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Xinjiang was called "Western Regions" in ancient times, and it was not until the Guangxu Decade (1884) that it was renamed Xinjiang and continues to use it today.
Why did you replace the name "Xiyu" with "Xinjiang"?
This has to start after the First Opium War in 1840.
Several generations of emperors in the early Qing Dynasty regarded the unification of all of China as their mission.
After the First Opium War, the Western Regions, like the rest of the motherland, gradually degenerated into a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society, while the Qing Dynasty was in decline day by day, and China's territorial sovereignty was trampled on by imperialism. The western region, located in the northwestern frontier, was even more bitterly encroached upon by Tsarist Russia. As early as 1860, Tsarist Russia used the Sino-Russian Beijing Treaty signed with the Qing government to cut off more than 1 million square kilometers of territory in northeast China. In 1864, Tsarist Russia used military and diplomatic intimidation to force the Qing government to sign the "Sino-Russian Survey and Division of the Northwest Boundary", occupying more than 440,000 square kilometers of Chinese territory southeast of Lake Balkhash. If you add the later "Ili Treaty", Tsarist Russia has forcibly occupied 1.5 million square kilometers of China's territory before and after.
Seeing that Tsarist Russia wantonly invaded and occupied China's territory and saw the corruption and weakness of the Qing government, even the small country of Kokand in Central Asia, which is adjacent to the western region, has also set up ambitions to seize the opportunity to invade and occupy our territory. Since the middle of the 18th century, the Kokand Khanate has been captive feudal and Zhuo descendants who have run out of china's western regions and used them to interfere with the internal affairs of Xinjiang. In the 19th century, they took advantage of the unfavorable international situation for our country at that time to instigate and enter Xinjiang to cause chaos. The "Rebellion of the Seven Harmonies" led by Katatiol and Urihan in 1847 was the result of the connivance and support of the Kokand nobility. Under the banner of "holy war," these reactionaries and zhuosta attacked cities and plundered land, committing all kinds of evil deeds, and brought deep disasters to the people of all nationalities in the western region. In 1865, Agubai, an officer of the Khanate of Kokand, with the support of Britain and Russia, kidnapped Zhang Ge's descendant Busuluk and openly invaded southern Xinjiang, occupying Kashgar, Ingisha, Yarkand, Khotan, Aksu, Ush, and Kuqa in the southern Tianshan Mountains. In 1867, Agupa brazenly established the so-called "Zhedshar (Seven Cities)" khanate.
After that, he successively occupied Turpan and Dihua (Urumqi) in the east of Tianshan. At this point, most of Xinjiang was under the rule of Agubai. He brutally enslaved peoples of all ethnic groups, imposed religious despotism, forced other peoples to conform to Islam, and killed tens of thousands of people.
The following year, under the pretext of the Ili peasant revolt and the threat to Russia's security by the Agubai forces, Tsarist Russia openly sent troops to invade and occupy Ili under the pretext of protection and guardianship, which came under the jurisdiction of Russia's Seven Rivers Province, and further coveted the entire western region. Our western regions whimpered under the ravages of great powers, big and small. The western region is in danger of being divided and occupied by foreign countries.
Faced with the danger of the division of the western frontier, the Qing government regained the attention of the rulers after a debate over the so-called "coastal defense and Cypriot defense". In the first year of Guangxu (1875), Zuo Zongtang, the elderly governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, was appointed as the minister of Qincha and supervised the military affairs of Xinjiang at a time of crisis. Due to the formulation of the correct marching route and tactics of "first the north and then the south" and "slow advance and rapid warfare", as well as the reserve of sufficient grain and grass, and the rectification of military morale, in June 1876, more than 70,000 Qing troops directly inserted into the northern Xinjiang region, Lianke Urumqi, Manas, Turfan and other places, defeated the invading army, Agubai was cornered, and was forced to take poison and commit suicide. Subsequently, the Qing army took advantage of the victory to pursue, and marched south, lianke Yanqi, Korla, Aksu, Wushi, Kashgar, Khotan and other southern Xinjiang, by the end of the third year of Guangxu (1877), the Qing army had recovered all parts of southern Xinjiang, and the aggressive regime established by Agubai in Xinjiang was completely destroyed. The Qing army's military operation to retake Xinjiang certainly received strong support from the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, who were in dire straits.
