Urban Space and Civil War： Hefei, 1853-1854

Previous scholarship has made it abundantly clear that the Taiping War impacted urban hierarchies in the Yangzi delta region, wreaking havoc in economic, commercial, administrative, and cultural centers like Hangzhou, Suzhou, Yangzhou, Changzhou, and Wuxi, thereby hastening the rise of Shanghai. But how did this war affect cities beyond the core Jiangnan region？ In a case study of the prefectural city of Hefei （Luzhou）, this article explores the ways in which war led to the reconfiguration and reimagining of urban space, both through wartime destruction and the patronage of post-war reconstruction.