Hunan's primeval forests were first occupied by the ancestors of the modern
Miao,
Tujia,
Dong and
Yao peoples. The province entered written
Chinese history around 350 BC, when it became part of the
Zhou dynasty. After
Qin conquered the Chu in 278 BC, the region came under the control of Qin, and then the
Changsha Kingdom during the
Han dynasty. At this time, and for hundreds of years thereafter, the province was a magnet for settlement of
Han Chinese from the north, who displaced and assimilated the original indigenous inhabitants, cleared forests and began farming rice in the valleys and plains. The agricultural colonization of the lowlands was carried out in part by the Han people, who managed river dikes to protect farmland from floods. To this day, many of Hunan's small villages are named after Han families who settled there. Migration from the north was especially prevalent during the
Eastern Jin dynasty,
Sixteen Kingdoms and the
Northern and Southern dynasties periods, when the north was mostly ruled by non-Han ethnic groups (
Five Barbarians) and in perpetual disorder. During the
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Hunan was home to its own independent regime,
Ma Chu. Hunan and
Hubei became a part of the province of
Huguang until the
Qing dynasty. Hunan province was created in 1664 from Huguang and renamed in 1723. Hunan became an important communications center due to its position on the
Yangzi River. It was an important centre of scholarly activity and
Confucian thought, particularly in the
Yuelu Academy in
Changsha. It was also on the Imperial Highway between northern and southern China. The land produced grain so abundantly that it fed many parts of China with its surpluses. The population continued to climb until, by the 19th century, Hunan became overcrowded and prone to peasant uprisings. Some of the uprisings, such as the ten-year
Miao Rebellion of 1795–1806, were caused by ethnic tensions. The
Taiping Rebellion began in
Guangxi Province in 1850, then spread into Hunan and further eastward along the Yangzi River valley. A Hunanese army (
Xiang Army) under
Zeng Guofan marched into
Nanjing to put down the uprising in 1864. during the
Battle of Changsha in World War II|222x222px In 1920, a famine raged throughout Hunan and killed an estimated 2 million Hunanese civilians. This sparked the
Autumn Harvest Uprising of 1927. It was led by Hunanese native
Mao Zedong, and established a short-lived Hunan Soviet in 1927. The Communists maintained a guerrilla army in the mountains along the Hunan-
Jiangxi border until 1934. Under pressure from the Nationalist
Kuomintang (KMT) forces, they began the
Long March to bases in
Shaanxi Province. After the Communists departed, the KMT fought the Japanese in the
second Sino-Japanese war. It defended Changsha until it fell in 1944. Japan launched
Operation Ichigo, a plan to control the railroad from
Wuchang to
Guangzhou (
Yuehan Railway). Hunan was relatively unscathed by the civil war that followed the Japanese defeat in 1945. In 1949, the Communists returned as the Nationalists retreated southward. As Mao's home province, Hunan supported the
Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976, but it was slower than most provinces to adopt the reforms
Deng Xiaoping implemented in the years after Mao's death in 1976. In addition to Mao, several other first-generation communist leaders were from Hunan:
Chinese President Liu Shaoqi;
CCP Secretaries-General Ren Bishi and
Hu Yaobang; Marshals
Peng Dehuai,
He Long, and
Luo Ronghuan;
Wang Zhen, one of the
Eight Elders;
Xiang Jingyu, the first female member of the CCP's central committee; Senior General
Huang Kecheng; and veteran diplomat
Lin Boqu. A more recent leader from Hunan is former
Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji. == Geography ==