Editing Hubei (section)

== History ==
{{More citations needed section|date=June 2021}}
The Hubei region was home to sophisticated [[Neolithic]] cultures.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Zhang |first1=Chi (張弛) |chapter=The Qujialing-Shijiahe Culture in the Middle Yangzi River Valley |title=A Companion to Chinese Archaeology |editor-first=Anne P. |editor-last=Underhill |location=Chichester |publisher=[[John Wiley & Sons]] |year=2013 |pages=510–34 |isbn=978-1-4443-3529-3 |doi=10.1002/9781118325698}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Flad |first1=Rowan K. |last2=Chen |first2=Pochan |title=Ancient Central China: Centers and Peripheries along the Yangzi River |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-521-72766-2}}</ref> By the [[Spring and Autumn period]] (770–476 BC), the territory of today's Hubei formed part of the powerful [[Chu (state)|State of Chu]]. Chu, nominally a tributary state of the [[Zhou dynasty]], was itself an extension of the Chinese civilization that had emerged some centuries before in the north; but Chu also represented a culturally unique blend of northern and southern culture, and it developed into a powerful state that controlled much of the middle and lower [[Yangtze River]], with its power extending northwards into the [[North China Plain]].<ref>Constance A. Cook and John S. Major, eds. Defining Chu: Image and Reality in Ancient China, (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999); Lothar von Falkenhausen, Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius (1000–250 BC): The Archaeological Evidence (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, 2006), 262–88.</ref>

[[File:Chinese silk, 4th Century BC.JPG|thumb|left|Detail of an embroidered silk gauze ritual garment from a 4th-century BC, [[Zhou dynasty|Zhou era]] tomb at Mashan, [[Jiangling County]], Hubei]]
During the [[Warring States period]] (475–221 BC) Chu became the major adversary of the upstart [[Qin (state)|State of Qin]] to the northwest (in present-day [[Guanzhong]], [[Shaanxi]] province), which began to assert itself by outward expansionism. As wars between Qin and Chu ensued, Chu lost more and more land: first its dominance over the [[Sichuan Basin]], then (in 278 BC) its heartland, which correspond to modern Hubei.<ref>《[[Han Feizi|韩非子]]·初见秦》：秦与荆人战，大破荆，袭郢，取洞庭、五渚、江南。荆王君臣亡走，东服于陈。</ref><ref>《[[Records of the Grand Historian|史记]]·卷七十三·白起王翦列传》：其明年，攻楚，拔郢，烧夷陵，遂东至竟陵。楚王亡去郢，东走徙陈。</ref> In 223 BC Qin chased down the remnants of the Chu regime, which had fled eastwards [[Qin's wars of unification|during Qin's wars of uniting China]].<ref>《[[Records of the Grand Historian|史记]]·卷七十三·白起王翦列传》：王翦果代李信击荆。荆闻王翦益军而来，乃悉国中兵以拒秦。王翦至，坚壁而守之，不肯战。荆兵数出挑战，终不出。王翦日休士洗沐，而善饮食抚循之，亲与士卒同食。久之，王翦使人问军中戏乎？对曰：“方投石超距。”于是王翦曰：“士卒可用矣。”荆数挑战而秦不出，乃引而东。翦因举兵追之，令壮士击，大破荆军。至蕲南，杀其将军项燕，荆兵遂败走。秦因乘胜略定荆地城邑。岁馀，虏荆王负刍，竟平荆地为郡县。。</ref>

