Yangtze Delta

As Xiongan invents itself day by day in the north, turn to the southeast and you'll find the economic engine already driving the country.

It is the Yangtze River Delta, the commercial powerhouse surrounding Shanghai and neighboring provinces.

Occupying a modest 4% of China's land area, the region at the mouth of China's longest river is home to about 17% of the country's total population and contributes about 25% of its total GDP.

It's one of the most economically dynamic, open and innovative areas in China.

In 2018, during the first China International Import Expo in Shanghai, Xi Jinping's speech envisioned a new chapter for the region.

The three cities will support the unification and development of the Yangtze River Triangle and rise as a national strategy.

We will support integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region.

We will make it a national strategy and implement our new development philosophy in real earnest.

In Jiangsu's coastal city Qidong, fishing vessels have been ordered to remain in port until the strong wind alert is lifted.

The typhoon has also disrupted rail services across the Yangtze River Delta.

Yemen's Houthi group and the Saudi-led coalition have exchanged heavy attacks.

The Houthis claimed widespread missile and drone strikes across Saudi Arabia, while intense Saudi-led airstrikes wrecked Houthi-held areas in Yemen, causing multiple casualties.

Also, the bureau designated by Hong Taiji to handle border affairs with the Mongols, the Lifanyuan, which was staffed by Manchus and Mongols, but not by Han Jinshi, was elevated to a status parallel to that of the six ministries and thus placed ahead of the censorate in the metropolitan bureaucracy table of organization.

In related moves designed to highlight the importance of Manchu tradition as opposed to the Jinshi, tax-delinquent landowners in the Yangtze Delta were fined, often after draconian investigations, the number of Jinshi examination degrees awarded was drastically reduced, the eight-legged essay system was abolished, and the forms of bureaucratic elevation were altered to give more power to the regents in assessing career performance.

Despite the consistency of many of the regents' proposals for strengthening elements of Manchu presence within the Qing polity, the regents themselves seldom acted in concert.

Their backgrounds and lineage connections were different, and their characters varied greatly.

His initial informal education in Jinshi language was received from the eunuchs and serving women, but he chose to undergo rigorous training as he began to rule.

The Sixteen Moral Maxims that were issued in 1670 in the young emperor's name may have been drafted for him by Jinshi advisors, but the meticulous reports of his earnest sessions with a series of classical scholars as they worked together, line by line, through each of the major Confucian classics should not be taken as hyperbole or hypocrisy.

Rather, they were part of the same policy that led to his convening of the special Bosui Hongzhu examination of 1679, the balancing of provincial and metropolitan appointments between Manchus and Jinshi, and the planning of the Six Southern Tours to those areas of the Yangtze Delta that had been most famous for resistance in the 1640s.

The imperially sponsored scholarship during the Kangxi reign was of high quality.

Though 36 out of the 188 invited, including such famous names as Tu Yue and Fu Shan, managed to evade the honor or use the opportunity to meet in private with like-minded scholars who resented or even hated the Manchus, and some eminent scholars like Gu Yanwu and Huang Zongxi were able to ensure that they were not asked to participate, all of the 50 who were successful at the examination became officials for the new dynasty.

The Bosui Hengzhu examination was directed at those in the Yangtze Delta region, which was the center of scholarly endeavors and where much of the initial resistance to the Qing conquest had been concentrated.

Almost half of the 50 successful candidates, 23 exactly, were from Jiangsu, and an additional 13 were from Zhejiang.

The Bosui Hengzhu examinations, it should be said, did not solve all of the problems either with the loyalists or with the analytical difficulties of Ming historiography.