Prehistory The
Sichuan Basin and adjacent areas of the
Yangtze watershed were a cradle of indigenous civilizations dating back to at least the 15th century BC, coinciding with the
Shang in northern China. The region had its own distinct religious beliefs and worldview. The earliest excavated culture found therein is the
Baodun culture (2700–1750 BC) excavated in the
Chengdu Plain.
Ba and Shu Kingdoms from
Sanxingdui, dating from the
Shu kingdom from
Jinsha site The most important native states were those of Ba and Shu.
Ba stretched into Sichuan from the
Han Valley in
Shaanxi and
Hubei down the
Jialing River as far as its confluence with the
Yangtze at
Chongqing.
Shu occupied the valley of the
Min, including
Chengdu and other areas of western Sichuan. Accounts of Shu exist mainly as a mixture of mythological stories and historical legends recorded in local annals such as the
Chronicles of Huayang compiled in the
Jin dynasty (266–420), and the Han-dynasty compilation ''''. These contained folk stories such as that of
Emperor Duyu who taught the people agriculture and transformed himself into a cuckoo after his death. This site, believed to be an ancient city of Shu, was initially discovered by a local farmer in 1929 who found jade and stone artifacts. Excavations by archeologists yielded few significant finds until 1986 when two major sacrificial pits were found with spectacular bronze items as well as artifacts in jade, gold, earthenware, and stone. This and other discoveries in Sichuan contest the conventional historiography that the local culture and technology of Sichuan were undeveloped in comparison to the technologically and culturally "advanced"
Yellow River valley of north-central China.
Qin dynasty The rulers of the expansionist state of
Qin, based in present-day
Gansu and
Shaanxi, were the first strategists to realize that the area's military importance matched its commercial and agricultural significance. The Sichuan basin is surrounded by the
Hengduan Mountains to the west, the
Qin Mountains to the north, and
Yungui Plateau to the south. Since the Yangtze flows through the basin and then through the perilous Three Gorges to eastern and southern China, Sichuan was a staging area for amphibious military forces and a haven for political refugees. Qin armies finished their conquest of the kingdoms of Shu and Ba by 316 BC. Any written records and civil achievements of earlier kingdoms were destroyed. Qin administrators introduced improved agricultural technology.
Li Bing, engineered the
Dujiangyan irrigation system to control the
Min River, a major
tributary of the Yangtze. This innovative hydraulic system was composed of movable weirs which could be adjusted for high or low water flow according to the season, to either provide irrigation or prevent floods. The increased agricultural output and taxes made the area a source of provisions and men for Qin's unification of China.
Han dynasty '', in total height, located at the tomb of Gao Yi in Ya'an, Sichuan, built during the
Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE) Sichuan was subjected to the autonomous control of kings named by the imperial family of the Han dynasty. During the 11 years hiatus between 25 and 36 AD, Sichuan was controlled by the
Chengjia Kingdom. Following the declining central government of the
Han dynasty in the second century, the Sichuan basin, surrounded by mountains and easily defensible, became a popular place for upstart generals to found kingdoms that challenged the authority of Yangtze Valley emperors over China. In 263, the
Cao Wei of North China
conquered the Kingdom of Shu-Han as a step on the path to reuniting China.
Salt production became a major business in
Ziliujing District. During the
Six Dynasties period of Chinese disunity, Sichuan began to be populated by non-
Han ethnic minority peoples, owing to the migration of
Gelao people from the
Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the Sichuan basin.
Tang dynasty , built during the latter half of the
Tang dynasty (618–907). Sichuan came under the firm control of a Chinese central government during the
Sui dynasty, but it was during the subsequent
Tang dynasty that Sichuan regained its previous political and cultural prominence for which it was known during the Han. Chengdu became nationally known as a supplier of armies and the home of
Du Fu, who is sometimes called China's greatest poet. During the
An Lushan Rebellion (755–763),
Emperor Xuanzong of Tang fled from
Chang'an to Sichuan which became his refuge. The region was torn by constant warfare and economic distress as it was besieged by the
Tibetan Empire.
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms In the
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Sichuan became the heart of the
Shu kingdom with its capital in
Chengdu. In 925, the kingdom was absorbed into
Later Tang but would regain independence under
Meng Zhixiang who founded
Later Shu in 934. Later Shu would continue until 965 when it was absorbed by the
Song.
Song and Yuan dynasties During the
Song dynasty (960–1279),
Sichuanese were able to protect themselves from
Tibetan attacks with the help of the central government. There were rebellions against the Song by Li Shun in 994 and Wang Jun in 1000. Sichuan also saw cultural revivals like the great poets
Su Xun (),
Su Shi, and
Su Zhe. It was also during the Song dynasty that the bulk of the native
Ba people of eastern Sichuan assimilated into the Han Chinese ethnicity. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Southern Song dynasty established coordinated defenses against the
Mongolian Yuan dynasty, in Sichuan and
Xiangyang. The Southern Song state monopolized the Sichuan
tea industry to pay for warhorses, but this state intervention eventually brought devastation to the local economy. The line of defense was broken through after the first use of
firearms in history during the six-year
Battle of Xiangyang, which ended in 1273. Allegedly there were a million pieces of unspecified types of skeleton bones belonging to war animals and both Song and Yuan soldiers who perished in the fighting over the city, although the figure may have been grossly exaggerated. The recorded number of families in Sichuan dropped from 2,640,000 families, as recorded from the census taken in 1162 AD, to 120,000 families in 1282 AD. Possible causes include forced population transfer to nearby areas, evacuation to nearby provinces, census under-reporting or inaccuracy, and war-related deaths. One instance of the deportation of Sichuanese civilians to Mongolia occurred in the aftermath of a battle in 1259 when more than 80,000 people were taken captive from one city in Sichuan and moved to Mongolia.
