Editing Yangtze (section)

=== Early history ===
{{Further|Baiyue|state of Wu|state of Yue|state of Chu|Yangtze civilization|Southward expansion of the Han Dynasty}}

The Yangtze River is important to the cultural origins of [[northern and southern China|southern China]] and Japan.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.trussel.com/prehist/news111.htm|title=Yayoi linked to Yangtze area|website=trussel.com|access-date=March 26, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170222044801/http://www.trussel.com/prehist/news111.htm|archive-date=February 22, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> Human activity has been verified in the [[Three Gorges]] area as far back as 27,000 years ago,<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Wanpo | first1=Huang | last2=Ciochon | first2=Russell | last3=Yumin | first3=Gu | last4=Larick | first4=Roy | last5=Qiren | first5=Fang | last6=Schwarcz | first6=Henry | last7=Yonge | first7=Charles | last8=de Vos | first8=John | last9=Rink | first9=William | title=Early Homo and associated artefacts from Asia | journal=Nature | publisher=Springer Science and Business Media LLC | volume=378 | issue=6554 | year=1995 | issn=0028-0836 | doi=10.1038/378275a0 | pages=275–278| pmid=7477345 | bibcode=1995Natur.378..275W }}</ref> and by the 5th millennium&nbsp;BC, the lower Yangtze was a major population center occupied by the [[Hemudu culture|Hemudu]] and [[Majiabang culture]]s, both among the earliest cultivators of rice. By the 3rd millennium&nbsp;BC, the successor [[Liangzhu culture]] showed evidence of influence from the [[Longshan culture|Longshan peoples]] of the [[North China Plain]].<ref name="Goodenough&Chang">{{cite book
| title = Prehistoric settlement of the Pacific | editor-first = Ward H. | editor-last = Goodenough | publisher = American Philosophical Society | year = 1996 | isbn = 978-0-87169-865-0 | chapter = Archaeology of southeastern coastal China and its bearing on the Austronesian homeland | first1 = Kwang-chih | last1 = Chang | first2 = Ward H. | last2 = Goodenough | pages = 36–54 }}</ref> What is now thought of as [[Han Chinese|Chinese culture]] developed along the more fertile [[Yellow River]] basin; the "[[Baiyue|Yue]]" people of the lower Yangtze possessed very different traditions {{ndash}} [[teeth blackening|blackening their teeth]], cutting their hair [[long hair#Asia|short]], [[History of tattooing#China|tattooing]] their bodies, and living in small settlements among bamboo groves<ref name=Hutcheon>Hutcheon, Robin. ''China-Yellow'', p. 4. Chinese University Press, 1996. {{ISBN|978-962-201-725-2}}.</ref> {{ndash}} and were considered [[Hua-Yi distinction|barbarous]] by the northerners.

The Central Yangtze valley was home to sophisticated [[Neolithic]] cultures.<ref>Zhang Chi ({{lang|zh-hant|張弛}}), "The Qujialing-Shijiahe Culture in the Middle Yangzi River Valley," in A Companion to Chinese Archaeology, ed. Anne P. Underhill (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2013), 510–534; Rowan K. Flad and Pochan Chen, Ancient Central China: Centers and Peripheries along the Yangzi River (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 116–25.</ref> Later it became the earliest part of the Yangtze valley to be integrated into the North Chinese cultural sphere. (Northern Chinese were active there since the [[Bronze Age]]).<ref>Li Liu and Xingcan Chen, State Formation in Early China (London: Duckworth, 2003), 75–79, 116–26; Li Feng, Landscape and Power in Early China: The Crisis and Fall of the Western Zhou, 1045–771 BC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 322–32.</ref>

[[File:Streitende-Reiche2.jpg|thumb|A map of the [[Warring States period|Warring States]] around 350 BC, showing the former coastline of the Yangtze delta]]
In the lower Yangtze, two [[Baiyue|Yue]] tribes, the ''[[Gouwu]]'' in southern [[Jiangsu]] and the ''[[Yuyue]]'' in northern [[Zhejiang]], display increasing Zhou (i.e., North Chinese) influence starting in the 9th century&nbsp;BC. Traditional accounts<ref>For example, in [[Sima Qian]]'s ''[[Records of the Grand Historian]]''.</ref> credit these changes to northern refugees ([[Wu Taibo|Taibo]] and [[Zhongyong of Wu|Zhongyong]] in Wu and [[Wuyi of Yue|Wuyi]] in Yue) who assumed power over the local tribes, though these are generally assumed to be myths invented to legitimate them to other Zhou rulers. As the kingdoms of [[state of Wu|Wu]] and [[state of Yue|Yue]], they were famed as fishers, shipwrights, and sword-smiths. Adopting [[Chinese characters]], political institutions, and military technology, they were among the most powerful [[Ancient Chinese states|states]] during the later [[Zhou dynasty|Zhou]]. In the middle Yangtze, the [[state of Jing]] seems to have begun in the upper Han River valley a minor Zhou polity, but it adapted to native culture as it expanded south and east into the Yangtze valley. In the process, it changed its name to [[state of Chu|Chu]].<ref>Lothar von Falkenhausen, Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius (1000–250 BC): The Archaeological Evidence (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, 2006), 262–88; Constance A. Cook and John S. Major, eds. Defining Chu: Image and Reality in Ancient China (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1999).</ref>

