Hǎilíng

Hǎilíng, later Tàizhōu, lies between the Yangtze and the Huái on the salt coast of Jiānghuái, where the Southern Táng made it a prefecture in 937 and sea dykes shielded fields and salt works. In the 1350s the region's salt workers made their own history. Zhāng Shìchéng, a salt shipper from Báijū yard in Xīnghuà, rose against the Yuán in 1353 with his brothers and salt dealers, took Tàizhōu, Xīnghuà and Gāoyóu, and proclaimed the state of Zhōu at Gāoyóu in 1354. When Zhū Yuánzhāng turned on him in 1366 he first aimed to take Tōngzhōu and Tàizhōu to clip his arms, and Zhāng was captured the next year.

Under the Míng the city gave its name to a school of thought. In 1526 the prefect invited the commoner Wáng Gèn to lecture at Āndìng Academy, where he taught that "the daily life of ordinary people is the Way". His pupils were woodcutters, potters and salt boilers, and thinkers such as Luó Rǔfāng, Lǐ Zhì and Jiāo Hóng came to be counted among the Tàizhōu school.