Jiāxīng

Its rice fields made the prefecture one of the granaries of the empire, and the Míng valued it enough to govern it directly from the capital. In 1429 its larger counties were divided, leaving Jiāxīng a prefecture of seven counties, with Jiāxīng and the new Xiùshuǐ sharing the prefectural city, an arrangement that would last for four centuries. That prosperity ended in the summer of 1645, when soldiers and townspeople refused the Qīng order to shave their heads; the Qīng army stormed the city and massacred its people, and Jiāxīng fell from its former wealth. Recovery came only in the middle Qīng, when the sea walls along Hángzhōu Bay were rebuilt again and again and the market towns of the plain filled once more.