SHAO-HSING

Pinyin Shaoxing, city in northeastern Chekiang sheng (province), China. Shao-hsing is situated in the centre of the eastern half of the coastal plain south of Hang-chou Bay. It lies along the Che-tung Canal, which joins Ning-po to the east with Hsiao-shan on the estuary of the Ch'ien-t'ang River to the west, and also lies on the Ning-poHang-chou railway, which follows the same route. Shao-hsing is an ancient city; in the 7th century BC it was the capital of the state of Yeh, which was later annexed by the state of Ch'u. In 221 BC it became a part of the Ch'in empire and was under the commandery of K'uai-chi. The seat of this commandery was transferred to Shao-hsing in AD 129. With the reunification of China by the Sui dynasty in 589, it became the seat of a prefecture, Yeh, which name it retained until 1131, when, after the fall of the Northern Sung dynasty in 1127, it became the superior prefecture of Shao-hsing. Apart from being an administrative centre of medium rank, Shao-hsing is the commercial centre of a rich and productive agricultural area that was drained and irrigated from very early times. Much of the area yields two crops of rice a year. Cotton, jute, and rapeseed are also widely cultivated. The hill area south of the city is an old, established tea-growing district producing P'ing-shui tea, the history of which can be traced at least to the 7th century. Another traditional industry is wine making. The chief wine-making centre is some 7.5 miles (12 km) west of the city. Before World War II, Shao-hsing had minor industries, producing cotton, silk, lacquer, paper, and tinfoil, all on a comparatively small scale. After 1949 and particularly in the mid-1950s, these handicraft industries were modernized. Wine making is now carried on in large modern wineries. Modern tea-curing, oil-extracting, rice-polishing, and flour-milling plants were also built, and a ceramics industry was begun. In the late 1950s a steelworks was set up in the city. The area is rich in relics of the past, with innumerable burial sites and with many other sites connected with famous figures from Shao-hsing's past. It also has a museum devoted to the writer Lu Hsn (18811936), who was a native of the city. Pop. (1990) 179,818.