Talk:History of Beijing

Shuntian
"After the fall of the Yuan Dynasty in 1368, the city was later rebuilt by the Ming Dynasty and renamed Shuntian (順天)." At this time, Beijing was called Beiping and the Shuntian Fu was the name of the city's administration. And even when Beiping was changed back to Beijing again, it was still under the administration of Shuntian Fu. A not so good anolog is the relationship between DC and washington. Sinolonghai (talk) 20:51, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Mongol raid of 1550?
The Discovery Channel had a program about a Mongol raid which devastated Beijing in 1550 -- but I can find no mention of this serious event. So is this simply another hole in Wikipedia's coverage -- or did this never happen? -- llywrch (talk) 05:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * 1550 CE corresponds with the reign of Emperor Jiaqing 嘉慶 in the second half of the Ming Dynasty. By this time, the Ming Dynasty had become increasingly weak and vulnerable to raids by the nomadic tribes of the north.  The capital city was moved back to Beijing to manage the Chinese defenses against them.  Indeed, in 1550, a Mongol army under Altan Khan breeched the Great Wall, terrorized the countryside, and besieged the walled city of Beijing, forcing the Emperor to negotiate a truce on Mongolian terms.
 * Even so, the Mongols didn't actually capture the city, and Chinese historians don't seem to mention the attack very often. I suppose the event seems inconsequential compared to the catastrophic capture of the city by the Manchurians a century latter.  I think the Ming Dynasty section needs some clarifications, but I don't think Altan Khan needs to be mentioned since Chinese historians don't mention him in the history of Beijing.
 * winstonho0805 (talk) 06:37, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Altan Khan's 1550 raid has been added to the Ming Dynasty section because the raid prompted the city to build the out city wall in 1553, to protect the southern suburbs, especially the Temple of Heaven, which was built in 1530. ContinentalAve (talk) 06:37, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

The Beijing Palace City Scroll or a garden pavilion in the Forbidden City: an image issue in the Ming Dynasty Section
Twice in the last several months, I inserted the Beijing Palace City Scroll, a Ming-era painting depicting the Forbidden City's plan and architects into the Ming Dynasty Section of the article, next to the painting of the Yongle Emperor who commissioned the Forbidden City. Twice, the picture was removed and replaced by a generic, modern photograph of a nondescript pavilion in one of the gardens of the Forbidden City. I am unconvinced by the reasons given for the replacement.

Since this article is about the history of Beijing, historical images of the city's past, as a general matter, are of greater historical value and significance than modern photos of relics of the past. Here, we have a 15th century painting showing us how a Ming dynasty artist rendered the Forbidden City's plans and architects. The painting's depiction of the palace's layout is instantly recognizable to a modern-day reader. The painting is doubly relevant to the text of the article which talks about the commissioning and construction of the Forbidden City in the Ming Dynasty. Not only is the painting's content relevant to the Forbidden City, but the painting itself is now housed in the Palace Museum.

In comparison, the garden pavilion photo offers far less to the article. The picture does not by itself identify the Forbidden City or the Ming era in any immediate way. There is no accompanying reference to any historical significance of this particular structure. Nor is it referred to the text in any way. The fact that this photo hasn't been used elsewhere in Wikipedia does not add to its relevance to this article. If belongs anywhere, it should go into a gallery of the Forbidden City's gardens. The Beijing Palace City Scroll is of sufficiently clear resolution for readers to recognize its distinguishing feature; so the marginally higher resolution of the garden photo hardly matters. In response to the claim that the Ming Dynasty Section already has too many images, I have removed one of two photos of the Ming-era City Wall. This is not an article about the history of Beijing's city walls. If image crowding is the concern, then one photo of the city wall is more than sufficient to give readers a sense of what the walls looked like in the Ming Dynasty Section.

For the foregoing reasons, I have restored the painting to the article. ContinentalAve (talk) 07:43, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

The Addition and Removal of Certain Images
The following is an explanation of image changes in response to TheLeopard.


