JIADING is a town with indomitable spirit. If confronted with injustice, people here would deal with the belligerent without fear or hesitation. Even the “three massacres in Jiading (1645)” could not subdue the great town and its people.

On the other hand, as a civilized place, Jiading has a centuries-old tradition of holding morality and education in high esteem and that’s why talented people come out from this piece of land generation after generation.

Historically, the people of Jiading have suffered many setbacks and tests. Hence, the industrious and intelligent people of Jiading advance bravely despite the frustrations and create miracles one after another.

In the middle period of Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) the natural environment of Jiading was good for growing cotton but not ideal for rice planting. Around 90 percent of farmland in Jiading was cotton field and paddy field accounted for the rest.

Jiading faced a shortage of rice and had to rely on other counties. However, the then imperial government still ordered farmers in Jiading to deliver tax in the form of rice. Jiading farmers had to buy rice from neighboring counties. Dealers seized the opportunity to double the price but offered rice with poor quality and containing impurities which was rejected by the government.

Farmers were overwhelmed and many fled which led to a sharp decline in the number of local households and an increasing amount of unfarmed land.

Facing a serious situation, people had the foresight to propose paying silver as replacement for rice to the government which later became a major innovation in the reform of taxation and created by Jiadingers only.

Two village elders — Qu Ren and Xu Xing — initiated the plan and received feedback and support from then Minister of Rites Xu Xuemo. Xu was a Jiading native.

The initiative also won support from the then Grand Secretary and Prime Minister de facto Zhang Juzheng. The imperial government approved Jiading to do so but once a year.

During the reign of Emperor Wanli (1573-1620) two representatives of Jiading, Xu Xing and Xu Yue, went to Beijing to petition for a permanent settlement of the silver payment. They were supported by then Jiading Magistrate Wang Fuzheng and Grand Secretary Wang Xijue. Wang was from neighboring Taicang.

The then imperial government finally approved Jiading to be the only county around the empire to pay silver as replacement for the entire rice quota. Hence Jiading focused on cotton plantation and the development of cotton textile industry which promoted Jiading's economic prosperity, social stability and cultural development.

After the Qing conquest of the Ming, Emperor Kangxi (1654-1722) launched relief for land and poll taxes but the Ministry of Revenue still asked Jiading to pay silver the same amount as usual. Jiading Magistrate Wen Zaishang discussed with two local scholars Zhang Ningzhi and Wang Suishi and decided to dispatch delegates to Beijing to argue with the imperial government.

When they arrived in Beijing they were warmly received by two newly appointed officials Sun Zhimi and Zhao Yu, both Jiading natives. Sun even lobbied for Jiading himself and supported delegates with a large amount of money. The imperial government later approved Jiading’s petition.

However, two bad guys from Jiading wrote letters to then governor and viceroy overseeing Jiangsu Province falsely accusing the delegates of refusing to pay tax and swindling money from the government.

The imperial government sentenced Wen and Zhang to death. Sun was also given the death penalty but with a reprieve. Dozens of people were arrested while hundreds of others were punished.

Fortunately, then imperial court and procuratorate reviewed the case, found doubts and suggested suspending the executions. Three years later, the truth came out at the falsely charged rehabilitated.

Jiading once teemed with elite scholars. A total of 76 people from Jiading passed the imperial exam to be state bureaucrats in the Ming Dynasty. Another 204 people passed the exams at provincial level during the period.

Scholars from Jiading once played an important role in China’s literary world in late Ming Dynasty. However, they suffered a huge blow in early Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). First of all, many local scholars were killed in “the three massacres in Jiading (1645).”

Secondly, Qing government revoked the gentry’s privileges for scholars who fell behind on their taxes. More than 1,000 scholars in Jiading were involved. Thus Jiading’s education and gentry were fatally hit. The situation wasn’t improved until Wen Zaishang took the office as magistrate. His predecessors were all busy covering the taxes and without extra strength to take care of local schooling. Even the Confucius Temple where the county school located was for long years out of repair.

After the 1911 Revolution, Jiading government decided to develop key primary schools to enhance local education amid the situation that rural junior primary schools scattered all around the county and were lack of management.

Approved by then education department of Jiangsu Province, Jiading was divided into 11 school districts. Each district has a key primary school. The headmasters were in charge of the daily management of the key primary schools and all the other schools in the district.

The system was adopted by the Republic of China (1911-1949) government and applied nationwide. It is still the system throughout the country today.

The plan to build satellite towns around Shanghai was first proposed before 1949. The Party’s Shanghai Committee and the city government made the decision in 1957 to turn Minhang, Wujing, Anting, Jiading and Songjiang into five satellite towns featuring different industrial development.

Jiading mainly focused on scientific research while Anting was planned to become an auto city. The plan and construction of Jiading as a satellite town integrated the tradition with modernity, and for the sustainable development of science and technology with a natural ecology and social environment.

The old town is well preserved amid the promotion of emerging industries. Scientific research, education and manufacturing are three major tasks of Jiading satellite town and layout follows the principle that “lives behind the walls, manufactures outside the walls.”

A university and a vocational school were built while a number of scientific, educational and manufacturing institutions were moved to Jiading from downtown Shanghai.

Anting was previously a water town with 3,000 residents but is now an international automobile city and home to 12 large factories.

Shanghai made great achievements in the early 1990s. To fulfill the spirit of Deng Xiaoping’s major statements from his southern tour, accelerate the economic and social development of Shanghai, the development and opening-up of Pudong, the Shanghai Party committee and city government put forward a series of strategic tasks, such as “one kind of a year, major changes every three years” and taking the advantage of the downtown area to accelerate the pace of urban-rural integration, and mapped out plans for the institutional reform and adjustment of administrative areas.

Approved by the State Council, the establishment of Jiading District with the revocation of Jiading County was announced in November 1992.

Jiading District was officially established the next spring which marked the 775-year-old county entering a new stage of development.