Jiāodōng

The Jiāodōng are the people of the Shandong Peninsula, which juts between the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea. In antiquity it was the Dongyi state of Lai, whose fishermen and salt-boilers traded along the coast. Qi annexed Lai in 567 BC and built its eastern wall across the peninsula; the Qin ruled it as Qi Commandery and the Han through the Donglai Commandery, while the First Emperor visited Zhifu.

Fishing, salt, iron smelting and silk made it the granary of the East under the Han. Under the Tang, Dengzhou and Laizhou handled the sea trade with Korea and Japan. Its people speak Jiaoliao Mandarin, a dialect carried across the gulf to Liaodong and Manchuria by emigrants.

Ming rule brought coastal war. A watchtower raised at Yantai in 1398 signaled wokou raids, garrisons guarded the shore, and the sea ban uprooted fishing villages and drove trade underground. Under the Qing, Jiaozhou grew into the leading trading port of northern China.