 * 1) In my opinion, there aren't too many pictures in the article.  A picture is worth a thousand words.  Pictures help convey the historical past of the city visually, in ways the text alone cannot.
 * 2) In terms of visual layout, it is cleaner to align images along the right edge of the article, instead of alternating images on the right and left, which causes the text to flow unevenly in between.  If the goal is clean layout, then right/left image placement should be avoided.
 * 3) The Niujie Mosque is an important historical site in the city; it is mentioned in the text and has a good representational photo -- a Chinese-style mosque.  In fact, the oldest part of the mosque dates to the Liao-era.
 * 4) The Wanping Fortress is removed because (1) there has been a complaint that there are too many images in the article, (2) it does not enhance the article's text description (no mention of Wanping in the article), (3) there is no indication of the Wanping Fortress' significance in the caption or location and (4) the image is not even a good picture of the Wanping Fortress (the image shows the stele at the head of the Lugou Bridge in the foreground and the Wanping Fortress is barely identifiable in the distant background).
 * 5) Beijing's Ancient Observatory is an important historical site in the city.  It is mentioned in the article and alludes to the role of Jesuits who lived in the Ming and Qing court.  I think it is important enough to deserve its image.
 * 6) Kublai Khan's image has been restored as a multi-image combo with the Beihai Qionghua Island because (1) Kublai Khan is an instrumental figure in the history of the city -- he made Beijing a national capital (2) he re-centered the city based around the island, which the picture combo describes (3) the pictures support the text description, and (4) Kublai-Beihai images combo creates a nice parallelism with the Yongle-Forbidden City image combo.
 * 7) Lastly, I also disagree with the notion that because an image had been used elsewhere, it is somehow unfit to be used in this article.  We should always presume that this article in wikipedia is the first that a reader comes across on the subject of Beijing's history, that he has seen no other pages and knows nothing else about Beijing.  If he or she comes across the same image, say of the Forbidden City, in another wikipedia article, so be it.  The image of the Forbidden City Moat is not as representative or iconic as the one of the main hall of the Forbidden City.  If there is room for two pics, one could add the moat pic.  But when only one picture of Forbidden City is used in an article and it is meant to convey the Forbidden City as a whole, we should use the most representative / iconic image.  Images of secondary importance like the moat image should belong to a gallery in the Forbidden City.  Through wiki links we channel readers to the main Forbidden City article where in the gallery they will see the other pictures.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by ContinentalAve (talk • contribs) 07:52, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Modernization in the Late Qing
The article contained several paragraphs of narrative about certain aspects of education reform in the late Qing Dynasty. The content, though informative, is too long for this article, and too analytical of topics other than the history of Beijing. The material may be suitable for articles -- e.g. the history of women's education in China. I have condensed that content in the article, preserving the key facts and references. I've pasted below the uncondensed content in case anyone could make use of it elsewhere. ContinentalAve (talk) 07:18, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * ===Modernization===
 * In late Qing China girls' schools were supported by reformers and the reactionary government alike. In post-Boxer China the necessity of change was accepted by the central government and even Cixi, the dowager empress, called for the education of women. But while the government sought educated women who could be "good wives and wise mothers," activists called for varying degrees of female independence and integration in society at large. Many political reformers favored female education as a form of national self-strengthening but all efforts were haunted by concerns over threats to morality. Confucian roots could be found for opposition to footbinding (Beijing girls' schools made unbound feet an entrance requirement) but not for the greater freedom and end to gender segregation called for by some feminists. Generally, female educational reformers in Beijing sought evolutionary changes due to their own links with the current elite.
 * The Peking Union Medical College, founded by missionaries in 1906 and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation from 1915, set the standard in prewar and wartime China for the training of nurses, but it had a mixed legacy. Its high training standards earned the college a reputation for elitism and inflexibility. Moreover, maintaining strict high standards did little to meet China's acute need for nurses. On the other hand, the college made major inroads into pre- and postnatal nursing, public health nursing, and rural nursing. Moreover, the college played an instrumental role in transforming nursing from a foreign and male-dominated profession into one dominated by female, Chinese nurses.
 * The Beijing Police Academy, founded in 1901, was China's first modern institution of police training and also the largest police training center in the late Qing period. The school hired Japanese teachers to undertake most of the teaching and administrative work. The school provided a national useful model for police academies in other major cities and exerted great influence on the development of China's modern police forces.
 * From early antiquity through the end of the 19th century, the primary missions of Chinese imperial and private libraries were to collect and preserve books and documents. Except for a few isolated historical periods, these libraries rendered no services at all to the public. The Metropolitan University Library in Beijing, founded in 1898, was China's first modern academic library with a clear goal of serving a burgeoning program of public higher education. The library's founding reveals an intriguing story of tension between the modern Western and traditional Chinese concepts of what a library should be.

