Prehistory Bone analysis has found genetic connections between the ancient inhabitants of Xiying (73006500 BC) and
Austronesian peoples. The Keqiutou site (65005000 BC) appears to have been a planned settlement and is the oldest known site of
rice cultivation in Fujian. Artifacts from these sites appear connected to the Dapenkeng culture (60004500 BC) on
Taiwan. The Fuzhou area was also the site of the Huqiutou (; BC) and Tanshishan (; BC)
neolithic cultures.
Minyue During the
Warring States period (5th3rd centuries BC), the Chinese began referring to the present area of Fujian as
Minyue, reckoning their people among the
Baiyue who once inhabited most of southeastern China. In 306 BC, the
state of
Yue originally centered on the
Shaoxing area of
Zhejiang Province fell to
Chu. The
Han-era historian Sima Qian wrote that the surviving members of the Yue royal family fled south to what is now Fujian, where they settled alongside its own Yue people to create Minyue. The
First Emperor of the
Qin unified ancient China in 221 BC and desired to bring the southern and southeast regions under Chinese rule. The Qin organized its territory into
commanderies roughly equivalent to
modern prefectures, with Minzhong Commandery () overseeing Qin territory in Fujian. The area seems to have continued mostly independent of Chinese control for the next century, however. The
Han dynasty that followed Qin initially ruled much of eastern China through
vassal kingdoms, with both Minyue and
Nanyue largely autonomous. In 202 BC,
Emperor Gaozu enfeoffed a leader named Wuzhu (,
Old Chinese ) as king of Minyue. King Wuzhu established a walled city called
Ye (, Old Chinese , "Beautiful") the same year, a date now taken as the establishment of Fuzhou. In 110 BC, the armies of the
Wu Emperor defeated Minyue during the
Han–Minyue War, annexing its territory and people into China. Many Minyue citizens were forcibly relocated into the
Jianghuai area, and the Yue ethnic group was mostly assimilated into the Han Chinese, causing a sharp decline in Ye's inhabitants. Fuzhou prospered during the Tang dynasty.
Buddhism was quickly adopted by citizens who quickly built many Buddhist temples in the area. In 725, the city was formally renamed Fuzhou. Throughout the mid-
Tang dynasty, Fuzhou's economic and cultural institutions grew and developed. The later years of the Tang saw a number of political upheavals in the Chinese heartland such as the
An Lushan Rebellion and
Huang Chao Rebellion, prompting another wave of northerners to immigrate to the modern-day
Northern Min and
Eastern Min areas. In 879, a large part of the city was captured by the army of
Huang Chao during their rebellion against the Tang government.
Min Kingdom In 893, the warlord brothers
Wang Chao and Wang Shenzhi captured Fuzhou in a rebellion against the Tang dynasty, successfully gaining control of the entire Fujian Province and eventually proclaiming their founding of an independent kingdom they called the
Min Kingdom in 909. The Wang realm had its main capital at
Changle (, "Lasting Joy"), sometimes conflated with Fuzhou and now one of its districts. The Wang brothers enticed more immigrants from the north but the realm splintered after Wang Chao's death. The northeastern commanderies became the separate
Yin Kingdom, which eventually absorbed Min while taking its name. In 978, Fuzhou was incorporated into the newly founded
Song dynasty, though their control of the mountainous regions was tenuous.
Song dynasty Fuzhou underwent a major dramatic surge in its refined culture and educational institutions throughout the
Song dynasty as Fuzhou produced 10 Fuzhounese
zhuangyuan scholars (scholar who is ranked the top first place in the imperial examinations), a large number for a city in the country during that dynasty. The "Hualin" Temple (, not to be confused with the temple of the same name in
Guangzhou), founded in 964, is one of the oldest and surviving wooden structures in China. New city walls were built in 282, 901, 905, and 974, so the city had many layers of walls – more so than the Chinese capital.