Ming dynasty and
Joan Blaeu's 1659
Geographia Blaviana. The Ming dynasty defeated
Ming Yuzhen's Xia polity which ruled Sichuan. During the
Ming dynasty, major architectural works were created in Sichuan. Buddhism remained influential in the region.
Bao'en Temple is a well-preserved 15th-century monastery complex built between 1440 and 1446 during the
Zhengtong Emperor's reign (1427–64). Dabei Hall enshrines a thousand-armed wooden image of
Guanyin and Huayan Hall is a repository with a revolving
sutra cabinet. The wall paintings, sculptures, and other ornamental details are masterpieces of the Ming period. In the middle of the 17th century, the peasant rebel leader
Zhang Xianzhong (1606–1646) from
Yan'an,
Shaanxi Province, nicknamed
Yellow Tiger, led his peasant troop from north China to the south and conquered Sichuan. Upon capturing it, he declared himself emperor of the Daxi dynasty (). In response to the resistance from local elites, he massacred a large number of people in Sichuan, killing around one in three people. As a result of the massacre as well as years of turmoil during the
Ming-Qing transition, the population of Sichuan fell sharply, requiring massive resettlement of people from the neighboring
Huguang Province (modern Hubei and Hunan) and other provinces during the Qing dynasty.
Qing dynasty Sichuan was originally the origin of the Deng lineage until one of them was hired as an official in Guangdong during the Ming dynasty but during the Qing plan to increase the population in 1671 they came to Sichuan again. In 1904
Deng Xiaoping was born in Sichuan. During the
Qing dynasty, Sichuan was merged with
Shaanxi and
Shanxi to create "Shenzhuan" during 1680–1731 and 1735–1748. A
landslide dam on the
Dadu River caused by an earthquake gave way on 10 June 1786. The resulting flood killed 100,000 people.
Republic of China , then part of Sichuan province, during WW2 In the early 20th century, the newly founded
Republic of China established the Chuanbian Special Administrative District () on the province's territories to the west of the
Sichuan Basin. The Special District later became the province of
Xikang, incorporating the areas inhabited by
Yi,
Tibetan, and
Qiang ethnic minorities to its west, and eastern part of today's
Tibet Autonomous Region. In the 20th century, as
Beijing,
Shanghai,
Nanjing, and
Wuhan had all been occupied by the Japanese during the
Second Sino-Japanese War, the capital of the Republic of China had been temporarily relocated to
Chongqing, then a major city in Sichuan. An enduring legacy of this move is those nearby inland provinces, such as
Shaanxi,
Gansu, and
Guizhou, which previously never had
modern Western-style universities, began to be developed in this regard. The difficulty of accessing the region overland from the eastern part of China and the foggy climate hindering the accuracy of the
Japanese bombing of the Sichuan Basin made the region the stronghold of
Chiang Kai-shek's
Kuomintang government during 1938–45 and led to the
Bombing of Chongqing. The
Second Sino-Japanese War was soon followed by the resumed
Chinese Civil War, and the cities of East China were obtained by the Communists one after another, the Kuomintang government again tried to make Sichuan its stronghold on the mainland, although it already saw some Communist activity since it was one area on the road of the
Long March. Chiang Kai-shek himself flew to Chongqing from
Taiwan in November 1949 to lead the defense. But the same month Chongqing switched to the Communists, followed by Chengdu on 10 December. The Kuomintang general
Wang Sheng wanted to stay behind with his troops to continue the anticommunist guerilla war in Sichuan, but was recalled to Taiwan. Many of his soldiers made their way there as well, via
Burma.
People's Republic of China The People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, and it split Sichuan into four areas and separated Chongqing municipality. Sichuan was reconstituted in 1952, with Chongqing added in 1954, while the former
Xikang province was split between
Tibet in the west and Sichuan in the east. In 1978, when
Deng Xiaoping took power, Sichuan was one of the first provinces to experiment with the market economic enterprise. From 1955 until 1997, Sichuan had been China's most populous province; the population hit the 100 million mark shortly after the 1982 census figure of 99,730,000. This changed in 1997 when the
Sub-provincial city of Chongqing as well as the three surrounding prefectures of
Fuling,
Wanxian, and
Qianjiang were split off into the new
Chongqing Municipality. The new municipality was formed to spearhead China's effort to economically develop its western provinces, as well as to coordinate the resettlement of residents from the reservoir areas of the
Three Gorges Dam project. In 1997, when Sichuan split, the sum of the two parts was recorded to be 114,720,000 people. As of 2010, Sichuan ranks as both the
3rd largest (the largest among Chinese
provinces with a population greater than 50 million) and 4th most populous province in China. On 12 May 2008,
an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9/8.0 hit just northwest of the provincial capital of Chengdu. Official figures recorded a death toll of over 87,000 people, and millions of people were left homeless. ==Administrative divisions==