followers of the Chinese rebel leader Huang Chao besieged the city and massacred a large number of foreign merchants resident there in the Guangzhou massacre.
From the tenth to twelfth century, Persian women were to be found in Guangzhou. Multiple women originating from the Persian Gulf lived in Guangzhou's foreign quarter. Some scholars did not differentiate between Persian and Arab, calling them both "Dashi" and some say that the Chinese called all women coming from the Persian Gulf "Persian Women".
The Muslim Moroccan Traveler Ibn Battuta visited Guangzhou in the 14th century in his journey around the World. He described the manufacturing process of large ships in the city.
During the Northern Song Dynasty, the celebrated poet Su Shi (Shisu) visited Guangzhou's Baozhuangyan Temple and wrote the inscription "Liu Rong" (Six Banyan Trees) because of the six banyan trees he saw there. It has since been called the Temple of the 6 Banyan Trees.
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in Guangzhou by sea in 1514, establishing a monopoly on the external trade out of its harbour by 1517. They were later expelled from their settlements in Guangzhou (Cantão in Portuguese), but instead granted use of Macau as a trade base with the city in 1557. They would keep a near monopoly on foreign trade in the region until the arrival of the Dutch in the early 17th century
