Guangzhou massacre

The Guangzhou massacre was a massacre of the inhabitants of the prosperous port city of Guangzhou in 878–879 by the rebel army of Huang Chao. Arab sources indicate that foreign victims, including Muslims, Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, numbered in tens of thousands based on Chinese records of prior inhabitants.^[1][2][3] Two travellers from the Abbasid Caliphate, Abu Zaid al Hassan from Siraf writing decades afterwards, and al-Masudi writing in the 10th century, estimated that 120,000 or 200,000 foreigners were killed respectively, but according to Morris Rossabi, the numbers were inflated.^[4]

Guangzhou massacre
Location	Guangzhou, China
Date	878–879
Deaths	Tens of thousands
Perpetrators	Huang Chao's rebel army

Background

In the early 870s, drought and famine in Henan led to widespread banditry. In 874, the bandits rebelled under Wang Xianzhi in Changyuan, Henan and ravaged the region between the Changjiang and Yellow River. When Wang died in 878, he was succeeded by Huang Chao, a failed examination candidate from a wealthy salt trading family.^[5][6]

Massacre

In 878 AD after Huang Chao's forces pushed into southern China, they arrived at the gates of Khanfu (Guangzhou). According to the Arab writer Abu Zayd Hasan Ibn Yazid Sirafi, the presence of Muslims, Jews, and Christians came to an end when the Tang rebel, Huang Chao, occupied Khanfu from 878 to 879.^[7] In addition, he mentioned the "al-Qazzu" (a mulberry tree) were ruined by Huang Chao's army.^[8] The English translation of Abu Zayd's geography book from the original Arabic text by Tim Macintosh Smith shows that the location of the city of Khanfu, such as "the city lies a few days journey from the sea, on a great river where the water flows fresh ... the city is covered with mulberry trees as fodder for silkworms" is quite different from that of Khanfu (Guangzhou).

At first the citizens of Khanfu held out against him, but he subjected them to a long siege-this was in (877–878) until, at last, he took the city and put its people to the sword. Experts on Chinese affairs reported that the number of Muslims, Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians massacred by him, quite apart from the native Chinese, was 120,000; all of them had gone to settle in this city and become merchants there. The only reason the number of victims from these four communities happens to be known is that the Chinese had kept records of their numbers.^[1]

— Abu Zayd al-Sirafi

See also

• Yangzhou massacre
• List of massacres in China
• Racism in China
• Xenophobia

References

1. Mackintosh-Smith 2014, p. 69.
2. Huang, Ray (1997). China: A Macro History. M. E. Sharpe. p. 117. ISBN 1-56324-730-5.
3. Gernet, Jacques (1996). A History of Chinese Civilization. Translated by Foster, J. R.; Hartman, Charles (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 292. ISBN 0-521-49712-4.
4. Rossabi, Morris (2013). A History of China. Wiley Blackwell. p. 198. ISBN 9781118473450. An Arab account written by Abu Zaid of Siraf within a couple of decades of Huang's rebellion estimated that Huang's forces massacred 120,000 Muslims, Jews, and other foreigners. Arab historian al-Mas'udi, in a text written in the mid tenth century, put the figure at 200,000. Both numbers are inflated, but they nonetheless indicate that the rebels attributed some of China's problems to the exploitation of foreigners, particularly merchants.
5. Xiong 2009, p. cxv.
6. Tackett 2014, p. 188.
7. Rossabi, Morris, ed. (2014). From Yuan to Modern China and Mongolia: The Writings of Morris Rossabi. Brill. pp. 227–. ISBN 978-90-04-28529-3.
8. Bernstein, William J. (2009). A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World (Illustrated ed.). Grove Press. p. 86. ISBN 978-08021-4416-4. Not content to massacre traders, Huang Chao also tried to kill China's main export industry by destroying the mulberry trees of south China.

Bibliography

• Mackintosh-Smith, Tim (2014), Two Arabic Travel Books, Library of Arabic Literature
• Tackett, Nicholas (2014), The Destruction of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy, Harvard University Asia Center
• Xiong, Victor Cunrui (2009), Historical Dictionary of Medieval China, United States of America: The Scarecrow Press, ISBN 978-0-8108-6053-7