Wújiāng

Wujiang lies south of Suzhou, where the Grand Canal crosses the watery plain near Lake Tai. Mulberry trees, silkworms and looms sustained a network of villages and market towns. Among them, Shengze became known for woven silk, while nearby Zhenze was a centre for trading raw silk.

In the early Ming, Wujiang households hired skilled weavers from Suzhou to work their looms. By the later fifteenth century local people had mastered the craft, and silk workshops spread around Shengze and Huangjiaxi. In the early Qing, merchants arrived from great distances to buy cloth, and the trade encouraged the planting of mulberry trees throughout the southern part of the county. Silk linked the work of rural households to markets far beyond the canal towns.