Qin founded the [[Qin dynasty]] in 221 BC, the first unified dynasty in [[China proper|China]]. The Qin dynasty was succeeded in 206 BC by the [[Han dynasty]], which established the province ([[zhou (political division)|''zhou'']]) of [[Jingzhou province|Jingzhou]] in today's Hubei and [[Hunan]]. The Qin and Han played an active role in the extension of farmland in Hubei, maintaining a system of river dikes to protect farms from summer floods.<ref>Brian Lander. State Management of River Dikes in Early China: New Sources on the Environmental History of the Central Yangzi Region . T'oung Pao 100.4-5 (2014): 325–362.</ref> Towards the end of the Eastern Han dynasty in the beginning of the 3rd century, Jingzhou was ruled by regional warlord [[Liu Biao]]. After his death in 208, Liu Biao's realm was surrendered by [[Liu Cong (Han dynasty)|his successors]] to [[Cao Cao]], a powerful warlord who had conquered nearly all of north China; but in the [[Battle of Red Cliffs]] (208 or 209), warlords [[Liu Bei]] and [[Sun Quan]] drove Cao Cao out of Jingzhou. Liu Bei then took control of Jingzhou and appointed Guan Yu as administrator of Xiangyang (in modern [[Xiangyang, Hubei]]) to guard Jing province; he went on to conquer Yizhou (the Sichuan Basin), but lost Jingzhou to Sun Quan; for the next few decades Jingzhou was controlled by the [[Eastern Wu|Wu Kingdom]], ruled by Sun Quan and his successors.<ref>《[[Records of the Three Kingdoms|三国志]]·吴书·卷54/周瑜鲁肃吕蒙传·吕蒙传》：蒙入据城，尽得羽及将士家属，皆抚慰，约令军中不得干历人家，有所求取。蒙麾下士，是汝南人，取民家一笠，以覆官铠，官铠虽公，蒙犹以为犯军令，不可以乡里故而废法，遂垂涕斩之。于是军中震栗，道不拾遗。蒙旦暮使亲近存恤耆老，问所不足，疾病者给医药，饥寒者赐衣粮。羽府藏财宝，皆封闭以待权至。羽还，在道路，数使人与蒙相闻，蒙辄厚遇其使，周游城中，家家致问，或手书示信。羽人还，私相参讯，咸知家门无恙，见待过于平时，故羽吏士无鬬心。会权寻至，羽自知孤穷，乃走麦城，西至漳乡，众皆委羽而降。权使朱然、潘璋断其径路，即父子俱获，荆州遂定。</ref>
[[File:TRIBU TRES GARGANTAS-CHINA (35461639914).jpg|alt=|thumb|Three Gorges area]]
The incursion of northern nomadic peoples into the region at the beginning of the 4th century ([[Invasion and rebellion of the Five Barbarians|Five Barbarians' rebellion]] and [[Disaster of Yongjia]]
([[:zh:永嘉之乱|永嘉之乱]])) began nearly three centuries of division into a nomad-ruled (but increasingly Sinicized) north and a [[Han Chinese]]-ruled south. Hubei, to the south, remained under southern rule for this entire period, until the unification of China by the [[Sui dynasty]] in 589. In 617 the [[Tang dynasty]] replaced Sui, and later on the Tang dynasty placed present-day Hubei under the jurisdiction of several [[circuit (political division)|circuits]]: [[Jiangnanxi Circuit]] in the south; [[Shannandong Circuit]] (山南东道) in the west, and [[Huainan Circuit]] in the east. After the Tang dynasty disintegrated in the early 10th century, Hubei came under the control of several regional regimes: [[Jingnan]] in the center, [[Wu (Ten Kingdoms)|Yang Wu]] and its successor [[Southern Tang]] to the east, the [[Five Dynasties]] to the north and Shu to Shizhou (施州, in modern [[Enshi City|Enshi]], [[Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture]]).<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.hubei.gov.cn/2018/local/2018gk/201810/t20181001_1348527_1.shtml |title=湖北省情概况·历史沿革 |date=2019-04-24 |access-date=2021-07-27 |website=HuBei China (HuBei Government's official website) |language=zh-hans |archive-date=2022-10-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221023155435/http://www.hubei.gov.cn/2018/local/2018gk/201810/t20181001_1348527_1.shtml |url-status=dead}}</ref>{{Citation needed|date=December 2017}}

The [[Song dynasty]] reunified the region in 982 and placed most of Hubei into [[Jinghubei Circuit]], a longer version of Hubei's current name. [[Mongol]]s conquered the region in 1279, and under [[Yuan dynasty|their rule]] the province of [[Huguang]] was established, covering Hubei, Hunan, and parts of [[Guangdong]] and [[Guangxi]].{{citation needed|date=May 2022}} During the Mongol rule, in 1331, Hubei was devastated by an outbreak of the [[Black Death]], which reached [[England]], [[Belgium]], and [[Italy]] by June 1348, and which, according to Chinese sources, spread during the following three centuries to decimate populations throughout Eurasia.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Bubonic Plague in Nineteenth-century China |author=Benedict, C.A. |journal=Modern China |isbn=978-0-8047-2661-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/bubonicplagueinn00bene |url-access=registration |year=1996 |volume=14 |issue=2 |pages=107–155 |publisher=Stanford University Press |doi=10.1177/009770048801400201 |pmid=11620272 |s2cid=220733020 |access-date=2016-01-05}}</ref>