References to Mongol Yuan and Manchu Qing in the Intro Paragraph
I added back the references to Mongol and Manchu, which are used modify the Yuan and Qing Dynasties in the introductory paragraph, because their inclusion continues the theme begun earlier in the paragraph of the role of steppe peoples in the history of Beijing. We refer to the Jurchens and Khitans and therefore should also note the Mongols and Manchus. A reader otherwise unfamiliar with the history of China may not know that the Yuan Dynasty is Mongol and the Qing is Manchu. These references highlight that for them. ContinentalAve (talk) 19:22, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Population?
Are there any estimates on the different numbers of people living in the city during the centuries? 87.164.123.71 (talk) 07:09, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Beijing during the first year of the british embassy in the qing dynasty
http://books.google.com/books?id=uhtLAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=thousand+character+classic+manchu&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RhCoUOSZGunm0gHZhYGgBQ&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAzgK#v=onepage&q&f=false

Jerezembel (talk) 22:41, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Restoration of the mutli-image for Genghis Khan's Siege of Zhongdu
As to why the second image was restored. Both images grouped in this multi-image set are historically significant, relevant to the article and artistically interesting. The second image shows the marriage of Genghis Khan to his second wife. The marriage occurred in Beijing and resolved the first siege. The images are supported by description of the events in the text of the article. The multi-image may extend to the following section, depending on the resolution setting on the reader's computer, but any extension would not be out of place as the following section is about how Genghis Khan's grandson expanded the city after the Mongol conquest and founded the Yuan Dynasty. ContinentalAve (talk) 06:33, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

1999 protest photos
These two photos of protests in Beijing in the spring of 1999 document important events that occurred in the city and correspond to text in the article. They were removed by TheLeopard because a less historically significant photo was pushed into the next section. I have rearranged the photos so that they all fit into the 1990s section. If there is spillage and the spillage is intolerable, the less important photo should be the one to go. NumbiGate (talk) 07:44, 11 December 2012 (UTC)


 * In the spring of 1999, two large public demonstrations took place in Beijing. On April 25, over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners assembled outside Zhongnanhai to protest criticism of the sect in the state media.  The gathering resulted in the government's prohibition of Falun Gong in China.  50th anniversary of PRC 4.jpg On May 8, following NATO's bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, which killed three Chinese nationals, thousands of students and residents marched on the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to protest U.S. military aggression. Some of the protesters pelted the embassy compound with stones and smashed cars, keeping the U.S. ambassador and staff confined in the compound for several days.  Then vice-president Hu Jintao declared the government's support for the demonstrations, which reflected the anger and patriotism of the Chinese people, but urged against extreme and illegal conduct.  The crisis was diffused after U.S. President Bill Clinton issued an apology for the airstrike, which the Pentagon blamed on outdated maps, and agreed to pay $32.5 million to the victims of the bombing and to compensate for the damage to the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.  The Chinese government agreed to pay $2.87 million to compensate the U.S. for damage to its embassy and consulates in China.


 * On October 1, 1999, the city celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic with a parade, the first since 1984.

Peking - Beijing
Although the article mentions Peking Duck, the Peking Opera and other institutions in the city that us "Peking" as the spelling of the city's name, there is no discussion about why the change in accepted English spelling occurred. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.69.41.215 (talk) 14:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Good question. Since the change in the English spelling of the city's name from Peking to Beijing was not occasioned by a change in the underlying Chinese name of the city, the change in the accepted English spelling is not considered part of the city's history and thus not mentioned in this article. (Nor are alternate English spellings of the city's other historical names included -- e.g. P'eip'ing, Youchou, Yenching, etc.)  A hatnote has been added with a link to another article that describes the English spelling change.  In this article, Peking only appears as part of compound proper nouns whose own articles retain Peking in their titles.  ContinentalAve (talk) 22:17, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Beijing map history
Map of Beijing's previous cities overlaid each other from the Jin, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties

http://pages.uoregon.edu/inaasim/Mingqing04/Qing3.htm

Plan of Peking : vol.1

http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/toyobunko/III-2-C-a-146/V-1/

