Xishui County ( zh, s= , t= , p=Xīshuǐ Xiàn) is a county of eastern

Hubei Hubei is a province of China, province in Central China. It has the List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP, seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland ...

province, People's Republic of China. The county extends over an area of and is under the administration of

Huanggang Huanggang is a prefecture-level city in easternmost Hubei, Hubei Province, China. It is situated to the north of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and is bounded in the north by the Dabie Mountains and is named after Mount Huanggang, Huang ...

City.

History

Xishui was a center of revolutionary activity during the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led Nationalist government, government of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Armed conflict continued intermitt ...

. In 1922, an underground group was formed to try to undermine the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT) is a major political party in the Republic of China (Taiwan). It was the one party state, sole ruling party of the country Republic of China (1912-1949), during its rule from 1927 to 1949 in Mainland China until Retreat ...

. Between 1926 and 1949, thousands of locals lost their lives in the struggle. Famous persons whose ancestral home was Xishui County: * Wen Yiduo (Chinese: 聞一多), famous writer of China. *

Yang Jisheng (historian) Yang Jisheng (born November 1940)

( Chinese traditional: 楊繼繩), the author of Tomb: Great famine of China: 1959-1962 (Chinese name: < 墓碑:中國1959-1962年三年大饑荒>) *

Xu Fuguan Hsu Fu-kuan or Xu Fuguan (); 1902/03 – 1982) was a Chinese historian and philosopher who made notable contributions to Confucian studies. He is a leading member of New Confucianism, a philosophical movement initiated by Xu's teacher and friend ...

, a Chinese historian and philosopher, notable for Confucian studies

Geography

Administrative divisions

Xishui County administers:

Climate

Natural resources

Xishui county has large proven reserves of ore, including

magnetite Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula . It is one of the iron oxide, oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetism, ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetization, magnetized to become a ...

vanadium Vanadium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery-grey, malleable transition metal. The elemental metal is rarely found in nature, but once isolated artificially, the formation of an ...

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

pyrite The mineral pyrite ( ), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue ...

, yellow

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is usually defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural ...

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

potassium Potassium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol K (from Neo-Latin ) and atomic number19. It is a silvery white metal that is soft enough to easily cut with a knife. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmospheric oxygen to ...

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

, green

jade Jade is an umbrella term for two different types of decorative rocks used for jewelry or Ornament (art), ornaments. Jade is often referred to by either of two different silicate mineral names: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in t ...

, and

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

Economy

The very first

agricultural cooperative An agricultural cooperative, also known as a farmers' co-op, is a producer cooperative in which farmers pool their resources in certain areas of activities. A broad typology of agricultural cooperatives distinguishes between agricultural servic ...

province was established at Xishui in 1952, as impoverished

peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasan ...

s pooled their land and cattle to create one large farm. In the first year, the commune increased its production by one third. The commune also expanded fresh-water fish and

lotus root ''Nelumbo nucifera'', also known as the pink lotus, sacred lotus, Indian lotus, or simply lotus, is one of two extant species of aquatic plant in the family Nelumbonaceae. It is sometimes colloquially called a water lily, though this more of ...

cultivation, and began planting two crops of rice per year. In 1956, the Xishui cooperative was recognized as an exemplary “national production growth model.” A major

flood A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...

-control and

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...

reservoir was completed in 1961 and it began generating

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

the following year. This again became a national model for other villages to follow.

Yangtze flooding

Xishui is subject to flooding from the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

. In 1996, the main dike wall shielding the village from the Yangtze broke in several places, endangering the entire county. Emergency support personnel from Qichun County and Wuxue City were required to help deal with the emergency. Since then, the dike was widened and raised in height.

References

Xishui Government websites
(Chinese) {{authority control Counties of Hubei Huanggang