Whether native or nativizing, the Yangtze states held their own against the northern Chinese homeland: some lists credit them with three of the [[Spring and Autumn period]]'s [[Five Hegemons]] and one of the [[Warring States]]' [[Four Lords of the Warring States|Four Lords]]. They fell in against themselves, however. Chu's growing power led its rival [[Jin (Chinese state)|Jin]] to support Wu as a counter. Wu successfully sacked Chu's capital [[Ying (Chu)|Ying]] in 506&nbsp;BC, but Chu subsequently supported Yue in its attacks against Wu's southern flank. In 473&nbsp;BC, [[King Goujian of Yue]] fully annexed Wu and moved his court to its [[Wu (city)|eponymous capital]] at modern Suzhou. In 333&nbsp;BC, Chu finally united the lower Yangtze by annexing Yue, whose royal family was said to have fled south and established the [[Minyue]] kingdom in [[Fujian]]. [[state of Qin|Qin]] was able to unite China by first subduing [[Ba (state)|Ba]] and [[Shu (kingdom)|Shu]] on the upper Yangtze in modern [[Sichuan]], giving them a strong base to attack Chu's settlements along the river.

The state of Qin conquered the central Yangtze region, the previous heartland of Chu, in 278 BC, and incorporated the region into its expanding empire. Qin then used its connections along the [[Xiang River]] to expand into [[Hunan]], Jiangxi and [[Guangdong]], setting up military commanderies along the main lines of communication. At the [[collapse of the Qin Dynasty]], these southern commanderies became the independent [[Nanyue Empire]] under [[Zhao Tuo]] while Chu and Han [[Chu-Han Contention|vied with each other]] for control of the north.

Since the [[Han dynasty]], the region of the Yangtze River grew ever more important to China's economy. The establishment of irrigation systems (the most famous one is [[Dujiangyan Irrigation System|Dujiangyan]], northwest of Chengdu, built during the [[Warring States]] period) made agriculture very stable and productive, eventually exceeding even the [[Yellow River]] region. The Qin and Han empires were actively engaged in the agricultural colonization of the Yangtze lowlands, maintaining a system of dikes to protect farmland from seasonal floods.<ref>Brian Lander, "State Management of River Dikes in Early China: New Sources on the Environmental History of the Central Yangzi Region." T'oung Pao 100.4–5 (2014): 325–362.</ref> By the Song dynasty, the area along the Yangtze had become among the wealthiest and most developed parts of the country, especially in the lower reaches of the river. Early in the Qing dynasty, the region called [[Jiangnan]] (that includes the southern part of [[Jiangsu]], the northern part of [[Zhejiang]] and [[Jiangxi]], and the southeastern part of [[Anhui]]) provided {{frac|1|3}}–{{frac|1|2}} of the nation's revenues.

The Yangtze has long been the backbone of China's inland water transportation system, which remained particularly important for almost two thousand years, until the construction of the national railway network during the 20th century. The [[Grand Canal (China)|Grand Canal]] connects the lower Yangtze with the major cities of the [[Jiangnan]] region south of the river ([[Wuxi]], [[Suzhou, Jiangsu|Suzhou]], [[Hangzhou]]) and with northern China (all the way from [[Yangzhou]] to Beijing). The less well known ancient [[Lingqu Canal]], connecting the upper [[Xiang River]] with the headwaters of the [[Gui River|Guijiang]], allowed a direct water connection from the Yangtze Basin to the [[Pearl River Delta]].<ref>[https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5339/ Lingqu Canal (Xiang'an County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Qin Dynasty)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190228071501/http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5339/ |date=February 28, 2019 }} (Nomination for the UNESCO Heritage List)</ref>

Historically, the Yangtze was the political boundary between north China and south China several times (see [[History of China]]) because crossing the river was difficult. This occurred notably during the [[Southern and Northern Dynasties]], and the [[Southern Song]]. Many battles took place along the river, the most famous being the [[Battle of Red Cliffs]] in 208 AD during the [[Three Kingdoms]] period.

The Yangtze was the site of naval battles between the [[Song dynasty]] and [[Jurchen people|Jurchen]] [[Jin dynasty (1115-1234)|Jin]] during the [[Jin–Song wars]]. In the [[Battle of Caishi]] of 1161, the ships of the Jin emperor [[Wanyan Liang]] clashed with the [[Naval history of China|Song fleet]] on the Yangtze. Song soldiers fired bombs of [[Lime (material)|lime]] and [[sulfur]] using trebuchets at the Jurchen warships. The battle was a Song victory that halted the invasion by the Jin.<ref>{{cite book|first=Jing-shen|last=Tao|chapter=A Tyrant on the Yangtze: The Battle of T'sai-shih in 1161|title=Excursions in Chinese Culture|year=2002|publisher=Chinese University Press|isbn=978-962-201-915-7|pages=149–155}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Joseph|last=Needham|title=Science and Civilisation in China: Military technology: The Gunpowder Epic, Volume 5, Part 7|year=1987|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-30358-3|page=166}}</ref> The [[Battle of Tangdao]] was another Yangtze naval battle in the same year.

Politically, [[Nanjing]] was the capital of China several times, although most of the time its territory only covered the southeastern part of China, such as the [[Eastern Wu|Wu kingdom]] in the Three Kingdoms period, the [[Eastern Jin Dynasty]], and during the [[Southern and Northern Dynasties]] and [[Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms]] periods. Only the [[Ming dynasty|Ming]] occupied most parts of China from their capital at [[Nanjing]], though it later moved the capital to Beijing. The [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|ROC]] capital was located in [[Nanjing]] in the periods 1911–12, 1927–37, and 1945–49.

{{wide image|Anonymous-Ten Thousand Miles of the Yangtze River.jpg|5000px|''Ten Thousand Miles of the Yangtze River'', a [[Ming dynasty]] landscape painting}}