The first settlement in the Yangzhou area, called Guangling was founded in the Spring and Autumn Period. After the defeat of Yue by King Fuchai of Wu a garrison city was built 12 metres (39 ft) above water level on the northern bank of the Yangtze River c 485 BCE. This city in the shape of a three by three li square was called Hancheng. The newly created Han canal formed a moat around the south and east sides of the city. The purpose of Hancheng was to protect Suzhou from naval invasion from the Qi. In 590 CE, the city began to be called Yangzhou, which was the traditional name of what was then the entire southeastern part of China.
Under the second Sui Dynasty (581–617 CE) Emperor Yangdi (r. 604–617), Yangzhou was the southern capital of China and called Jiangdu upon the completion of the Jinghang (Grand) Canal until the fall of the dynasty. The city has remained a leading economic and cultural center and major port of foreign trade and external exchange since the Tang Dynasty (618-907). At one time many Arab and Persian merchants lived in the city in the 7th century but they were massacred in the thousands in 760 CE during the An Shi Rebellion by the Tian Shengong's (T'ien Shen-kung)rebel insurgents during the Yangzhou massacre (760). During the Tang Dynasty many merchants from Korea's Silla Dynasty also lived in Yangzhou. There were also Arabic inscriptions from the 1200s and 1300s.
The city, still known as Guangling, was briefly made the capital of the Wu Kingdom during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period.
In 1280 AD, Yangzhou was the site of a massive gunpowder explosion when the bomb store of the Weiyang arsenal accidentally caught fire. This blast killed over a hundred guards, hurled debris from buildings into the air that landed ten li away from the site of the explosion, and could be felt 100 li away as tiles on roofs shook (refer to gunpowder article).
Marco Polo claimed to have served in Yangzhou under the Mongol
