Directory_and_Chronicle_1935 — Page 805

CHUNGKING

慶重

I Chung-king

The city of Chungking, situated in lat. 29 deg. 33 min. 56 sec. N., long. 106 deg. 30 min. E., may well be described as not only the commercial capital of Szechuen but of the whole of Western China. The foreign import trade centres here, and is then distributed by a smaller class of trading junks up the various rivers of the province.

The city occupies the end of a high and rocky bluff forming a peninsula, at the junction of the river Kia-ling with the Yangtsze, 1,400 miles from the mouth of the latter. The principal streets of the city, in which are many fine shops, are on the side of the Yangtsze, while a new malu has now been driven right through the heart of the city work still continuing upon it in different directions, and out by way of the Tung Yuan Gate, where it merges with the new Great East Road to Chengtu, over 285 miles distant, which has been completed and is open to traffic. The city is surrounded by a crenelated stone wall which is some five miles in circumference, pierced with nine gates. This wall was built in 1761, replacing an older one. Part of Chungking is now electrically lighted, the service being now controlled by the Municipality. The climate of Chungking is depressing, the summer being hot and damp, the winters raw and chilly, with thick fogs from November to March. The ordinary rise of the river is about 75 feet; on 6th August, 1898, it rose to 101 ft., on 11th August, 1905, to 108 ft., on 22nd July, 1920, to 95 ft. 2 in., on 14th July, 1921, to 100 ft. and 90 ft. at the beginning of August 1931. In 1908 it only attained a height of 52 feet 4 inches. According to a Chinese report. the river rose 120 feet in 1878. On the left bank of the Kialing and facing Chungking, extending below the junction of the two rivers, is the walled city formerly styled Kiangpei Ting and now known as Kiangpei Hsien. It is proposed eventually to connect the two towns by a steel bridge. These two cities and the large villages in their immediate neighbourhood are estimated to contain a population of about 700,000.

The port was declared open to foreign trade in 1891, since which date a large trade has been done both in imports and exports, carried at first in foreign chartered junks, but for the last ten years in steam and motor vessels.

TRADE IN 1933

To give a review of trading conditions at Chungking during 1933 is almost tantamount to retelling the story of 1932, the adverse factors that played havoc with business during the latter year being still operative in an intensified form. The year opened with brighter prospects because civil warfare had ceased for the moment and a peace conference was then in cession with a view to settling all differences between the high military authorities in the province, but, like the European conferences of the year, this convocation found their skein of problems too knotty to unravel satisfactorily, and the meeting dispersed without having accomplished anything towards the stabilisation of provincial affairs. Peaceful methods having failed to settle existing differences in opinion, recourse was had again to trial by battle, and civil warfare raged once more on a major scale along a front extending from Kiating to Chengtu. This war resulted in the defeat of General Liu Wen-hui, Chairman of the Provincial Government, and the disintegration of the powerful army that he had built up with such care during the past decade. The victorious General Liu Hsiang then became the leading factor in provincial affairs, and he was at once appointed by the National Government as Commander-in-Chief of the Bandit-suppression Armies of Szechwan for a general drive against the communist forces. These latter forces, meanwhile, had been left free to make the most of their opportunities while the internal strife continued, and, besides occupying the important cities of Suiting and Hsuanhan, they had overrun the districts of Pachung, Tungkiang, and Nankiang, and were by this time threatening Wanhsien with a view to gaining control of river

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