Dezhou

關於Dezhou

Dezhou is a prefecture-level city in northwestern Shandong province, People's Republic of China. It borders the provincial capital of Jinan to the southeast, Liaocheng to the southwest, Binzhou to the northeast, and the province of Hebei to the north.

In 1417, the pre-sultanate East King of Sulu, Paduka Pahala, sailed to China on a tribute mission to the Yongle Emperor. While on his way home from the mission, he died in Dezhou, and his two sons and wife were left in the care of Hui people in the city. The two families descended from the two sons were given the surnames An and Wen by the Ming dynasty. They lived through the Ming and Qing dynasties, and still live in Dezhou today.

Soon after, Sharif ul-Hāshim of Sulu arrived in Sulu and married a princess of the previous non-Hashemite royal family, founding the Sulu Sultanate. Since then, various Tausūg delegations from Sulu have visited Dezhou to meet the descendants of the previous royal family.

While on a boat in Dezhou, on 5 April 1748, the Qianlong Emperor's first empress, Empress Xiaoxianchun, died at the age of 37. The circumstances...

Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.