Emperor Taizong of the
Song dynasty ordered the destruction of all the walls in Fuzhou in 978 but new walls were rebuilt later. The latest was built in 1371. During the
Southern Song dynasty, Fuzhou became more prosperous; many scholars came to live and work. Among them were
Zhu Xi, the most celebrated Chinese philosopher after
Confucius, and
Xin Qiji, the greatest composer of the
ci form of poetry.
Yuan dynasty In the
accounts of his supposed travels during the
Yuan dynasty,
Marco Polo mentioned the city as . This would have represented not the local
Min pronunciation but that of the
mandarin administrative class. According to
Odoric of Pordenone, another traveler of the era, Fuzhou had the biggest chickens in the world.
Ming dynasty Between 1405 and 1433, fleets of the
Ming Imperial navy under Admiral
Zheng He visited Fuzhou en route to the
Indian Ocean seven times; on three occasions the fleet landed on the east coast of Africa. Before the last sailing, Zheng erected a
stele dedicated to the goddess
Tian-Fei (Matsu) near the
seaport. The Ming government gave a monopoly over
Philippine trade to Fuzhou, which at times was shared with
Quanzhou. The
Ryukyu Kingdom also established
an embassy in Fuzhou.
Galeote Pereira, a Portuguese soldier and trader, was taken prisoner during the
pirate extermination campaign of 1549 and imprisoned in Fuzhou. Later transferred to a form of
internal exile elsewhere in the province, Pereira escaped to
Langbaijiao in 1553. The record of his experiences in the Ming Empire, logged by the
Jesuits at
Goa in 1561, was the first non-clerical account of China to reach the West since
Marco Polo.
Qing dynasty in Fuzhou, 1870s In 1839,
Lin Zexu, who himself was a Fuzhou native, was appointed by the
Daoguang Emperor to enforce the imperial ban on the opium trade in
Canton. His unsuccessful actions, however, precipitated the disastrous
First Opium War with Great Britain, and Lin, who had become a scapegoat for China's failure in war, was exiled to the northwestern section of the empire. The
Treaty of Nanjing (1842), which put an end to the conflict, made Fuzhou (then known to Westerners as Foochow) one of five Chinese
treaty ports, and it became completely open to Western merchants and missionaries. Fuzhou was one of the most important
Protestant mission fields in China. On January 2, 1846, the first Protestant missionary,
Stephen Johnson of the
ABCFM, entered the city and soon set up the first missionary station there. The ABCFM was followed by the
Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society that was led by
M. C. White and
J. D. Collins, who reached Fuzhou in early September 1847. The
Church Missionary Society also arrived in the city in May 1850. These three Protestant agencies remained in Fuzhou until the
Chinese Communist Revolution in the 1950s, leaving a rich heritage in Fuzhou's Protestant culture. They supported the creation of hospitals and schools, including the
Woolston Memorial Hospital, run by the American-trained
Hü King Eng. On August 23, 1884, the
Battle of Fuzhou broke out between the French Far East Fleet and the
Fujian Fleet of the Qing dynasty. As the result, the Fujian Fleet, one of the four Chinese regional fleets, was destroyed completely in Mawei Harbor. On November 8, 1911, revolutionaries staged an uprising in Fuzhou. After an overnight street battle, the
Qing army surrendered.
Fujian People's Government On November 22, 1933,
Eugene Chen and the leaders of the
National Revolutionary Army's 19th Army set up the short-lived
People's Revolutionary Government of Republican China. Blockaded by
Chiang Kai-shek and left without support from the nearby
Soviet Republic of China, the PRGRC collapsed within two months.
Japanese occupation With the outbreak of
World War II, hostilities commenced in Fujian Province.
