished officials made up the second largest group, with a population of 150,000; the third largest group consisted of 5,000 unmarried women.
②Western Han Dynasty: Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty pacified Minyue, leaving a large number of garrisoned troops, and their relocated family members, in the region. Some scholars believe this resulted in as many as a million immigrants to the region.
Those who flowed into Lingnan included a large number of refugees, the bureaucrats and their families who were convicted and exiled, and some stray soldiers. Since the Three Kingdoms period, Guilin has become one of the main places of exile for banished bureaucrats.
The An-Shi Rebellion (755-763) was a watershed moment. Before the rebellion, the dominating immigrants were banished bureaucrats. From the rebellion to the Song and Yuan dynasties, the largest group was that of refugees. Among them, the historical celebrities who were exiled to Lingnan include Zhu Suiliang (to Changsha, Guilin, etc.), Li Bai (to Teng County and Liuzhou), Liu Zongyuan (to Yongzhou, and Liuzhou), Han Yu (to Yangshan and Chaozhou).
There were “Three Banishments” before the An-shi Rebellion: From the Sui Dynasty,the new law was established, and the banishments were gauged on a scale of distance—1,000 li (311 miles), 1,500 li (466 miles), and 2,000 li (621 miles). Together these were called“San Liu” (Chinese:三流, three banishments). During the reign of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, more than a thousand officials were exiled to Lingnan. Lingnan was the biggest place of banishment for the exile of officials in the Tang Dynasty.
From the An-Shi Rebellion to the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907—979),and again from the Song to Yuan dynasties, wars caused a large refugee immigrant population to come to Lingnan.
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, after a long evolutional process, stable ethnic groups in Lingnan came into being. In addition to the Han people, there were Zhuang, Dong,Shui, Maonan, Mulao, Yi, Yao, Miao, Jing, Li, She, Hui, and others. During this period,immigration happened on a much smaller scale, primarily due to military immigrants.
Table 1: population of Guilin in dif erent historical periods
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