For much of its history and prehistory, the Wuyue region has been home to several neolithic cultures such as the Hemudu culture, Majiabang culture and the Liangzhu culture. Both Wu and Yue were two kingdoms during the Zhou dynasty and many such allusions to those kingdoms were attributed in the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Zuo Zhuan and the Guoyu. Later, after years of fighting and conflict, the two cultures of Wu and Yue became one culture through mutual contact and cultural diffusion. The Chu state from the west (in Hubei) expanded into this area and defeated the Yue state.
After Chu was conquered by Qin, China was unified. It was not until the fall of Western Jin during the early 4th century AD that northern Chinese moved to Jiangnan in significant numbers. The Yellow River valley was becoming barren due to flooding, lack of trees after intensive logging to create farmland and constant warfare during the upheaval of the Five Barbarians.
In the 10th century, Wuyue (Ten Kingdoms) was a small coastal kingdom founded by Qian Liu who made a lasting cultural impact on Jiangnan and its people to this day. The cultural distinctiveness that began developing over this period persists to this day as the Wuyue region speaks a branch of the Chinese language called Wu (the most famous dialect of which is Shanghainese), has distinctive cuisine and other cultural traits.
There have been many periods of mass-migrations to Wuyue areas from Northern China, sometimes overtaking the local Wuyue population. One notable example of this was when the Song dynasty fell in the north, large numbers of northern refugees flooded into the relocated capital Hangzhou mainly from the areas that are currently under the administration of modern-day Henan Province. Within just 30 years, contemporary accounts record that these Northern immigrants outnumbered the Wu natives of Hangzhou, altering the city's spoken dialect and culture.
Traditionally, in the past, Wuyue people dominated the imperial examinations and were often ranked first in the imperial examinations as Zhuangyuan (狀元),[2] or in other positions of the Jinshi (進士) degree. The Wu speaking region produced 59 out of 114 Zhuangyuan scholars during the Ming and Qing dynasty, and 10427 out of 51444 Jinshi scholars, despite currently only constituting 6% of China's population. Amongst the 2331 scholars promoted to the Chinese Academy of Science and Chinese Academy of Engineering since the institutions' establishment from 1955, over 30% are Wuyue people, with 450 are from Jiangsu, 375 are from Zhejiang, 84 are from Shanghai.[3] In addition, 5 out of 12 Nobel laureates who are of Chinese descent are Wuyue people, including Tsung Dao Lee, Charles Kao, Steven Chu, Roger Tsien and Youyou Tu.
The HLA-DRB1 distribution of Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai Han population does share genetic characteristics with other Han Chinese populations, but it also exhibits its own characteristics distinct from that of other Han Chinese populations.[4] This study also suggests that Wu-speaking peoples genetically, bridge the gap between Northern Han and Southern Han populations and thus are an intermediate between both populations.[5] Even though Wu-speaking peoples form a genetic cluster, DNA analyses also show that Wu-speaking peoples are genetically coherent[clarification needed] with other Han Chinese populations.[6][7]
Tan Jiazhen (1909–2008), Chinese geneticist and the main founder of modern Chinese genetics.
Qian Xuesen (1911–2009), the father of Chinese space program, Qian was praised by Theodore von Kármán who said that Qian "answered my questions with unusual precision. I was immediately impressed with the keenness and quickness of his (Qian's) mind."[14]
Li Sanli (1935–), one of China's pioneers in computer science and engineering. He has won many domestic awards for research in the fields of computer architecture and organization.
Ho-Kwang Mao (1947–), an eminent scientist and geologist in America.
Jiawei Han, (1949–), Chinese computer scientist and Abel Bliss Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Roger Y. Tsien (1952–2016), Nobel prize laureate in Chemistry (2009), Tsien was praised for being immensely intelligent by Herman Quirmbach who said "It's probably not an exaggeration to say he(Roger Y. Tsien)'s the smartest person I ever met... [a]nd I have met a lot of brilliant people".[17]
Wu Minxia (1985–), former diver, eight-time world champion and five-time Olympic and Asian champion making her one of the most decorated divers in history.
Ding Junhui (1987–), a professional snooker player. As a former world No.1 ranked player, he is widely regarded as the greatest Asian player of all time.
Shiing-Shen Chern, considered to be one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century and a leader in geometry.
Shen Kuo (1031–1095), a brilliant polymathic mathematician and scientist of the Song dynasty, he created an approximation of the arc of a circle s by s = c + 2v2/d, where d is the diameter, v is the versine, c is the length of the chord c subtending the arc.
Xu Guangqi (1562–1633), Chinese mathematician, agricultural scientist, astronomer and scholar-bureaucrat under the Ming dynasty.
Hua Luogeng (1910–1985), famous for his important contributions to number theory and for his role as the leader of mathematics research and education in the People's Republic of China.
Shiing-Shen Chern (1911–2004), one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century and widely regarded as a leader in geometry and winning many prizes for his immense number of contributions to mathematics.
Ky Fan (1914–2010), famous mathematician who invented many new mathematical equations and theories.
Weinan E (1963–), applied mathematician who made many achievements in mathematics by contributing new equations into homogenization theory, theoretical models of turbulence, electronic structure analysis, multiscale methods, computational fluid dynamics, and weak KAM theory.
Zhiwei Yun (1982–), received a gold medal with a perfect score on his first time participating, and was awarded the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize in 2012 for his "fundamental contributions to several areas that lie at the interface of representation theory, algebraic geometry and number theory".[18]
Philosophers
Wang Yangming, considered to be one of the greatest Confucian philosophers in history.
Zhu Xi, regarded as one of the most influential Confucian philosophers in history and the founder of Neo-Confucianism.
Huang Zongxi, naturalist and political theorist, he advocated the belief that ministers should be openly critical of their emperor.
Ch'ien Mu, Chinese philosopher, historian, educator and Confucian.
Liu Bannong (1891–1934), a Chinese linguist and poet.
Gu Jiegang[19] (1893–1980), a Chinese historian best known for his seven-volume work Gushi Bian (古史辨, or Debates on Ancient History). He was a co-founder and the leading force of the Doubting Antiquity School, and was highly influential in the 20th century development of Chinese history.
Qian Zhongshu (1910–1998), a Chinese literary scholar and writer, known for his wit and erudition.
Eileen Chang (1920–1995), one of the most influential modern Chinese writers, it was stated by poet and University of Southern California professor Dominic Cheung that "had it not been for the political division between the Nationalist and Communist Chinese, she (Eileen Chang) would have almost certainly won a Nobel Prize".
Ye Wenling (1942–), Chinese novelist and politician.
Xiaolu Guo (1973–), novelist and filmmaker, her novels have been translated into 27 languages. In 2013 she was named as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists, a list drawn up once a decade.
Feng, ML; Yang, JH; Ji, Y; Lu, JW; Lu, Q; Ji, YH; Xie, JH; Yang, Y (2003). "The genetic characteristic of HLA-DRB1 locus in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai Han population and a comparison of its frequency distribution with that of other populations". Zhonghua Yi Xue Yi Chuan Xue Za Zhi. 20 (4): 365–7. PMID12903056.
Feng, ML; Ji, Y; Lu, Q; Yang, JH; Xie, JH; Ji, YH; Zhang, GL; Yang, Y (2003). "Study on HLA haplotypes in Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai Han population". Yi Chuan Xue Bao. 30 (6): 584–8. PMID12939805.