06:38, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Later Liang, Later Tang and Later Jin Dynasties
I noticed the changes to the article titles of the Five Dynasties, e.g. Later Jin Dynasty --> Later Jin (Five Dynasties), and take no issue with those changes, which has only changed the titles of those articles, not the way those dynasties are referred to in the text of other articles. The History of Beijing mentions many periods of Chinese history and the reader is unlikely to be familiar with the multitude of period names used. For the sake of clarity, dynasty names are always followed by the word "Dynasty" no matter how insignificant the dynasty, e.g. Yan Dynasty, unless it is clear from the text that the term is referring to a dynasty. This helps the reader differentiate between kingdoms and states from dynasties. For this reason, I've restored the word Dynasty to the Later Liang Dynasty and Later Tang Dynasty -- to distinguish them from the Later Zhao, Later Yan and Later Qin Kingdoms from the Sixteen Kingdoms period. ContinentalAve (talk) 20:43, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't care about the pages so I won't re-edit the pages, but I hope that you understand the word "dynasties" in Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period is just an arbitrary word chosen in the Song Dynasty to better justify Song Dynasty's legitimacy on the grounds of a passing Mandate of Heaven. Later Jin, Later Tang etc. are in reality not much different than Later Yan or Later Zhao etc. Timmyshin (talk) 22:00, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Book on Beijing History, 1937-1949 (in case of interest)
Runaway Wives, Urban Crimes, and Survival Tactics in Wartime Beijing, 1937-1949 by Zhao Ma, Harvard University Asia Center, distributed by Harvard University Press. Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 21:16, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
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Jimen Disorder - Gao Juren's order to kill ethnic Hu

 * The Tang dynasty Goguryeo general Gao Juren ordered a mass slaughter of Sogdian Caucasians from West and Central Asia, identifying them through their big noses and lances were used to impale Caucasian children when he stormed Beijing (Jicheng (Beijing)) from An Lushan when he defeated An Lushan's rebels.

The episode of inter-ethnic clashes within Fanyang (seat of Youzhou), known as the "Disorder within Jimen" （蓟门内乱）, that occurred in the spring and summer of 761, was an incident of infighting within the rebel camp, not one of retribution by the Tang court against ethnic minorities. In early 761, rebel Yan emperor Shi Siming who favored his younger son (Shi Chaoqing 史朝清) over eldest son (Shi Chaoyi 史朝义) was killed by supporters of Shi Chaoyi near Luoyang. Shi Chaoyi then sent minister Zhang Tongru (张通儒) to Fanyang to eliminate his brother Shi Chaoqing. Zhang Tongru put both Crown Prince Shi Chaoqing and Shi Chaoqing's mother Empress Xin to death. He then directed rebel generals Gao Juren (高鞠仁) and Gao Ruzhen (高如震) to execute the Empress' brother, Xin Wannian (辛万年). The two Gaos spared Xin and killed Zhang Tongru. They reported to Shi Chaoyi in Luoyang that Zhang Tongru was planning to surrender Fanyang to the Tang court. They sought to recruit another rebel general Ashina Chengqing to lead their faction. Ashina Chengqing refused and killed Gao Ruzhen. Gao Juren then turned against Ashina Chengqing. These two rebel generals fought for control of Fanyang (also known as Jimen). Within the ethnically diverse rebel army in Fanyang, Gao Juren, who was Korean (Goguryeo), led fighters from beyond the northeastern frontier, such as Koreans, Khitan, Xi, and Mohe, while Ashina Chengqing (阿史那承庆), a Turk, drew support from fighters from the northwestern frontier, collectively known as hu and included Turks, Sogdians, Tongluo and Tiele. After Gao Juren drove Ashina Chengqing out of Fanyang, he ordered the killing of hu in the city to eliminate Ashina Chengqing's supporters. Shi Chaoyi recognized Gao Juren as the ruler of Fanyang, but also directed Li Huaixian (李怀仙), another rebel general, to a more senior post in the city. Li Huaixian, who was an ethnic hu, pretended to respect Gao Juren's authority before killing Gao at a meal banquet and taking over Fanyang (Youzhou). The infighting severely weakened the rebel Yan regime. In 763, Li Huaixian surrendered to the Tang court and drove Shi Chaoyi to commit suicide, ending the An-Shi Rebellion.

Hence, the removed sentence is misleading in that:
 * 1) Gao Juren was not a general who was fighting on the side of the Tang court as the sentence implies.
 * 2) Gao did not storm Jicheng; he was already based in Jicheng during the in-fighting among rebels.
 * 3) The rebel faction he defeated was not led by An Lushan.
 * 4) The inter-ethnic killings in Jicheng was waged between different factions of ethnic minority fighters within the rebel camp.
 * 5) Order in Jicheng was restored by another ethnic Hu rebel general who surrendered to the Tang court in 763.

Sources: ContinentalAve (talk) 01:05, 21 May 2022 (UTC)