The Study Of The Urban Structure, Functions And The Early Transformation In Yangtze River's Anhui Region

Anqing City and Wuhu City were the two biggest political and commercial central cities in Anhui Province during the Qing Dynasty. These two were quite typical in their development process and their development tracks. They have also represented the city's development fate. This thesis will explore the two's urban management mechanisms and their factors including positive and negative ones towards the city development, and then a qualitative analysis will be carried out from the perspective of urban structure, urban function and the early urban transformationFrom the point of urban structure, Anqing's urban spatial structure emphasizes its defensiveness. By the end of Qing Dynasty Anqing hadn't broke through the boundary of city wall so all kinds of political and economic activities were restricted in this kind of closed atmosphere and even this situation of city wall with city gates were becoming more serious with the increase of the military function. The economic structure was consumption-orientated trade with undeveloped crafts. The narrowness of the urban area made its economy totally depend on the motivation of its administrative force. At the same time, Anqing was the educational center in Anhui during the Qing Dynasty and the majority of its citizen was the local gentlemen with a good quality, but due to the fetter of feudal society tradition their commercial conception was light. Wuhu was the economic centre of the Yangzi River region in Anhui during the Qing Dynasty. Being the transport city connecting the middle and the south Anhui area Wuhu City formed a developed water transportation net so its urban structure, economic structure and social structure appeared to be sharply different from Anqing's. In terms of urban structure, Wuhu has been a city without a wall for so long. The city frame has been totally oriented towards the economic interests. Its extension moved from the inner river bank to the Yangtzi River bank line and experienced a course of mingling the port and the city. The developed transportation trade and commerce-centered tradition made it become the famous commercial and coastal city since the Ming Dynasty.From the point of urban function, Anqing mainly played the function of politics and it had been the located place for the local first-class or second-class government and other administrative bureaus. It was the capital of Anhui Province during the early days of Qing Dynasty; thus its political status quo had been very important. At the meantime, its urban military function, economic function and cultural function also had been raised. For a long time Wuhu City only had been the county administrative bureaus location. Even during a period these bureaus had been discarded. So to some extent it can't be in the same position as Anqing in terms of political function. Its main function has been in its economy-domain, on the basis of which the political function and cultural function has been added.From the point of urban transformation, at the end of Qing Dynasty Anqing transformation mainly focused on the renovations from the ups to the downs in the field of the official system. The transformation area concentrated on the political arena, manifested in the founding of modern political system. However, Wuhu's modern transformation centered on the economic area, especially carried out first by the folk force. Planned and supported by the foreigners the city had goner through a development path from the decay to the prosperity benefited from the trade. Now its economic modernization had achieved great success. Wuhu once became one of the most developed regions in Anhui Province, but its development didn't achieve the position of modern industrial city from the commercial city as expected. During the Kuomingtang times when the whole country was rich in the atmosphere of commerce and transportation movement Wuhu's development slowed down due to the lack of productivity. It lost its commercial development momentum.Peeping at the whole development process of Anqing City and Wuhu City, we can conclude that during the early and hey days of Qing Dynasty Anqing developed more quickly than Wuhu, while at the end of Qing Dynasty Wuhu overtook Anqing. This is the result of management mechanisms changing during different times. In pre-modern period the political central city got the momentum of development whereas in modern times pressed by the foreign force the transformed economic central city took over momentum of development.