SHEN-YANG

formerly Mukden, Pinyin Shenyang capital of Liaoning sheng (province), China, and the largest city in the Northeast (formerly Manchuria). It is one of China's greatest industrial centres. The Lower Liao Basin, from the time of the Han dynasty (206 BCAD 220), has been known as the Chinese Pale, an area settled chiefly by immigrants from what are now the provinces of Hopeh and Shantung. The rest of Manchuria was under the control of various nomadic and tribal peoples of whom the Manchus became the most important. The Pale was largely set off from the rest of Manchuria by a discontinuous wall known as the Willow Palisade; and Shen-yang, then known as Shen, was a frontier post along the edge of the wall. By the 10th century, Shen had become a major frontier settlement of the Khitan kingdom; its dominant peoples, also known as the Khitan, founded the Liao dynasty (9471125). Southern Manchuria was conquered by the Chin, or Juchen, peoples by 112223 and a century later by the Mongols, who by about 1280 had completed their conquest of all China. It was under the Mongols that the name Shen-yang was first applied to Shen. By 1368 the Ming dynasty had displaced the Mongols. In the early 17th century the Manchus controlled all of Manchuria, and Shen, renamed Mukden (a Manchu name), proved an admirable organizing base for the conquest of China. In 1644, when the Manchus supplanted the Mings on the Imperial throne, the capital was transferred to Peking. Mukden retained its prestige as the older capital of the reigning dynasty, however; the tombs of earlier emperors at Pei Ling (North Mausoleum) are among the most famous monuments of China. Thereafter, the city grew steadily, especially in the last half of the 19th century when Chinese immigration to Manchuria reached flood proportions. In the period of struggle between Russia and Japan for dominance in Manchuria after 1895, Mukden was inevitably one of the key positions. From that time, when the Russians gained rights to build railroads in Manchuria, Mukden was a Russian stronghold; during the Russo-Japanese War (190405) it was the scene of the Battle of Mukden, which lasted from February 19 to March 10, 1905, when the city finally fell to the Japanese. In the early 1920s the Chinese warlord Chang Tso-lin, a protg of the Japanese, participated with other warlords in the struggle for control of Peking. The last warlord to resist the advance of the Kuomintang (National Party) Army against Peking in 1928, he was killed in his retreat with his defeated troops. Three years later, on Sept. 18, 1931, an explosion touched off the Mukden Incident. An alleged Chinese bomb went off on the railway track near Mukden and gave the signal for a surprise Japanese attack on the Chinese Nationalist garrison and arsenal in Mukden. After protracted fighting, the Chinese forces were driven out of Manchuria. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan in early August 1945 and soon took Mukden. Several months after the surrender of Japan on Aug. 14, 1945, Mukden was occupied by Chinese Nationalist troops (in March 1946). During the ensuing civil war (194649) Mukden fell to Communist forces on Oct. 30, 1948. The city then served as a base for the subsequent Communist conquest of the entire Chinese mainland. Since 1950 Mukden, again under the name of Shen-yang, has continued as the hub of the heavy industrial complex of the southern region of China's Northeast, the greatest in China. The chief manufactures are machinery and fabricated metals. Rolling stock, machine tools, wire and cables, cement, electrical equipment, chemicals and chemical fertilizers, and pharmaceuticals are produced there. The complex also includes oil-seed-processing plants, flour mills, paper plants, soap and leather factories, textile mills, and glass factories. The smelting of metals such as copper, zinc, lead, and manganese also is an important part of the industrial mix of the city. Shen-yang remains, after Peking, the leading railway centre of China. A network of roads converges on the city, and bus services link the various parts of the metropolis. An airport, constructed by the Japanese, is located on the northern outskirts. Shen-yang has long functioned as the education and cultural centre of the Northeast. The city houses Liaoning University, Northeastern China Technical University, Northeastern Engineering College, Northeastern Institute of Finance and Economics, and a medical college. In addition to theatres and libraries, it is the home of the Northeastern Institute of Fine Arts and the Northeastern Music Institute. It is also the site of the Northeast Museum and of the North Mausoleum and other Chinese historical monuments. Pop. (1983 est.) 4,020,000.