3. A Self-Opened Port: The Chinese Quarter Saves Itself (1843–1911)
An urban district fought into existence
Zhabei's urbanisation did not begin with a plan. It began with resistance.
In the late nineteenth century the British and American concessions in Shanghai expanded several times. In 1899 the northern boundary of the International Settlement was pushed out to the line of today's Mudong Road, East Jiaxing Road and the southern end of Jungong Road. By that point Zhabei's eastern side already adjoined the concession, and its western and southern sides were separated from it by nothing but Suzhou Creek.
In other words, Zhabei was enveloped by the concession on three sides.
Local merchants and gentry drew a blunt conclusion: if we do not act, this land is gone. And so:
In 1900, the twenty-sixth year of the Guangxu reign of the Qing, gentry from Zhabei and Baoshan, acting with official support and backed by Liu Kunyi, Viceroy of Liangjiang, formed the Zhabei Engineering Bureau — Shanghai's first non-governmental municipal body — chiefly to cut roads.
The Cantonese merchant Chen Shaochang, the Zhejiang merchant Zhu Chenggui and others were the leading movers. Their logic was to open a port themselves: if you will not let me into the concession, I will build, inside the Chinese-administered city, somewhere that can stand comparison with it.
The place of this episode in Shanghai's modern history is higher than most people assume: it was the first time the Chinese quarter had taken the initiative in city-building, and done so systematically.
Roads first: the makings of a network
The bureau's first business was cutting roads and building bridges. The roadmap was clear (per the Gazetteer of Zhabei District, the Continued Gazetteer of Baoshan County, and others):
| Date | Action | Result |
|---|---|---|
| From 1900 | Build North Henan Road (today's Henan North Road), joining the concession in the south | An eastern north–south artery |
| Same period | Build Baoshan Road, running north to the Target Range (today's Hongkou Park) | A second eastern north–south artery |
| Same period | Build a "New Bridge" (the Xinzha Bridge) over Suzhou Creek north of Shimen No. 2 Road | Opening up Suzhou Creek |
| Same period | North of the bridge, cut Xindaqiao Road and Xinzhaqiao Road | Two western north–south arteries |
| 1909–1910 | Cut Haichang Road, South / North Chuanhong Road and Baoxing Road between the three arteries | Linking them into a network |
By 1917 the Continued Gazetteer of Baoshan County recorded 27 roads in Zhabei. In little more than a decade, a road system that could reach the concession and mesh internally had begun to take shape.
Politics in a street name: 1911 written on the map
After the Republic of China was founded, the Zhabei Municipal Office carried out a large-scale renaming of the old streets. The renaming is fascinating, because it amounted to carving the political programme of the day straight onto street signs.
(1) Commemorating the republic and the restoration
| Old name | New name | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Zongju Road | Gonghe Road (Republic Road) | Commemorating the rising at the Zhabei police bureau and the founding of a republican government |
| South Chuanhong Road (a section) | Guangfu Road (Restoration Road) | Commemorating the restoration of Shanghai |
(2) "Five races, one republic"
After 1911 the five-colour flag — red, yellow, blue, white, black — was adopted, standing for the republic of the Han, Mongol, Hui, Manchu and Tibetan peoples. The Zhabei Municipal Office accordingly named newly built roads:
- Hanzhong Road (Han)
- Menggu Road (Mongol) — renamed from Gongyi Road
- Xinjiang Road (Hui)
- Manzhou Road (Manchu) — today's Jinyuan Road
- Xizang Road (Tibetan)
(3) Others
- A new road was to have been called Nanjing Road, for the removal of the capital to Nanjing; because it duplicated the Nanjing Road of the International Settlement it was renamed Jinling Road — today's Moling Road;
- Xinzhaqiao Road → Datong Road; North Chuanhong Road → Tianmu Middle Road; South Chuanhong Road, by sections → Xinjiang Road, Guoqing Road, Tianmu Middle Road, Xinmin Branch Road.
(All of the above rests on the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau's The 1911 Revolution and Shanghai Street Names and material on the Suhewan stretch of Shanghai.)
The upshot is a nice one: walk the streets of Zhabei — northern Jing'an — today and you are walking on a political manifesto of 1911.
Transport changes a fate: the railway arrives
Roads were only the first step. What really made Zhabei take off was the railway.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1876 | The British-built Wusong Railway opens; a Shanghai station is set up at today's Henan North Road / Qipu Road corner (later bought and dismantled by the Qing government) |
| 1898 | The rebuilt Shanghai–Wusong Railway opens, with its Shanghai station at the southern end of Baoshan Road |
| End of 1908 | The Shanghai–Nanjing Railway opens throughout, its terminus west of the Shanghai–Wusong line's station |
Put the three together and there is only one outcome: Zhabei becomes the land transport hub linking Shanghai to the interior.
Once transport is good, population follows, and industry, commerce and cultural enterprise follow with it. This was the most important favourable wind in Zhabei's history.
Three landmark "firsts"
(1) The Commercial Press: 1904
The Commercial Press bought 300 mu of land east of Baoshan Road and opened its main works there. The firm also built lane housing nearby — East Baoxing Lane, West Baoxing Lane and others — to let to its own staff and to citizens moving into Zhabei. A single enterprise arriving with a whole residential district attached was a novelty in Shanghai at the time.
(2) The Zhabei Water and Electricity Company: 1911
To free Zhabei from dependence on foreign water and electricity, Cai Bohao, the Shanghai circuit intendant, Li Pingshu, chief director of the General Engineering Bureau, and others founded the Zhabei Water and Electricity Company at Chadai Corner, north of the Guangzhao Cemetery on Hengfeng Road (around today's Shanghai Railway Station).
The initial plant was pitifully small: two German-made 50 kW, 220 V DC generators, enough for 2,000 sixteen-candlepower incandescent lamps, serving only Chinese-administered residents and businesses. But this was the first step in taking the supply of electricity back out of foreign hands — a step whose significance far exceeded its wattage.
(3) Zhabei in the 1911 Revolution
On 3 November 1911, Zhabei's police responded to the Wuchang rising and won the first victory at the Zhabei police bureau. That same year, the Central China Bureau of the United League, which Song Jiaoren, Chen Qimei, Tan Renfeng and others had been preparing, held its founding congress within Zhabei and planned risings across the middle and lower Yangtze provinces. That year, Zhabei was restored.
Around the 1911 Revolution, Zhabei was already a rising industrial and commercial district: commercial quarters formed around the stations of the Shanghai–Nanjing and Shanghai–Wusong railways; in the east and south roads crossed and the population thickened, and "its bustle was comparable to that of the concessions".
In short
From the founding of the Zhabei Engineering Bureau in 1900 to the restoration of Shanghai in 1911, in only eleven years Zhabei accomplished three things:
- It had roads — 27 of them, in a network;
- It had industry — led by the Commercial Press and the Zhabei Water and Electricity Company;
- It had an identity — it had gone from "a piece of land north of the two gates" to "the very name of the model Chinese quarter of Shanghai".
In this period the word "Zhabei" began to appear frequently in the Shanghai press. A district born of merchants and gentry saving themselves, lifted up by the railway and coloured strongly by nationalism, was standing at the entrance to its brightest hour.