Imperial China The
Han dynasty collapsed at the end of the 2nd century AD, paving the way for the
Three Kingdoms era.
Sun Quan, the founder of the
Kingdom of Wu, spent nearly twenty years subduing the Shan Yue people, the branch of the Yue living in mountains. Fuchien was also where the kingdom of
Minyue was located. The word "Mǐnyuè" was derived by combining "Mǐn" (), which is perhaps an ethnic name (), and "
Yuè", after the
State of Yue, a
Spring and Autumn period kingdom in
Zhejiang to the north. This is because the royal family of Yuè fled to Fujian after its kingdom was annexed by the
State of Chu in 306 BC. Mǐn is also the name of the
main river in this area, but the ethnonym is probably older. The first wave of
immigration of the noble class arrived in the province in the early 4th century when the
Western Jin dynasty collapsed and the north was torn apart by invasions by nomadic peoples from the north, as well as civil war. These immigrants were primarily from eight families in central China: , and . The first four remain as the major surnames of the province. Historically, population density in Fujian remained relatively low due to its relative isolation; only two
commanderies and sixteen counties were established by the Western Jin dynasty. Like other southern provinces at that time, the province often served as a destination for exiled prisoners and dissidents at that time. The
Tang dynasty (618–907) oversaw the next golden age of China. As the Tang dynasty ended, China was torn apart in the period of the
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. During this time, a second major wave of immigration arrived therein, led by General Wang, who set up an independent
Kingdom of Min with its capital in Fuzhou. After the death of the founding king, however, the kingdom suffered from internal strife, and was soon swallowed up by
Southern Tang, another southern kingdom.
Quanzhou was blooming into a seaport under the reign of the
Min Kingdom, and is the largest seaport in the world. Its population is also greater than
Fuzhou. Due to the
Ispah Rebellion, Quanzhou was severely damaged. In the early
Ming dynasty, Quanzhou was the staging area and supply depot of
Zheng He's
naval expeditions. Further development was severely hampered by the
sea trade ban of the Ming dynasty, and the area was superseded by nearby ports of
Guangzhou,
Hangzhou,
Ningbo and
Shanghai despite the lifting of the ban in 1550. Large scale piracy by
Wokou (Japanese pirates) was eventually wiped out by Chinese military and Japanese authority of
Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Qing Dynasty Late Ming and early
Qing dynasty heralded an era of large influx of refugees and another 20 years of sea trade ban under the
Kangxi Emperor, a measure intended to counter the
refuge Ming government of
Koxinga in
Taiwan. Incoming refugees, however, did not translate into a sizable workforce owing to their remigration to prosperous Cantonese regions. In 1683, the Qing dynasty
conquered Taiwan and annexed it into Fujian province, as
Taiwan Prefecture. Settlement of Taiwan by
Han Chinese followed, and the majority of people in Taiwan are descendants of
Hoklo people from Southern Fujian. Fujian arrived at its present extent after Taiwan was split as its
own province in 1885. Shortly thereafter,
Taiwan Province would be lost to Japan due to the Qing losing the
First Sino-Japanese War which ended in 1895.
Republic of China Mainland Period The
Xinhai Revolution that deposed the Qing dynasty brought the province into the rule of the
Republic of China. Fujian briefly gained independence from China again under the
Fujian People's Government until it was recontrolled by the ROC during the
Warlord Era. Parts of the province in the northwestern area of Fujian were controlled by the
Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet, a component territory controlled by the
Chinese Soviet Republic until its collapse in 1934 at the start of the
Long March. It came under Japanese sea blockade during
Second Sino-Japanese War.
Since 1949 During the late stages of the
Chinese Civil War, the ROC lost control of
mainland China, including most of
Fujian province, and was forced to relocate to Taiwan, while the victorious
Chinese Communist forces established the PRC in 1949, subsequently the provincial government of Fujian was also moved from
Foochow to
Jincheng. In the
Battle of Guningtou, however, ROC forces were able to defend the island of Quemoy (
Kinmen) just off the coast of Fujian from communist attack. As a result, the ROC has been able to hold on to a number of offshore islands of Fujian, and has continued to maintain a separate
Fujian Provincial Government to govern these islands, parallel to the province of
Fujian in mainland China. In 1956, due to heightened potential for military conflict with the PRC, the ROC central government moved the Fujian provincial government out of Fujian to within
Taiwan Province in
Xindian (now part of
New Taipei), and the islands were placed under an extraordinarily tight military administration due to their extreme proximity to mainland China. This was an unusual situation where the government of a province was located and operating in a different province. With the easing of
cross-strait relations between the PRC and ROC and the democratization of the ROC in the 1990s, the islands were returned to civilian government in 1992. On 15 January 1996, the provincial government moved back to
Kinmen, on Fujian soil. Beginning in 2010, the ROC significantly diluted the powers of the two provinces it governs, namely
Taiwan and Fujian. Most of the authority at the Fujian province level has been delegated to the two county governments of
Kinmen and
Lienchiang. ==Government==