Shandong · Flattened in 1938, Rebuilt After 2008
Tai’erzhuang Ancient City (台儿庄古城)
A canal town in southern Shandong that was destroyed in a battle in 1938 and built again from the 2000s on its old street lines. The name says ancient and the masonry is new, and knowing which parts are which makes it a far more interesting place than the brochure version.
Quick Facts
The Short Version
| What it is | A reconstructed canal town on the Grand Canal, laid out on the street plan of the town destroyed in 1938 |
|---|---|
| Where | Zaozhuang, southern Shandong, near the Jiangsu border |
| How old are the buildings | Mostly from after 2008. A small number of structures survived the battle and are marked |
| Why it was destroyed | The battle fought here in 1938 was the first large Chinese victory over the Japanese army, and it levelled the town |
| Why it was here at all | The Grand Canal. This was a port on the waterway between the Yangtze and the north |
| How it sells itself | The gate plaques call it the first town under heaven and China’s ancient water city |
| Getting round | On foot along the canals, plus boats. The boats are most of the point |
| Time needed | A full day, or an afternoon and an evening when the lanterns are lit |
Why Go
A Town That Says What It Is
1. It was destroyed, and then it was built again
In the spring of 1938 the Japanese army pushed south along the railway and was stopped here. The fighting went house to house for weeks, the Chinese side held and then counterattacked, and the result was the first large victory of the war for China. It cost the town its existence. Photographs from immediately afterwards show a field of rubble with wall stumps in it.
What stands today was built from 2008 onwards, on the old street lines and the old canal channels, in a mixture of the styles the town had before. That is not a secret and the local authorities do not treat it as one. It is worth stating clearly on a page in English because the name translates as ancient city and foreign writing about China regularly files this place alongside towns whose buildings really are three hundred years old.
Once that is settled the place becomes more interesting rather than less. A reconstruction is a set of decisions: which century to rebuild to, which styles to include, what to do about the parts that were never picturesque. Walk the canals here and those decisions are legible. The bridge in the picture at the top of this page has a traditional timber gallery on plain concrete piers, which is exactly what an honest reconstruction looks like when you examine it closely.
2. The canal explains everything else
The town existed because of the Grand Canal, the artificial waterway that carried grain and tax revenue from the Yangtze delta to the northern capitals for many centuries. Towns on it grew rich, filled up with merchants from everywhere, and acquired the mixed architecture that trade produces. One of the pictures below has grey brick northern courtyard buildings on one bank and white-walled, black-tiled southern ones on the other, with a gilded tower behind. The picture at the top has a brick church with a cross on its spire, a few metres from a lantern-hung Chinese gallery bridge.
The canal is also why the town was worth fighting over in 1938 and why it is worth visiting now. One of the pictures shows the city gate with a red banner strung across it congratulating the Grand Canal on being inscribed as a World Heritage Site, which is as direct a statement of what this town thinks it is as anyone could ask for. In the main square there is a stone monument carved as the prow of a canal boat, with a dragon head spouting water at its foot.
The practical consequence is that this is a boat town. A line of tour boats with yellow canopies waits along one bank, the canals connect, and an hour on the water covers more of the place and explains more of it than the same hour on foot. The town is also lit at night, which is when most Chinese visitors come and when the reconstruction looks most convincing.
The catch. Everything here is new and some visitors will not forgive that, so anyone who wants genuine age should go to Pingyao instead and will be happier. The town is laid out for tour groups, the shops sell the same goods as every other rebuilt old town in China, and the pictures on this page are publicity photography: bright, wide and almost empty, which is not what a summer weekend looks like. The battle, which is the reason the town needed rebuilding, is commemorated in a separate museum rather than in the reconstructed streets.
Orientation
Inside the Walls, Along the Canals
The reconstructed town sits inside a walled perimeter with gates, and the canals run through it in a connected network. Walking is the default and boats run the main channels. The layout follows the pre-1938 street plan, so the shape of the place is genuinely old even where the fabric is not.
