In china's ancient feudal history, there have been hundreds of emperors. According to incomplete statistics, since Qin Shi Huang, there have been nearly 400 emperors with names and surnames.
It is undeniable that the number of practitioners in the profession of the emperor is still not small, but if the number of founding emperors is not much, but where are the founding emperors produced more? The answer is Gansu, which is known as the emperor's hometown.
Gansu is located in northwest China, with an area of 420,000 square kilometers in the east, reaching Xinjiang in the west, Sichuan and Qinghai in the south, and Inner Mongolia and Ningxia in the north.
Historically, Gansu was indeed a passageway, and during the Han Dynasty, the daimyo of the Hexi Corridor was famous in China. But where exactly does the Hexi Corridor refer to? He is Wuwei, Zhangye, Jiuquan and Dunhuang in Gansu Province.
From the beginning of the Han Dynasty, almost all the emperors of successive dynasties, their passages to the West had to pass through these four regions, and the culture and economy of Gansu became very developed because of this union between east and west.
Gansu in history is an important economic corridor, and its value is self-evident. In order to guard the Hexi Corridor, almost all the emperors of all dynasties have sent troops to garrison here. In order to make the defenders not very bored, the emperor also allowed the army to bring their families to the town to defend Gansu.
From this point of view, the Gansu region is not only culturally advanced, economically strong, and has a very large population, with almost all the conditions for development. It is precisely because of this that the foundation was laid for many founding emperors.
So, which areas of Gansu have founding emperors?
As one of the important birthplaces of the Chinese nation and Chinese civilization, Gansu was as early as 8,000 years ago. There are already human beings living here, like the legendary Fuxi, Nuwa, and the Yellow Emperor were all born in Gansu, the place where the Zhou Dynasty rose.
In Qingyang, Gansu, the places where the Qin Dynasty rose were Tianshui and Longnan in Gansu. The roots of the Li family in the prosperous Tang Dynasty are in Longxi, let us say more details. After the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty, Chinese history entered the era of the 16 kingdoms, of which the largest country was the former Liang who controlled Gansu, and its founding emperor was the Gansu Pingliang people, the founding emperor of the Former Qin Dynasty, Jian Jian, was a Gansu Qin'an, and the founding emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Li Yuan, was a Gansu Tianshui person.
From this point of view, this place in Gansu is absolutely brilliant and talented. Historically, Gansu was not only economically prosperous and geographically important, but what is the situation in Gansu today?
In 2016, the GDP ranking of all provinces in the country was released. In this ranking, Gansu Province ranks fourth from the bottom with 715.2 billion yuan, only a little stronger than Ningxia, Qinghai and Tibet, and the per capita GDP is even more impossible to see, directly at the bottom, which can not help but make many people feel very sorry.
Gansu is located in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, the birthplace of the Chinese nation, and the necessary place of the Silk Road. Historically, Gansu is the most prosperous and wealthy region in China, but today it is one of the poorest provinces in the country. Why is that?
The core reason is the rise of shipping and the complete decline of Gansu's economy, which is not something that only exists in modern times. The reason why Gansu's economy has flourished in history is related to land trade. However, with the advent of the great navigation era, trade and trade gradually based on shipping, although the terrain and landforms in Gansu are very complete, there are plateaus, mountains, hills, and deserts, but there is no sea.
Don't look at the Territory of Gansu Province, there are 9 major river systems such as the Yellow River Basin, including the Tao River, the main stream of the Yellow River, and the Jialing River system of the Yangtze River Basin and the inland river. But even so, most of the land is covered with loess in middle age, the vegetation is sparse, and the soil erosion is serious.
In such a situation, not to mention the development of shipping, that is, planting land is very troublesome, not only is it impossible to plant land, but it is also difficult to plant trees. Gansu is a Shaolin province and region, according to the results of the ninth national inventory of forest resources. The forest area of Gansu Province is only 10.46 million hectares, and the forest area of the province is 5.09 million hectares, and the forest coverage rate is only 11%. This is an important reason for slowing down Gansu's economic development.
In addition, the population of Gansu is also relatively small. At the time of the 2019 population census, Gansu's permanent population was only 26.47 million, which was not a little less than that of Henan and Guangdong, which were more populous provinces.
The small population is doomed to have poor domestic demand market potential, no shipping, no domestic demand market, how to attract large enterprises to invest? It is precisely for this reason that for a long time, the economy of Gansu Province has been declining.
After the reform and opening up, the state began to vigorously support Gansu, whether it is the third-line project or the operation of the reverse market economy, as well as the large-scale development of the central and western regions advocated by the state, these projects are pulling the Gansu economy out of the quagmire little by little, especially now, the belt and road advocated by the state is undoubtedly the biggest gospel for Gansu. Under the premise of the Belt and Road Initiative, Gansu Province will also become a key node in opening up transportation in Eurasia.
As the saying goes, "thirty years of Hedong, thirty years of Hexi," the advent of the era of sea power, the decline of Gansu is inevitable. But with the return of the Luquan era, the opportunity for Gansu's economic take-off will also come.