Shandong, one of the eastern coastal provinces of China, is actually quite powerful, and it can be said that it is as rich as the enemy, and the people are as rich as the enemy, belonging to one of the developed provinces. However, due to some reasons (such as the strong local style of Shandong TV station), Shandong does not seem to give people a very developed impression like the southeast coastal areas such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong ... Now Qingdao is the most developed city in Shandong, and its GDP ranks third in the north of China, second only to Beijing and Tianjin. The strength is quite strong, as are Yantai and the provincial capital Jinan. However, during the Ming Dynasty, the urban pattern of Shandong Province was not like this. Where was the most prosperous city in Shandong in the Ming Dynasty? Of course it won't be Qingdao. Qingdao was not rich at that time, nor was it the provincial capital Jinan. The two most prosperous cities in Shandong in Ming Dynasty were Jining and Linqing. According to the records of Shandong urban agglomeration in Wanli period of Ming Dynasty, today's so-called metropolises are Beijing, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangxi and other provinces (associations). Followed by Song, Huai and Yang in Jiangsu, Linqing and Jining, and Wuhu, Guazhou and Jingdezhen ... At that time, Linqing and Jining were the two largest cities in Shandong. In the Ming Dynasty, Shandong Ministry of Foreign Affairs was divided into Jinan, Dongchang, Yanzhou, Laizhou, Dengzhou and Qingzhou. At the same time, it also manages the Liaodong Dusi. In the Ming Dynasty, Jining Prefecture, the secretariat of Shandong Province, belonged to Yanzhou Prefecture (county-level) and Linqing Prefecture belonged to Dongchang Prefecture. How can these two county-level cities be more prosperous than the provincial capital Jinan? There were basically no large-scale industrial production centers in feudal times. Therefore, except for a few cases such as Jingdezhen, most large-scale non-agricultural population gathering places are due to the advantages of transportation. In ancient times, the most important mode of transportation was water transportation (in modern times, it was railway), and Linqing and Jining were no exception. The prosperity of Linqing and Jining is due to the canal. In fact, Linqing House was not built for a long time, and it was not built until the fourteenth year of orthodoxy (1449). At that time, because of the opening of Huitong River, Linqing became a crossroads between the north and the south, and it was a famous metropolis along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. According to the documents of the Ming Dynasty, Linqing is a metropolis in the north and south, receiving goods from all directions at an unexpected speed. At that time, all kinds of things were often bought and found. It is here that the southeast embroidery and the north Xi 'an are brown. Linqing is a region where all directions converge. The real estate is rich in wheat, but it still borrows money from vendors ... The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal passed through Linqing and Jining in the 28th year of the Ming Wanli (1600), and the local urban residents in Linqing reached 60,000. With the merchants from all directions several times this, the permanent population in Linqing exceeded several hundred thousand, which is an incredible figure. You know, the population of Jiujiang City in Jiangxi Province was less than 20,000 at that time. Until the peasant war and Manchu invasion in the late Ming Dynasty, the economy of the Central Plains suffered heavy losses, the water transportation was not prosperous, Linqing was seriously damaged, and Linqing declined rapidly. Later, because shipping became the mainstream, the status of canal transportation was greatly weakened, and Linqing never recovered. What about Jining? In the Ming Dynasty, Jining was one of the 33 industrial and commercial cities in China and one of the seven foreign commercial ports along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. Similarly, its prosperity is closely related to the canal. The canal was rebuilt in the early Ming Dynasty, and the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal passed through the city and the urban area. Jining once became a throat area. It is a water transport hub and an important commodity distribution center in southern Shandong. Its scale is the largest in Jiangbei. However, in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, due to the prosperity of shipping and the gradual replacement of land transportation by railways, the position of the canal in national transportation plummeted, which also led to a large decline of prosperous ancient towns along the canal, while Jining did not decline obviously at this time, but this was not a good thing, because the reason was: war at that time and the national economy was depressed. At that time, Jining in the north had a good foundation. On the contrary, it is good in the surrounding towns, so its political status has been strengthened. Until later, with the development of roads and railways, the towns around Jining also developed greatly, and the relative position of Jining was weakened. What was Jinan like in Ming Dynasty? Jinan Fucheng is also a male city with a fairly developed economy (but there is still a gap compared with Linqing and Jining). In the Jin Dynasty, Xiaoqing River was dug in the north of the city, leading directly to the sea, which made Jinan an important salt distribution center, brought huge financial resources to Jinan and laid the foundation for its subsequent rise. So in the early Ming Dynasty, Jinan replaced Qingzhou and became the center of Shandong. What about Qingdao in the Ming Dynasty? Basically, it didn't develop much. In the Ming dynasty, there were garrisons stationed to guard against the Japanese pirates. Qingdao became a city, and it was not until the end of Qing Dynasty, 1899, 12,12, that the German emperor William II ordered the newly built urban area in the German concession to be the capital of the concession and named it "Qingdao". In the same month, China Demarcation Commissioner Yu and Peng signed a contract with German Demarcation Commissioner Luo Shenda, and Qingdao was officially born as a city. * * * bought and demolished the original China Village at a high price, and invested a huge sum of money to build a modern port city with German style according to its urban planning, which laid the foundation for the urban pattern and architectural style of Qingdao today. References: Canal and Urban Changes —— Taking Linqing District of Shandong Province in Ming Dynasty as an example —— Yang Qiusheng's Historical Background and Regional Environment of Jining's Rise in the Early Ming Dynasty —— Author Sun;