Xiamen (then often known as Amoy in English) fell to a Japanese landing force on May 13, 1938. The fall of Xiamen instantly threatened the security of Fuzhou. On May 23, Japanese ships bombarded Mei-Hua, Huang-chi and Pei-Chiao while Japanese planes continued to harass Chinese forces. Between May 31 and June 1, Chinese gunboats
Fu-Ning,
Chen-Ning and
Suming defending the blockade line in the estuary of the Min River were successively bombed and sunk. Meanwhile, the Chinese ship
Chu-Tai berthed at Nan-Tai was damaged. The Chinese Navy's Harbor Command School, barracks, shipyard, hospital and marine barracks at Mawei were successively bombed. Fuzhou fell to Japanese forces in 1938. The extent of Japanese command and control of the city of Fuzhou itself as opposed to the port at Mawei and the Min River Estuary is uncertain. By 1941 (5/7), the city is recorded as having returned to Nationalist control. The British Consulate in Fuzhou is noted as operational from 1941 to 1944 after the United Kingdom Declaration of War on Japan in December 1941. Western visitors to Fuzhou in the period 1941–1944 include the Australian journalist
Wilfred Burchett in 1942 and the British scientist
Joseph Needham in May 1944. Both visitors record the presence of a British Consul and a Fuzhou Club comprising western businessmen. In
The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom, author
Simon Winchester relates the visit of Dr Needham in 1944. Needham encountered the American government agent (John Caldwell) and the British SIS agent (
Murray MacLehose working undercover as the British Vice-Consul in Fuzhou) involved in aid to the Nationalist resistance to Japanese forces in Fujian Province. The date is given as October 5, 1944. Fuzhou remained under Japanese control until May 18, 1945, months before the atomic bombings. Following the restoration of Republic control in 1946, the administration divisions of Fuzhou were annexed, and administration level was promoted from county-level to city-level officially.
People's Republic of China Fuzhou was occupied by the
People's Liberation Army with little resistance on 17 August 1949. In the 1950s, the city was on the front line of the conflict with the
KMT in
Taiwan, as hostile KMT aircraft frequently bombed the city. The bombing on 20 January 1955 was the most serious one, killing hundreds of people. Fuzhou was also involved in violent mass chaos during the
Cultural Revolution. Different groups of
Red Guards fought with each other using guns on the streets of the city, and even attacking the People's Liberation Army. Under the
reform and opening policy since the late 1970s, Fuzhou has developed rapidly. In 1982, Fuzhou became the first city in China where the
stored program control was introduced, which marked a milestone in the history of
telecommunications in China. In 1984, Fuzhou was chosen as one of the first branches of
Open Coastal Cities by the Central Government. In 1990,
Xi Jinping served as the Secretary of the CPC Fuzhou Municipal Committee. He proposed the
Fuzhou 3820 Project to establish Fuzhou as the political economic cultural educational transportation and technological center of Fujian Province and the West Coast Economic Zone of the Taiwan Straits. He also planned the development of Fuzhou for the next hundred years. He believed that, with Guangzhou to the south and Shanghai to the north Fuzhou's geographical location was ideal for becoming an international metropolis between the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta. He proposed supporting strategies such as the Fujian-Zhejiang-Jiangxi-Anhui Fuzhou Economic Cooperation Zone the Fuzhou Metropolitan Circle, Maritime Fuzhou the Minjiang Estuary Golden Triangle and a Modern International City as well as the idea of building a high-speed rail corridor to
Taipei. Xi Jinping served as the Secretary of the Fuzhou Municipal Committee for more than six years and lived in Fuzhou for nearly thirteen years, developing a deep affection for the city. When he visited Fuzhou again in 2021, he remarked that Fuzhou could make significant contributions to the great rejuvenation and unification of the Chinese nation, noting that the airport in Changle was built to support the city's expansion towards the sea. On December 13, 1993, a raging fire swept through a
textile factory in Fuzhou and claimed the lives of 60 workers. On October 2, 2005, floodwaters from
Typhoon Longwang swept away a
military school, killing at least 80
paramilitary officers. ==Geography==