three years in the city. Among the extraordinary art works he completed during his stay in Jinan, the best known painting is "Autumn Colors on the Qiao and Hua Mountains". Geographer Yú Qīn (1284–1333 CE) also served as an official in Jinan and authored his geography book Qí Chéng there.
When Shandong Province was established under the Ming Dynasty, Jinan became its capital.
In 1852, the northward shift of the Yellow River into a new bed close to the city triggered the modern expansion of Jinan. The new course of the Yellow River connected the city to the Grand Canal and regional waterways in northern Shandong and southern Hebei.
German influence in Jinan grew after the Qing Dynasty ceded Qingdao to the German Empire in 1897. A German concession area was established to the west of the historical city center (in the vicinity of the Jinan Railway Station first established by the Germans). The Jiaoji (Qingdao-Jinan) railway was built by the Germans against local resistance. Discontent over the construction of the railway was one of the sources fueling the Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901). During the rebellion, foreign priests were evacuated from Jinan and Chinese Christians became a target of violence. The Jiaoji railway was completed in 1904, three years after the Boxer Rebellion had been put down, and opened the city to foreign trade. The importance of Jinan as a transportation hub was cemented with the completion of the north-south Jinpu railway from Tianjin to Pukou in 1912. Jinan became a major trading center for agricultural goods in northern China. Traded commodities included cotton, grain, peanuts, and tobacco. Jinan also developed into a major industrial center, second in importance to Qingdao in the province.
In 1919, after the First World War, the Japanese took over the German sphere of influence in Shandong, including control of the Jiaoji railway, and established a significant Japanese colony in Jinan. According to estimates
