SHENSI

Wade-Giles romanization Shen-hsi, Pinyin Shaanxi, Chinese sheng (province) bordered by the Huang Ho (river) and Shansi (Pinyin Shanxi) province to the east, the Ningsia Hui Autonomous Region and Kansu province to the west, the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region to the north, Szechwan province to the south, and Hupeh and Honan provinces to the southeast. The article that follows is a summary of the significant detail about the Chinese province of Shensi; for additional detail about its geography, history, economy, and culture, see China: Shensi. The northern parts of Shensi were some of the earliest settled parts of China. Mesolithic remains have been found, as has evidence of ancient agricultural and construction projects, such as that part of the Great Wall between Shensi and the Ordos Desert. From 221 BC until the T'ang dynasty (618907), the area was wealthy, the focus of a nationwide road system, extremely populous, and the centre of much political activity. The irrigation system upon which Shensi depended, however, began to deteriorate; soil erosion and deforestation became problems, and productivity decreased. The area declined rapidly and during the next millennium became one of the poorest and most backward areas of China. Under the Mongols, from 1279 onward, Shensi assumed its present form as a province. During the 19th century and the first part of the 20th, Shensi was severely damaged by war, famine, drought, and continuing deterioration. Finally there was some relief from the International Famine Relief Organization, which began to rehabilitate the irrigation system of the Wei Ho Valley. The Lunghai Railway was extended into the province, meaning that during future emergencies supplies could be brought in. Shensi came under the control of the Chinese Communists in 1937. The capital of Shensi is Sian. The province has three distinct natural regions: the mountainous southern region, the Wei Ho Valley, and the northern upland plateau. The only major break in the southern mountain chain occurs in the far southwest, where the Chia-ling Chiang (river) cuts through on its way to join the Yangtze. The Wei Ho Valley, bounded on its south by faults and fractures, is especially vulnerable to earthquakes. The upland plateau is composed of largely undisturbed sedimentary rocks of immense thickness. The plateau has a characteristic landscape of almost vertical walls, cliff faces, and deep ravines. Shensi has two distinct climate zones, divided by the Tsinling Shan (mountain range). The southern area has a subtropical climate. The Wei Ho Valley has a much drier and somewhat colder climate, and is subject to severe drought. The Shensi people are nearly all Han Chinese and speak a local Mandarin dialect. There are no ethnic minorities. Most of the population lives in the Wei Ho and Han Shui valleys. Some Chinese Muslims live in the south and northwest of the province. The major cities are Sian, Paochi, Hsien-yang, T'ung-ch'uan, and Han-chung. In the south, corn (maize) and winter wheat are cultivated in addition to rice. Such subtropical crops as tea, tung oil, and citrus fruits are also grown. The Wei Ho Valley is intensely cultivated, producing some rice, good winter wheat, tobacco, cotton, millet, barley, corn (maize), and kaoliang (sorghum). Hemp and sesame are important subsidiary crops. In the past, the whole of Shensi suffered badly from soil erosion. To counteract this a great effort has been made to spread terraced cultivation and to construct a large number of dams. Ancient irrigation systems have been restored after centuries of neglect and the entire system has been extended. The basin in the north of the province has enormous coal reserves; however, there are few modern mines. There are some minor gold-producing areas and minor deposits of manganese and other minerals. The only major industry in Shensi is centred around Sian. Cotton textiles and electrical equipment are produced and the city is a centre for engineering and chemical manufacturing as well. The Wei Ho Valley has formed part of the main east-west route since prehistoric times, and modern highways follow it from the North China Plain in the east to the Kansu corridor and the steppe lands in the west. At Sian these roads meet the routes that cross the Tsinling Shan to the south and southeast, to the Ordos region in the north, and to the Fen Ho Valley and Shansi to the northeast. The northern part of Shensi is still without adequate communications. Area 75,600 sq mi (195,800 sq km). Pop. (1990 est.) 32,882,403. Chinese (Wade-Giles) Shen-hsi, (Pinyin) Shaanxi, sheng (province) of China. It is bordered by the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to the north, by the Huang Ho (Yellow River) and Shansi Province in the east, by Szechwan Province in the south, by Hupeh and Honan provinces in the southeast, and by the Hui Autonomous Region of Ningsia and Kansu Province on the west. Its total area is 79,400 square miles (205,600 square kilometres). The capital is Sian. History Northern Shensi The early period The northern parts of Shensi, particularly the Wei Valley, were some of the earliest settled parts of China. In the valley some remains of the Mesolithic Period have been found, while there are Neolithic Yang-shao culture sites spreading along the whole of the westeast corridor from Kansu to Honan, showing that this was already an important route. Chinese Neolithic culture was probably first developed in the Wei Valley. It remained an important centre of the later Neolithic Lung-shan culture and then became the first home of the Chou people, who in the late 12th century BC invaded the territories of their overlords, the Shang, to the east, and set up a dynasty in 1111 that exercised some degree of political authority over much of North China. Until 771 BC the political centre of the Chou was at Hao, near modern Sian. For the early agriculturalists, working the ground with primitive stone-tipped tools, the slopes of loess and river terraces provided ideal farmlandlight, stone-free, and fertile. The natural cover, too, was mostly grass and scrub and could be easily cleared for temporary cultivation. After the 8th century BC the Chou lost much of their authority and moved their capital eastward to Lo-yang in Honan Province, after which Shensi became something of a backwater. Gradually, however, the predynastic Ch'in state, which controlled the area, began to develop into a strong centralized polity of a totally new kind, able to mobilize mass labour for vast construction projects, such as the part of the Great Wall of China built between Shensi and the Ordos Desert. One of the greatest of these tasks was the completion in the Wei Valley of a large and efficient irrigation system based on the Cheng-kuo and Pai-kung canals and centred around the junction of the Ching and Wei rivers. This system, completed in the 3rd century BC, watered some 450,000 acres (180,000 hectares) and provided the powerful economic base for the Ch'in's eventual conquest of the whole of China. The middle period In 221 BC Hsien-yang, in Shensi, became the capital of the Ch'in dynasty, which unified China for the first time; it was a city of vast wealth and the focus of a nationwide road system. The area remained extremely populous and was a major centre of political authority for the next millennium. The Han (206 BCAD 220), successors of the short-lived Ch'in dynasty, made their capital Ch'ang-an, near Hsien-yang. Later, in the 6th century, when after some centuries of disunion the Sui (581618) again unified the empire, their capitalTa-hsingwas on the same site as Ch'ang-an, which also was the capital of the T'ang (618907). Ch'ang-an, as the capital was now once more known, was by far the largest and most magnificent city in the world in its day and was immensely wealthy. But by this time the irrigation system upon which Shensi primarily depended had begun to deteriorate, soil erosion and deforestation had begun to be problems, and the productivity of the area declined. The maintenance of a huge metropolis of more than 1,000,000 people in the area consequently necessitated the difficult and costly transportation of vast quantities of grain and provisions from the eastern plains and the Yangtze Valley. The capital remained in Shensi largely because the area (known as Kuan-chungliterally Within the Passes) was easily defended and was of crucial importance, as a frontier with China's neighbours. After the sack of Ch'ang-an in 882, however, no dynasty ever again had its capital in the northwest, and the area rapidly declined in importance as the economic centre of the empire gradually gravitated toward the Yangtze Valley and the South. During the next millennium Shensi became one of the poorest and most backward of China's provinces.