The collapse of the Agubai regime was followed by the reconquest of Ili. Regardless of his old age and infirmity, Zuo Zongtang personally came to the hami camp at the age of 68 to command and vowed to fight to the death against Tsarist Russia, and his actions greatly boosted the morale of the Qing army. However, the incompetent Qing government signed the Sino-Russian Ili Treaty with Tsarist Russia in February of the seventh year of Guangxu (1881), and Tsarist Russia withdrew its troops the following year, but China wanted to compensate Tsarist Russia for military expenses of 9 million rubles (more than 5 million taels of silver), and allowed Russian businessmen to trade in Xinjiang without paying taxes, and set up consulates in Jiayuguan and Turfan. In the eighth year of Guangxu (1882), Ili, which had been forcibly occupied by Tsarist Russia for 11 years, finally returned to the embrace of the motherland.
At the same time that Zuo Zongtang recovered the Western Regions, he also deeply reflected on the stubborn social diseases of the time, and the "military government system" in the Western Regions and the Burke system in the Uyghur region with the remnants of strong feudal serf rule seriously hindered the progress and development of Xinjiang society. In essence, the "military government system" is to manage the military and government regardless of civil affairs, the military and government are divided, and civil affairs are mostly managed by the local prince Burke. In a feudal society that lacked an effective supervision mechanism, Burke's monopoly of power was easy to form a local feudal separatist force, which was not conducive to Xinjiang's social stability and economic development. Therefore, the establishment of provinces and the implementation of the county system have become inevitable for the historical development of Xinjiang.
After several generations of efforts, the Qing government's control of China continued to expand and consolidate. By the time of the Qianlong Emperor (1736-1796 AD), the Qing government's decrees could finally be applied to every corner of China.
(Pingding Western Regions Map)
The Qianlong Emperor called xinjiang the region that was finally ruled by the Qing government he established.
(Qianlong Pingding Western Region Map)
After the Qing government quelled the rebellion of the Dzungars, the northern and southern regions of the Tianshan Mountains, which were known in ancient times as the Western Regions, were also known as Xinjiang.
The emergence of the name Xinjiang has another meaning. After Zuo Zongtang recovered Xinjiang from Agubai in 1878, the Russian invaders were forced to return the Ili region in 1882. Therefore, Zuo Zongtang vigorously advocated the establishment of a province in the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains. In a note to the Qing emperor, he called Xinjiang "a place where his clan is forced, and the homeland is newly returned."
Therefore, the name of Xinjiang as a province has a new meaning: that is, Xinjiang has been An inherent territory of China since ancient times, but because it is a lost land newly recovered from Agubai and Tsarist Russia, Xinjiang is designated as the name of the province, which has the meaning of "new return to the homeland". In 1884, Xinjiang was established as a province and officially named Xinjiang Province.
(Zhang Qian's envoy to the Western Regions)
From the oral tradition, the term "Xinjiang", which has become a noun that specifically refers to the western region of China, has been used today.
(Statue of Zuo Zongtang)
Xinjiang was peacefully liberated in 1949. The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was established on October 1, 1955, with 14 prefectures, prefectures and cities and 88 counties (cities) in Xinjiang, of which 33 are border counties (cities).
The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is a world-famous country of song and dance, the town of melons and fruits, and the land of gold and jade. Xinjiang is vast, the land is vast, the mountains and rivers are magnificent, the Hanhai is boundless, the monuments are everywhere, there are many nationalities, and the folk customs are strange.
Xinjiang's tourism resources are extremely rich, with a total of 68 kinds of tourism resources in the country, while There are 56 kinds in Xinjiang, accounting for 83% of the national tourism resource types. There are more than 1,100 scenic spots in Xinjiang, ranking first in the country.
In this vast land, the glacier snow ridge and the Gobi Han sea coexist, and the plateau landscape is contained in the world famous mountains such as the Tianshan Mountains, the Altai Mountains, and the Kunlun Mountains, with many snowy glaciers, overlapping peaks, flying spring waterfalls, and rare and exotic beasts.
There is the world's second highest peak at 8600 meters above sea level, and there is China's lowest depression 154 meters below sea level, with thousands of miles of rivers, thousands of acres of blue grasslands, and strange Gobi illusions and mysterious desert wonders. The well-preserved population of primitive animals and plants shows the unique nature of nature.