Fengyang County () is a county in north-central

Anhui Province Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...

, China. It is under the administration of

Chuzhou Chuzhou () is a prefecture-level city in eastern Anhui Province, China. It borders the provincial capital of Hefei to the south and southwest, Huainan to the west, Bengbu to the northwest, and the province of Jiangsu to the east. According to ...

, a

prefecture-level city A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an administrative division of the People's Republic of China (PRC), ranking below a province and above a county in China's administrative structure. During the Republican era, many of Chi ...

. The county was home to 765,600 people as of 2013.

Administrative divisions

Fengyang County is divided into 14

towns A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an or ...

and 1

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, ...

. The county seat is in Fucheng Town.

14 Towns

The county is home to the following 14 towns:

1 Township

The county's sole township is : * Huangwan ().

Geography

The county's northern border is formed by the Huai River and neighboring

Wuhe County Wuhe may refer to these places in China: * Wuhe County (五河县), in Bengbu, Anhui Towns *Wuhe, Anqing (五河), in Yuexi County, Anhui *Wuhe, Baiyin (五合), in Jingyuan County, Gansu *Wuhe, Wuwei, Gansu (五和), in Wuwei, Gansu *Wuhe, Guangd ...

. The county is also home to the Huayuan Lake, which totals about 30 square kilometers in size.

Climate

The average annual temperature for Fengyang County is 14.9 °C, and the average annual precipitation is 904.4 mm.

History

Pre-Ming Dynasty

During the Xia, Shang and early Zhou dynasties, the

Dongyi The Dongyi or Eastern Yi () was a collective term for ancient peoples found in Chinese records. The definition of Dongyi varied across the ages, but in most cases referred to inhabitants of eastern China, then later, the Korean peninsula, and Ja ...

peoples inhabited this area and were collectively known as the Huaiyi after the Huai River. During the late Western Zhou Period and the early

Spring and Autumn period The Spring and Autumn period was a period in Chinese history from approximately 770 to 476 BC (or according to some authorities until 403 BC) which corresponds roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou period. The period's name derives fr ...

, the Dongyi became increasingly sinicized and formed their own states. During the late Spring and Autumn period, the once-powerful Dongyi state of Xu was pressured from all directions and destroyed through a series of wars with its neighbors, such as the Chu State and the Wu State. Another Dongyi State was the small Zhongli State, which was a part of the Huaiyi Confederation led by the State of Xu. Tombs belonging to the royalty of the Zhongli State were discovered in excavations between 2005 and 2008 near

Fengyang Fengyang County () is a county in north-central Anhui, Anhui Province, China. It is under the administration of Chuzhou, a prefecture-level city. The county was home to 765,600 people as of 2013. Administrative divisions Fengyang County is divide ...

. Eventually, the Huaiyi peoples were either pushed south or assimilated.

Ming Dynasty

Fengyang's best known historical site is linked with the name of the county's most famous native,

Zhu Yuanzhang The Hongwu Emperor (21 October 1328 – 24 June 1398), personal name Zhu Yuanzhang (), courtesy name Guorui (), was the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty of China, reigning from 1368 to 1398. As famine, plagues and peasant revolts i ...

(1328-1398). Although coming from a poor family, he became an important rebel leader and, later, the founder of China's

Ming Dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

. Once entrenched as the

Hongwu Emperor The Hongwu Emperor (21 October 1328 – 24 June 1398), personal name Zhu Yuanzhang (), courtesy name Guorui (), was the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty of China, reigning from 1368 to 1398. As famine, plagues and peasant revolts i ...

in the nearby

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Map Romanization, alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and t ...

, he honored the memory of his father, Zhu Wusi (d. 1344), and his mother, Lady Chen, by posthumously raising them to imperial dignity, and building for them an imperial-style mausoleum, known as Ming Huangling (, literally, "Ming Imperial Mausoleum").Eric N. Danielson,
The Ming Ancestor Tomb
". ''China Heritage Quarterly'', No. 16, December 2008. The emperor even started building the new imperial capital, named Zhongdu () near his childhood hometown, but the project was eventually abandoned. The stone figures of the Huangling Mausoleum have survived, and have been re-erected at the original location, some south of the county seat (()). The mausoleum statuary and the remains of the capital-building project are protected as a national historic site known as "Zhongdu Imperial City of the Ming and the Imperial Mausoleum's Statuary" (). In 1370, existing counties in the area were merged into a new county, named Linhuai County.

Qing Dynasty

In 1754, Linhuai County was restructured into a new county called Fengyang County, which serves as the descendant of the modern Fengyang County.

Recent History

The county's borders are jurisdiction has changed numerous times since its Qing-era formation. From 1959 to 1960, during the

Great Leap Forward The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstr ...

, 60,245 people of the county died, occupying 17.7 percent to its total population of 335,698. 8,404 complete households were wiped out. In 1974, future Chinese

Premier Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of governm ...

Li Keqiang Li Keqiang (born 1 July 1955) is a Chinese politician who is the outgoing premier of China. An economist by profession, Li is head of China's executive branch as well as one of the leading figures behind China's Financial and Economic Affa ...

was sent to Damiao, Fengyang County as part of

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also Romanization of Chinese, romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the List of national founde ...

's Down to the Countryside Program. Here, he did manual labour throughout the day and studied for university, Li recounts his days in the county as "hard times". He rose up to the rank of Damiao's

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...

branch secretary in 1976, before leaving for

Peking University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charte ...

in 1978.

Economy

Fengyang County's natural resources include

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical f ...

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphose ...

vermiculite Vermiculite is a hydrous phyllosilicate mineral which undergoes significant expansion when heated. Exfoliation occurs when the mineral is heated sufficiently, and commercial furnaces can routinely produce this effect. Vermiculite forms by the we ...

, and

asbestos Asbestos () is a naturally occurring fibrous silicate mineral. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere b ...

Transportation

Key highways in the county include the G36 Expressway, Anhui Provincial Highway 101, Anhui Provincial Highway 207, Anhui Provincial Highway 307, and Anhui Provincial Highway 310. The Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Rail also passes through the county.

References

{{County-level divisions of Anhui Chuzhou County-level divisions of Anhui