FU-SHUN

Pinyin Fushun, city in central Liaoning sheng (province), northeastern China. It is situated some 25 miles (40 km) east of Shen-yang (Mukden) on the Hun River. In earlier times this area was on the frontier of Chinese settlement. It was the site of a customs station under the T'ang dynasty (618907) in the 8th century, and again under the Ming dynasty (13681644), when it received the name Fu-shun. It was not until 1902 that settlement in the area became legal for Chinese immigrants; the community then became the seat of a civil county administration. Its modern development depended on the exploitation of huge nearby bituminous coal reserves beginning in 1905, when the Russian Far Eastern Forestry Company began mining coal at Ch'ien-chin-sai. In 1908 the mines were taken over by the South Manchurian Railway company. By 1930 the mines' output amounted to 75 percent of the total coal production of Manchuria. The coal deposits are enormous. The high-quality coal is suitable for coking and is mined mostly by open-cut methods. After World War II the mines were in damaged condition and production fell off. By 1955, however, they had been reequipped, and normal production resumed. By the mid-1970s the mines' output had declined somewhat as extraction became increasingly difficult and greater use was made of underground mining techniques. The coal deposits are covered by a thick layer of oil-bearing shale. Oil was distilled from this shale on an industrial scale from 1930 onward. The output of chemical by-products of coal and of synthetic petroleum from shale remains important, making Fu-shun an important source of fertilizers and industrial chemicals. In the late 1950s a large iron and steel plant was constructed in Fu-shun to produce pig iron, ingot steel, and finished steel products. A heavy machinery industry was also established. Fu-shun is also a centre of the aluminum industry, which was founded in the late 1930s to serve the Japanese aircraft industry. The Manchurian Light Metals Company established a large plant at Fu-shun in 1938 and a second one in 1941. This industry has been revived and much expanded since 1949. Other Fu-shun industries include the manufacture of rubber, mining equipment, and cement. The city is connected by rail with Shen-yang and T'ung-hua (in Kirin). Pop. (1986 est.) 1,077,300.