Digital Humanities

Deep in the mountains of southeastern China lives a people who call themselves “Shan-ha.” In the She language, “Shan-ha” means “guests of the mountains.” That name alone reveals a way of being—they never claimed to be masters of the land. Just visitors. But these “guests” have been living in Fuzhou’s highlands for nearly 1,300 years—ever since the Tang Dynasty. I opened the Fuzhou She Nationality Records looking for one answer: how does an ethnic group with no written script preserve its language, dress, and beliefs for over a millennium? ...

Have you ever thought about what a bridge can tell you? Not just “this side to that side.” The width, the length, the number of stone piers, who donated how much to build it—these numbers hide a whole code of power, capital, and everyday life. I’m not talking about modern bridges. I’m talking about the bridges recorded in the Zhangzhou Fu Zhi from 1573 AD. They spanned the Jiulong River, connecting not just two banks, but 500 years of logistics networks—and the hopes of every family who once crossed them on their way to Southeast Asia. ...

Geographical Connections Specific Place Names Mentioned: Nanhou Street, Yijin Lane, Wenru Lane, Guanglu Lane, Yangqiao Alley, Langguan Alley, Ta Alley, Huang Alley, Anmin Alley, Gong Alley, Jibi Alley. I. 38 Hectares of Density 282 AD. The Jin Dynasty. A prefect named Yan Gao raised a walled city on the Min River floodplain. No one called it “Sanfang Qixiang” yet. But the blueprint was already pressed into the mud. By 725 AD, the city had a name: Fuzhou. ...

Geographical Connections Specific locations: Zhangzhou Prefectural City, Longxi County Seat, Zhangpu County, Changtai County, Nanjing County, Pinghe County, Zhao’an County, Haicheng County, Ningyang County, Prefectural School (Confucian Temple), Zhishan Academy. I. The Administrative Blueprint in Local Chronicles Local chronicles aren’t just geography. They’re the operation logs of power. 1573. The first year of the Wanli era. Prefect Luo Qingxiao compiled the Zhangzhou Fu Zhi — 32 volumes. In Volume 3 (Electoral Records) and Volume 4 (Official Records), he catalogued every part of a precisely tuned bureaucratic machine: officer quotas, selection standards, performance metrics. These numbers are the raw data for reconstructing Ming local governance. ...

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. ...

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. ...