Beijing History

As far back as 700,000 years ago, the primitive tribe of ‘Peking Man’ was dwelling in Beijing’s Zhoukoudian area. However Beijing (originally named Ji) has been established as a capital for more than 3,000 years. From 221 B.C., Beijing was a town of military importance in Northern China and from 938 A.D., Beijing took on the role of the capital of Peidu, Jinshangdu, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.

Beijing first served as the capital of a united China in 1264 when Kublai Khan’s victorious Mongol forces set up what they named the Great Capital to rule their new empire, from a northern location closer to the Mongol homelands. After the fall of the Yuan Dynasty in 1368, the capital was moved back to Nanjing, until 1403, when Zhu Di, the 3rd emperor of the Ming Dynasty, moved the capital back to the North again and gave the city the name of Beijing. The city held onto the capital role through the Qing Dynasty and into the revolutionary ferment of the early 1900s. After the Kuomintang government moved the national capital to Nanjing, Beijing became Beiping, to emphasize that it was no longer a capital. However, the Kuomintang were defeated by the Communist forces, and in late Jan 1949, Beijing gracefully surrendered to the Communist regime to become the capital city of New China.