Wúxiàn

Late in the Yuán, Zhāng Shìchéng made Sūzhōu his capital and styled himself Prince of Wú, until Zhū Yuánzhāng's army broke through its walls in 1367. Under the Míng and Qīng it grew richer than ever on silk. By the later Míng its looms stood in workshops where the master put up the money and hired weavers their labour, and the Hǔshù customs post outside the walls collected the second-highest revenue among the empire's eight great customs stations. Such wealth drew the court's tax commissioners: in 1601, when Sūn Lóng laid new levies on the looms, the workshops shut and the weaver Gě Xián led the crowds that besieged his office until he fled to Hángzhōu. Under the Qīng, Sūzhōu ranked among the four great commercial centres of the realm, and rice from the middle Yangtze poured into Fēngqiáo outside its gates, the largest grain market in China.