wall was reconstructed in 1568. During the Ming dynasty Taiyuan became the capital of Shanxi, and it remained Shanxi's capital during the subsequent Qing dynasty (1644-1911).
In 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion, seventy-seven unarmed Western missionaries were executed in front of the provincial governor. This incident became known as the Taiyuan Massacre. In 1907 the importance of Taiyuan was increased by the construction of a rail link to Shijiazhuang, Hebei, on the Beijing-to-Wuhan trunk line, but it began to suffer a serious economic crisis after around 1900. In the 19th century, the merchants and local banks of Shanxi had been of national importance, but the rise of modern banks led to the rapid decline of this system — with disastrous effects upon Shanxi and its capital.
The oldest existing building in the city is the Temple of the Goddess inside the Jin Ci Complex: it was originally built in 1023 AD and reconstructed in 1102. Taiyuan was deliberately flooded several times, including in 453 BC and 969 AD.
1911–1949
During the Republic of China (1912-1949), the city's name was changed to "Yangqu", and it was not renamed back to "Taiyuan" until it was captured in 1949 by Communist forces.
The warlord Yan Xishan retained control of Shanxi from the Xinhai Revolution in 1911 to the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Taiyuan consequently flourished as the center of his comparatively progressive province and experienced extensive industrial development. It was linked by rail both to the far southwest of Shanxi and to Datong in the north. Until the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 Yan's arsenal in Taiyuan was the only factory in China sufficiently advanced to produce field artillery. Because Yan succeeded in keeping Shanxi uninvolved in most of the major battles between rival warlords that occurred in China during the 1910s and 1920s, Taiyuan was never taken from Yan by an invading army until the Japanese conquered