The battle memorial and museum are outside the walls and are a separate visit. Anyone who cares about why the town was rebuilt should do them in the same day, because the reconstructed streets carry very little of that history on their surface.
Practical
Things Worth Knowing
Take a boat early
It orients you, it is the way the town was meant to be seen, and the queues build through the afternoon.
Stay for the lights
The lanterns and the reflections are what domestic visitors come for, and the evening is when the reconstruction reads best.
Do the battle museum too
Otherwise the town is a pretty set with no explanation of why it had to be built twice.
Expect shops
The retail is the same as in every rebuilt old town in China. Judge the place on its water and its plan, not on its souvenirs.
Timing
When to Go
| Season | The case for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| April to June | Willows out, comfortable walking and long evenings on the water | Spring weekends are busy with domestic groups |
| September and October | Warm days, clear light and the most comfortable boating of the year | The first week of October is a national holiday and the town fills |
| July and August | Everything open and long opening hours on the water | Hot and humid, and this is the peak of the domestic season |
| November to March | Quiet, cheap and atmospheric under lights | Cold in northern Shandong, and some boat services run reduced |
Context
What a Reconstruction Is For
China has rebuilt a great many old towns in the last two decades, and foreign visitors tend to react to them with suspicion. That reaction is worth examining rather than simply indulging. European cities rebuilt after 1945 are not usually described as fakes: Warsaw’s old town was reconstructed from paintings and is a World Heritage Site, and the centres of Dresden, Rotterdam and a dozen others are postwar work on medieval plans. The questions worth asking are whether a place is honest about having been rebuilt, and whether the rebuilding was done with any care.
By those tests this town does reasonably well. The destruction is documented and commemorated, the reconstruction followed the old street and canal lines, and the mixture of regional styles reflects what the records show was there. What it does not have, and cannot have, is the accumulated irregularity of a place that grew: the odd angles, the patched-together walls, the buildings that are older on one side than the other.
Where it differs from the European cases is motive. Warsaw was rebuilt because people lived there and wanted their city back. This town was rebuilt seventy years after the event, as a tourism and memorial project, for a population that had long since made other arrangements. That is a legitimate thing to do and it produces a different kind of place, and a visitor who holds both facts at once will get more out of the day than one who arrives determined to be either impressed or cynical.
Nearby
Other Stops on the Same Trip
Spot · about 150 km north
Confucius Temple and Cemetery, Qufu (曲阜三孔)
The family town of Confucius, and the opposite case: continuously maintained for two thousand years.
Spot · about 250 km north
Mount Tai (泰山)
The mountain the emperors climbed, on the same railway line.
Spot · about 450 km east
Liugong Island, Weihai (刘公岛)
Another Shandong site about a defeat and what was done with it afterwards.
Where to Base
Zaozhuang (枣庄)
Zaozhuang is a coal and industry city and the town is in its southern district. There is high-speed rail on the Beijing to Shanghai line, which makes this an easy stop between the two, and that convenience is the main argument for coming.
Most visitors stay inside the walled town rather than in the city, which is the better choice: the evening is the best part of the visit and the last boats run late.
Experiences
What You Can Actually Do Here
On site · one day
The canals and the walls
A boat in the morning to see how the town is put together, the streets and the square in the afternoon, and the lights after dark.
On site · half day
The battle
The memorial and museum outside the walls, which supply the reason the town had to be built twice.
Guided · 4 days
Shandong, twice over
This town and Qufu, read as two opposite answers to the question of what happens to a place over time.
Go knowing what it is. The street plan and the canals are old, the buildings are fifteen years old, and the town says so on the plaques if you read them. Take a boat in the morning, do the battle museum in the afternoon so the rest makes sense, and stay for the lights. A place that was flattened in a month and put back over a decade is worth an argument, and it is a better argument than most rebuilt old towns in China can support.
Southern Shandong, Between Beijing and Shanghai
This town sits on the high-speed line between the two cities most itineraries already include, and almost nobody stops. Tell us your dates and our local team will fit it in as an overnight, put you on the water early and get you into the battle museum before it closes.