The Efection From The Vcissitude Of The Yue-gang To The Zhangzhou

After the Ming Dynasty had been founded, to prevent the Japanese pirates, thegovernors of the Dynasty carried out draconian Sea-Forbidding Policy to forbid anynongovernment trade between two countries. But this policy did not achieve itsdesired objectives. While the Japanese pirates invaded the coastal areas,nongovernment trade still existed in Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and other provinces,thus generating four smuggling port—Shuangyu Port in Zhejiang Province, Nan’aoPort in Guangdong Province, Meiling Port and Yue-gang Port in Fujian Province.Then after the warfare in the year of Renzi, the Ming governors began to introspecttheir Sea-Forbidding Policy, during which the advice of partly lifting the bansuggested by Fujian officials was widely accepted. So in the first year of theLongqing reign, the Ming governors selected Yue-gang as an opening port, thusmaking Yue-gang the only nongovernment trade port in Ming Dynasty.Thanks to Yue-gang’s location in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, the city of Zhangzhouwas greatly influenced by the port. Before Ming Dynasty, Zhangzhou has beenestablished nearly a thousand years, but it stills a piece of wild and uncivilized land.With the development of the port’s trade, goods from China and even from the worldconverged in Yue-gang and then spread out, making Zhangzhou one of the world tradecenters at that time. Not only did it bring economic prosperity to Zhangzhou, but alsothe social, cultural and ideological changes. However, at the end of the Ming Dynasty,Yue-gang was gradually in decline under multiple factors. Worst of all, after theestablishment of the Qing Dynasty, in order to curb Zheng Chenggong of Taiwan, theQing governors ordered the coastal boundary move out thirty Li, leading Yue-gang tothe thorough decline. Without the drive of Yue-gang’s trade, Zhangzhou’s economygradually depressed and people’s production and life style changed.By showing what great changes of Zhangzhou brought about by Yue-gang’s rise anddecline, and by emphasizing the effect of Yue-gang to Zhangzhou, the paper aims atbetter reflecting the historical status of Yue-gang. In order to achieve the aim, thepaper gathers its historical materials not only from economic historical materials oftraditional historical records, but also from the "Yi Wen Zhi" and literary works. Itsearches information from poetry, petitions, brief records, tablets and notes novel toenrich the historical materials so as to discuss Yue-gang’s important status in thehistory of Zhangzhou from multiple angles.