Chángshā

Under the Míng the city, renamed Chángshā Prefecture in 1372, spent heavily on opening waterways for trade, and by the late dynasty it ranked among the four great tea markets of China. Across the Xiāng River, Yuèlù Academy, neglected for a century after the Míng founding, revived in the 15th century, and in 1507 the philosopher Wáng Shǒurén came to lecture there. The dynasty's fall brought ruin: in 1643 Zhāng Xiànzhōng's army fought the Míng garrison for Chángshā, and the academy was destroyed in the fighting.

The Qīng rebuilt it, but only a few years later, in 1674, Wú Sānguì seized the city during the Revolt of the Three Feudatories and the academy was wrecked again. Recovery came in the 18th century. From 1723 Chángshā was the seat of the new Húnán provincial administration, and under the Qiánlóng emperor, who honoured the academy with a plaque in his own hand in 1743, its trade revived. The grain of the Dòngtíng lake country made it one of the great rice markets of China, where salt merchants from the Huái came upriver and went home loaded with rice.