tars, erecting it in as great splendor as it was at first.
Famed at that time and since for literature, art, and the gardens of its merchant families, many of which were visited by the Kangxi and Qianling emperors during their Southern Tours, the Qing-era Yangzhou has been the focus of intensive research by historians.
The Yangzhou riot in 1868 was a pivotal moment of Anglo-Chinese relations during the late Qing Dynasty that almost led to war. The crisis was fomented by the gentry of the city who opposed the presence of foreign Christian missionaries there. The riot that resulted was an angry crowd estimated at eight to ten thousand who assaulted the premises of the British China Inland Mission in Yangzhou by looting, burning and attacking the missionaries led by Hudson Taylor. No one was killed, however several of the missionaries were injured as they were forced to flee for their lives. As a result of the report of the riot, the British consul in Shanghai, Sir Walter Henry Medhurst took seventy Royal marines in a Man of war and steamed up the Yangtze to Nanjing in a controversial show of force that eventually resulted in an official apology from Viceroy Zeng Guofan and financial restitution made to the injured missionaries.
From the time of the Taiping Rebellion (1853) to the end of the Communist revolution (1949) Yangzhou was in decline, due to war damage and neglect of the Grand Canal as railways replaced it in importance. During the anti-Japanese War it endured eight years of enemy occupation and was used by the Japanese as a site for internment camps. Hundreds of civilian "aliens" from Shanghai were transported here in 1943, and located in one of three camps (A, B, and C). Camp C, located in the former American Mission in the north-west of the city, was maintained for the duration of the war.
Among early plans for railways in the late Qing was one for a line that would connect Yangzhou to the north, but this was jettisoned in
