Digital Humanities

I. The Prescription Written in 1381 Here’s a number: 1381. That year, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang issued a decree. At the busiest intersection of Zhangzhou city, a “Huimin Pharmacy” — a public pharmacy — opened its doors. It treated epidemics. It gave out free medicine. It saved poor people’s lives. Now open a map of modern Zhangzhou. That exact spot? Still a hospital. Four hundred years later, the coordinates haven’t moved. ...

In 1866, Zuo Zongtang did something massive in Mawei, Fuzhou. At the confluence of the Min and Wulong Rivers, he built China’s first machine shipyard. Not just China’s first—it was the largest industrial base in the Far East at the time. But what fascinates me about this story isn’t the warships or the ironclads. It’s the numbers. 39 core historical sources. 1.5 million square meters of protected heritage. 582,000 tons of annual shipping. 48 temples. 80 overseas students. 152,000 overseas Chinese. 300 industrial vocabulary words. 18 3D-modeled buildings. ...

Geographical coordinates: Zhangzhou Prefectural City, Haicheng (Yuegang), Zhishan Mountain, Jiulong River, Tongji Bridge, Guiyu Island Have you ever wondered how people celebrated New Year 400 years ago? I was flipping through the Wanli Zhangzhou Fu Zhi when I noticed something: out of 32 volumes, two are dedicated entirely to customs — Volume 2 (Customs) and Volume 6 (Etiquette). Not a casual mention. From exactly how to worship ancestors on New Year’s Day, to how loud the Dragon Boat drums were, to how much a wedding cost — every detail, meticulously recorded. ...

Geographical coordinates: Zhangzhou Prefecture, Jiulong River, Longxi County, Haicheng County (Yuegang), Zhangpu County, Pinghe County, Zhenhai Guard Do you believe that a single water management system could keep running for over 1,300 years? From 686 AD when Chen Yuanguang opened Zhangzhou, through 1573 AD when Luo Qingxiao compiled the Zhangzhou Fu Zhi, all the way to modern satellite remote sensing — the Jiulong River water network never stopped working. ...

Geographical coordinates: Zhangzhou Prefecture (Xiangcheng District), Haicheng County (Yuegang), Zhenhai Guard, Jiulong River Estuary, Zhishan Mountain, Ziyang Mountain Have you ever wondered how people survived natural disasters five hundred years ago? No weather satellites. No ministry of emergency management. No rescue helicopters. When typhoons hit, earthquakes struck, or drought left the fields barren for three years — what did they rely on? I opened the Zhangzhou Fu Zhi from 1573 (1st year of Wanli). Thirty-two volumes, dense with tiny handwritten characters. ...

When Quanzhou people describe their city, they use a phrase: “Half city of smoke, half city of immortals.” The first time I heard it, I thought it was just poetic exaggeration. Then I read the Wanli Quanzhou Prefecture Chronicle and the Quanzhou Religious Chronicle. Turns out it’s not poetry at all. It’s journalism. Starting in 1087, when Quanzhou established the Maritime Trade Office, ships from everywhere poured into this port city with goods and wealth. When the money rolled in, people started to have fun — lantern festivals, dragon boat races, weddings, worship ceremonies. Everything done on a grand scale. ...

One number kept spinning in my head long after I closed the Wanli Zhangzhou Fu Zhi at one in the morning. 2,500 zhang. That’s not just the length of a wall. That’s a nine-kilometer iron-clad defensive line. In the Ming Dynasty, Zhangzhou’s prefectural city was far larger and more sophisticated than any casual image of a “small southern Fujian town” would suggest. It wasn’t a city with a wall around it. It was a military machine wrapped in brick and stone. ...

Here’s a question I couldn’t shake: How does a tree become a business that changes the world? I spent three days digging through the Revised Taiwan Provincial Chronicles: Natural History Volume. I went in expecting a list of native plants. What I found was something else entirely. This wasn’t a botanical catalog. It was a playbook for how a small island at the edge of the world used its trees to break into the global market. ...

I have a friend who is an unapologetic “Quanzhou booster.” Every time travel comes up, he says the same thing: “You’ve never been to Quanzhou? Go. Now.” I asked him what’s so great about it. He thought for a second and said something I’ve never forgotten: “You can walk past six different religious temples in one day in Quanzhou. And none of them have walls between them.” I thought he was exaggerating. ...

Let me ask you a question: Seventy years after Columbus “discovered” the New World, could ordinary Ming citizens legally sail overseas for business? The answer is no. Not only no — doing it without permission could get your head cut off. But there was one exception. Just one. In 1573, the Ming Empire quietly opened a door in Haicheng County, Zhangzhou. It wasn’t a big door. But where it led was Luzon, Manila, Mexico — the entire world. ...