Suchow

The Chinese have a proverb which says: "Above is heaven; below are Su and Hang“ indicating the high esteem which they place upon the two cities, Suchow and Hangchow. Suchow is over twenty-three hundred years old, and has at present a population variously estimated at from three hundred thousand to half a million, though at one time it is said to have contained over a million.

1888, M. B. Chapman, The Lands of the Orient, Nashville, Tenn.: Southern Methodist Publishing House, page 127

The name of the province is derived from its two chief cities, Suchow and Nanking. Suchow, the Paris of the Far East, is coupled with Hangchow in a popular rhyme, which represents the two as paragon cities.

1907, W. A. P. Martin, “Province of Kiangsu”, in The Awakening of China, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC, page 25

Military situation. Troops of Kiangsu and Chekiang at war on front from Liuho on Yangtze through Hwangtu and Kunshan on Nanking-Shanghai Railway to Suchow on east side of Taihu and at Ihsing on west side of Taihu.

1924 September 8, Bell, “The Chargé in China (Bell) to the Secretary of State”, in Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1924, Volume I, United States Department of State

Like many other gardens the Wang Shih Yuan is situated in a large provincial town, in this case Suchow - a city of white-washed houses on a network of canals which has been celebrated since medieval times for its fine gardens.

1978, Maggie Keswick, The Chinese Garden, Hong Kong: Rizzoli International Publications, →ISBN, page 16

The construction of railroads has increased the importance of a number of cities, especially those located at the intersection of two lines. On the Tientsin-Pukow Railway this growth is illustrated by Tsinan, which is the junction for the railroad to Tsingtao, and Suchow, where this line meets the Lung-Hai Railway.

1934, George Babock Cressey, China's Geographic Foundations: A Survey of the Land and Its People, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., page 178

This blow was delivered by Communist Generals Liu Po-cheng and Chen Yi around the town of Suchow, 180 miles north of Nanking in November and December 1948. It was to prove catastrophic. The city of Suchow, which lies at the junction of the east-west Lunghia^([sic – meaning Lunghai]) Railway and the north-south Tientsin—Nanking Railway, is perhaps the most strategic city in modern-day China. Situated at the southern boundaries of the North China Plain, this town and the area adjacent to it form a kind of gateway between the north and the south.

1949, Jack Belden, China Shakes the World, Harper & Brothers, page 420

Our fellows were at base camp no. 70, waiting for help. Their food supplies would not last till the end of June. Again and again, orally and in writing, we had asked for lubricating oil for the convoy. We had still, at camp no. 70, enough petrol to enable three motor-lorries and the small car to cover a stretch of 930 miles—i.e. the distance from Korla to Suchow via Hami and Anhsi.

1938, Sven Hedin, translated by F. H. Lyon, The Silk Road, Boston: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., page 159

In 1876 Tso Tsung-t’ang, a Chinese general from Hunan who had already done much to subdue the Taipings and prove himself loyal to the Manchu Imperial Court, was appointed commander in chief of the Sinkiang expedition. His second in command was Liu Ching-t’ang, who proved himself so able that later he became the first governor of Sinkiang. At Suchow in Kansu he accumulated a stock of grain large enough to last his army for two years. When his army reached Komul, Barkul, and Kuchengtze, it was divided into two groups.

1950, Owen Lattimore, Pivot of Asia: Sinkiang and the Inner Asian frontiers of China and Russia, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, page 46