CH'ANG-CH'UN

Pinyin Chang-chun, city and provincial capital of Kirin Province (sheng), China. The area around the city was originally the grazing ground of a Mongol banner (army division). In 1791 the Mongol duke requested and was granted permission from the Manchu court to open this area to Chinese colonization. In 1799 Ch'ang-ch'un subprefecture was consequently established to administer the considerable numbers of peasants from the provinces of Shantung and northern Hopeh who were already settled in the area. A subprefect responsible for Chinese settlers was appointed in 1802; and in 1825 the administration was moved to its present site, a settlement formerly called K'uan-ch'eng-tzu. It was raised to prefectural status as Ch'ang-ch'un Fu in 1882; and in the last years of the 19th century, as the pace of colonization increased, it was subdivided into a number of counties. Up to then it had been primarily an administrative centre subordinate to the city of Kirin (now Chi-lin) and a local collecting and market centre. A new period of growth began with the completion in 1901 of the Chinese Eastern Railway. At the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese War of 189495, the section of the railway south of Ch'ang-ch'un was transferred to Japanese control; after 1906 the town marked the northern limit of the Japanese-dominated South Manchurian Railway zone. A new Japanese railway town then grew up to the north of the old Chinese city. At the time of the Japanese seizure of Manchuria (the Northeast) in 1931, the military commanders of the Japanese Kwantung Army decided to move the administrative capital of Japan's puppet state, Manchukuo, from Mukden (Shen-yang), the old Manchu capital, and in 1932 designated Ch'ang-ch'un as the new capital, renaming it Hsin-ching, or Hsinking (Chinese: New Capital). A spacious city with broad streets and many open spaces was constructed, and a national university was established there in 1938. Hsin-ching was designed to be an administrative, cultural, and political capital, whereas industrial development was to be concentrated primarily in Harbin (Ha-erh-pin), Kirin, Mukden, and Tan-tung, with only a limited amount of light industry in Hsin-ching. The city, nevertheless, grew at a phenomenal rate. Events at the end of World War II badly disrupted Ch'ang-ch'un. The city was occupied, heavily damaged, and looted by Soviet forces in the last days of the war. When they withdrew in March 1946, the city for some weeks was occupied by the Chinese Communist armies; but at the end of May, Chinese Nationalist forces entered it. Later in the year the Japanese population was repatriated. Although the Nationalists controlled the city itself, the Communists retained control of the surrounding rural areas, from which they waged guerrilla warfare, causing extensive damage. In 1948 Communist forces again took Ch'ang-ch'un. Under Communist rule, the character of Ch'ang-ch'un changed radically. Although it remained an administrative centre and the provincial capital of Kirin, it became one of the principal centres for industrial expansion in Northeast China. Previously industry had been largely confined to small plants engaged in food processing, timber processing, clothing manufacturing, and light engineering, but the city now became the centre of a heavy engineering industry. Industrial production increased 24-fold between 1948 and 1957. Ch'ang-ch'un became the chief centre of China's automotive industry, manufacturing a variety of trucks, tractors, and cars, while numerous ancillary plants were established to provide components. Other plants produced tires, buses, and railroad cars. In addition, Ch'ang-ch'un also became a centre for machine-tool manufacture, precision engineering, and instrument making, and by the early 1970s a large chemical and pharmaceutical industry had also developed. It is connected by rail with Shen-yan Tsitsihar, Harbin, and Chi-lin. Ch'ang-ch'un is the principal cultural and educational centre of Kirin Province. The former Japanese university has become Kirin University, and a branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has been established in the city. Other institutions include a normal university, industrial and agricultural colleges, and a wide variety of technical colleges and research institutes. Pop. (1984 est.) 1,509,000. born 1148, Chi-hsia, China died 1227, Peking Pinyin Changchun, monastic name Chiu Chu-chi, Pinyin Jiu Zhuji Taoist monk and alchemist who journeyed from China across the heartland of Asia to visit Genghis Khan, the famed Mongol conqueror, at his encampment north of the Hindu Kush mountains. The narrative of Ch'ang-ch'un's expedition, written by his disciple-companion Li Chih-chang, presents faithful and vivid representations of the land and people between the Great Wall of China and Kabul (now in Afghanistan), and between the Yellow Sea and the Aral Sea. Ch'ang-ch'un was a member of a Taoist sect known for extreme asceticism and for the doctrine of hsing-ming, which held that man's natural state had been lost but could be recovered through prescribed practices. In 1188 he was invited to give religious instruction to the Juchen dynasty emperor Shih Tsung, then reigning over northern China. In 1215 the Mongols captured Peking, and in 1219 Genghis Khan sent for Ch'ang-ch'un. He went first to Peking, and, having also received an invitation from the Khan's younger brother, Temge, who lived in northeastern Mongolia, he crossed the Gobi Desert and visited Temge's camp near Buir Nor. Ch'ang-ch'un arrived in Samarkand, now in Uzbekistan, in midwinter (122122) and reached the Khan's Hindu Kush mountain camp in the spring. He returned to Peking in 1224. The account of the journey, Hsi-yu chi (Journey to the West), appeared in an annotated English translation, The Travels of an Alchemist (1931), by Arthur Waley.