The [[Ming dynasty]] (1368–1644) drove out the Mongols in 1368. Their version of Huguang province was smaller, and corresponded almost entirely to the modern provinces of Hubei and Hunan combined. Hubei lay geographically outside the centers of the Ming power. During the last years of the Ming, today's Hubei was ravaged several times by the rebel armies of [[Zhang Xianzhong]] and [[Li Zicheng]]. The [[Manchu]] [[Qing dynasty]] which took control of much of the region in 1644, soon split Huguang into the modern provinces of Hubei and Hunan. The Qing dynasty, however, continued to maintain a [[Viceroy of Huguang]], one of the most well-known viceroys being [[Zhang Zhidong]] (in office between 1889 and 1907), whose modernizing reforms made Hubei (especially [[Wuhan]]) into a prosperous center of commerce and industry. The [[Huangshi]]/[[Daye, Hubei|Daye]] area, south-east of Wuhan, became an important center of mining and metallurgy.{{Citation needed|date=December 2017}}

In 1911, the [[Wuchang Uprising]] took place in modern-day Wuhan. The uprising started the [[Xinhai Revolution]], which overthrew the Qing dynasty and established the [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China]]. In 1927 Wuhan became the seat of a government established by left-wing elements of the [[Kuomintang]], led by [[Wang Jingwei]]; this government later merged into [[Chiang Kai-shek]]'s government in [[Nanjing]]. During [[World War II]] the eastern parts of Hubei were conquered and occupied by [[Empire of Japan|Japan]], while the western parts remained under Chinese control.{{Citation needed|date=December 2017}}

During the [[Cultural Revolution]] in the 1960s, Wuhan saw fighting between rival [[Red Guards (China)|Red Guard]] factions. In July 1967, civil strife struck the city in the [[Wuhan Incident]] ("July 20th Incident"), an armed conflict between two hostile groups who were fighting for control over the city at the height of the Cultural Revolution.<ref>{{Cite journal |author=Thomas W. Robinson |jstor=652320 |title=The Wuhan Incident: Local Strife and Provincial Rebellion During the Cultural Revolution |journal=[[The China Quarterly]] |date=1971 |issue=47 |pages=413–18}}</ref>

As the fears of a nuclear war increased during the time of [[Sino-Soviet border conflict]]s in the late 1960s, the [[Xianning]] prefecture of Hubei was chosen as the site of [[Underground Project 131|Project 131]], an underground military-command headquarters.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.xjqmx.gov.cn/llb/printpage.asp?ArticleID=660 |script-title=zh:神秘131工程:60年代修建的防核地下指挥部 |trans-title=Mysterious Project 131: An underground nuclear command headquarters constructed in the 1960s |website=xjqmx.gov.cn |language=zh-hans |access-date=2020-03-16 |archive-date=2011-05-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110521032923/http://www.xjqmx.gov.cn/llb/printpage.asp?ArticleID=660 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[File:武汉·黄鹤楼 - panoramio.jpg|alt=|thumb|220x220px|Yellow Crane Tower]]
The province—and Wuhan in particular—suffered severely from the [[1954 Yangtze River Floods]]. Large-scale dam construction followed, with the [[Gezhouba Dam]] on the [[Yangtze River]] near [[Yichang]] started in 1970 and completed in 1988; the construction of the [[Three Gorges Dam]], further upstream, began in 1993. In the following years, authorities resettled millions of people from western Hubei to make way for the construction of the dam. A number of smaller dams have been constructed on the Yangtze's tributaries as well.{{Citation needed|date=December 2017}}

The [[Xianning Nuclear Power Plant]] is planned in Dafanzhen, Tongshan County, Xianning, to host at least four 1,250-megawatt (MW) AP1000 pressurized-water reactors.
Work on the site began in 2010; plans envisaged that the first reactor would start construction in 2011 and go online in 2015. However, construction of the first phase had yet to start {{as of | 2018 | lc = on}}.{{citation needed|date=May 2022}}

On 1 December 2019, the first case of [[COVID-19]] in the [[COVID-19 pandemic]] was identified in the city of [[Wuhan]]. In January 2020, the [[SARS-CoV-2]] virus was officially identified, leading local and federal governments to implement massive [[quarantine]] zones across Hubei province, especially in the capital [[Wuhan]] (the epicenter of the outbreak). Authorities partially or fully locked down 15 cities, directly affecting 57 million people. Following severe outbreaks in numerous other countries, including in different areas of the world, the [[World Health Organization's response to the COVID-19 pandemic|World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 a pandemic]] in March 2020. However, after more than eight weeks, the lockdown on most cities in the province was lifted.{{citation needed|date=May 2022}}