The Guangzhou massacre was a massacre of the inhabitants of the prosperous port city of

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

in 878–879 by the rebel army of Huang Chao. Arab sources indicate that foreign victims, including Muslims,

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

, Christians, and Zoroastrians, numbered in tens of thousands based on Chinese records of prior inhabitants. Two travellers from the

Abbasid Caliphate The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...

, Abu Zaid al Hassan from Siraf writing decades afterwards, and

al-Masudi Al-Mas'udi ( ar, أَبُو ٱلْحَسَن عَلِيّ ٱبْن ٱلْحُسَيْن ٱبْن عَلِيّ ٱلْمَسْعُودِيّ, '; –956) was an Arab historian, geographer and traveler. He is sometimes referred to as the "Herodotus ...

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.

Background

In the early 870s, drought and famine in

Henan Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

led to widespread banditry. In 874, the bandits rebelled under Wang Xianzhi in

Changyuan Changyuan () is a county-level city in the east of Henan province, China, bordering Shandong province to the east. Formerly under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Xinxiang, since 1 January 2014 it has been directly administered ...

, Henan and ravaged the region between the

Changjiang The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows ...

and

Yellow River The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Ha ...

. When Wang died in 878, he was succeeded by Huang Chao, a failed examination candidate from a wealthy salt trading family.

Massacre

In 878 AD after Huang Chao's forces pushed into southern China, they arrived at the gates of Khanfu (

). According to the Arab writer Abu Zayd Hasan Ibn Yazid Sirafi, the presence of Muslims,

, and

Christians Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words '' Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ ...

came to an end when the Tang rebel, Huang Chao, occupied Khanfu from 878 to 879. In addition, he mentioned the "al-Qazzu" (a mulberry tree) were ruined by Huang Chao's army. 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). Shine Toshihiko found that the location of the massacre in 877–878 in Abu Zayd's account was a clerical error and it actually showed that the location of the massacre in 760 AD was in Kanfu (now

Yangzhou Yangzhou, postal romanization Yangchow, is a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu Province (Suzhong), East China. Sitting on the north bank of the Yangtze, it borders the provincial capital Nanjing to the southwest, Huai'an to the north ...

). He pointed out that there was a confusion between the two massacres in Arab sources (the Kanfu Massacre was in Yangzhou in 760, while the Khanfu Massacre was in 878). Shine also supports the hypothesis of Kuwabara Jitsuzo about the latter Khanfu (Guangzhou) and said that Abu Zayd confused Khanfu with Kanfu. Shine assigns Khanfu to Qinfu (Qinzhou, 600 km west of Guangzhou). According to the statement of Heguri-no-Hironari, a Japanese envoy to the Tang dynasty in Qinzhou, the city was the mother port of merchants called Shu-Kunlun who rescued Hironari and others who were drifted in Lin-yi in 753.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{coord missing, Guangdong 870s conflicts 9th century in China 9th-century massacres Battles involving the Tang dynasty History of Guangzhou Massacres in China War crimes in China Violence against Muslims 878 879 Massacres of Muslims

Background

Massacre

See also

References

Bibliography