Hankou - History

History

The city's name literally means "The Mouth of the Han", referring to its location on the north bank of the confluence of the Han and Yangtze Rivers. The name appears in a Tang Dynasty poem by Liu Changqing. Other historical names for the city include Xiakou (Chinese: 夏口), Miankou (Chinese: 沔口), and Lukou (Chinese: 鲁口).

Hankou, from Ming Dynasty to late Qing, was under the administration of the local government in Hanyang, although it was already one of the four major national markets (zh:四大名镇) in Ming dynasty. It is not until 1899 that Zhang Zhidong decided to separate Hankou from Hanyang. Hankou was then divided into four districts, which are Juren, Youyi, Xunli, and Dazhi. Some of the names can still be found in modern-day Wuhan, where there are geographical names such as Xunlimen, Jurenmen, and Dazhimen.

In 1926, Hankou was officially established as a city, where its municipal government was built in Jianghan district. In the same year, the Northern Expedition reached Hankou, and merged Hankou with adjacent Wuchang and Hanyang to make it the seat of national capital, Wuhan. But in 1927, when Nanjing succeeded in the fight for being the national capital, Wuhan was separated to its original form, where Hankou was again a city by itself. This time Hankou was established as a "Special Municipality," which resembles a direct-controlled municipality in present day. Before 1949, Hankou has shifted between being a special municipality and a provincial city. In 1949, Hankou was finally merged with Hanyang and Wuchang to become Wuhan, when the communists arrived in Hankou on May 16.

Hankou used to have five colonial concessions from the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Germany and Japan. The German and Russian concessions were administered by the Chinese government after the First World War. The British left in 1927 during the Northern Expedition after the Chinese Kuomintang forces seized the multimillion dollar concession from them, refusing to hand it back to the British. The French and Japanese left after the Second World War.

On October 10, 1911, a revolution to establish the Republic of China and replace the Qing Dynasty led to the involvement of Hankou in the struggle between Hubei revolutionary forces and the Qing army, led by Yuan Shikai. Although the revolution began in Wuchang with a revolt started by members of the New Army, revolutionaries quickly captured major strategic cities and towns throughout the province, including Hankou on October 12. The Qing Dynasty Army recaptured Hankou later, but as the revolution spread throughout China, eventually the town and the province came under control of the Republic of China.

Hankow was the destination on the escape route of groups of missionaries fleeing the Boxers in the Northern provinces around 1900. The flight of some missionaries from the T'ai-yüan massacre in Shan-si is recorded in the work A Thousand Miles of Miracles in China" (1919) by Reverend A E Glover, one of the fleeing missionaries.

Before the Communist Revolution, Hankou was the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hankou, covering the province of Hubei. The dioceses in Wuchang, Hanyang, and elsewhere in the province, were subordinated to it.