Wuxi was founded 3,000 years ago by two fugitive princes, Taibo and Zhongyong, of Zhou from northern China, who intended to give their brother "Jili" the throne. The two princes settled down in "meili", which is believed to be today's Meicun of Wuxi (albeit some historic records lead to somewhere in today's Suzhou). They helped developing local agriculture and waterways and soon this area flourished. After the death of Taibo, because Taibo has no son, the emperor of Zhou named a descendant of his family king of kingdom "Wu". The king called his kingdom itself "Gowu". Taibo's shrine was set up in today's Meicun and the original wood structure was destroyed during the wars over the history. It has been renovated several times and today's architecture is mostly from Qing dynasty. A stone carved with Confucius' comment can still be seen in today's Taibo Shine. Wu became one of the strongest kingdoms during the spring and autumn period. Sunzi (Suntzu), who wrote the famous "the Art of War" came to Wu and helped the king in military. Wu was considered one of the seven strongest kingdoms during Spring and Autumn Period . Some of Sunzi's descendants are still living in Sunxiang in Wuxi near the Plum Garden. However, Wu was defeated by Yue (today's Zhejiang and Fujian) later on, which was also defeated by Chu later and Wu became part of Chu during the Warring States Period. The culture and economy center of "Wu" area shifted to Suzhou after Yinzheng, the first emperor united China and Wuxi belongs to Suzhou back then. During the Han dynasty, Wuxi was set up as a county by the emperor Wudi. Historic records showed that Tin was discovered during the early ages of Han and conflicts arose in this area because of Tin. Soon it ran out of Tin and some people think this is the reason why it was called Wuxi (No tin), but some historians disagree with this opinion and think "Wu" is just the local dialect, which has rich auxiliary words with not much meaning just like Suzhou was called "Gusu" and Wu was called "Gowu" and the name was changed to Youxi (with Tin) during Wang Mang conflicts period just because Wang wanted to change to a different name. Agriculture and silk industry flourished in Wuxi especially after the construction of the great canal. Although, Suzhou became a bigger center of Wu area, Wuxi is an important county of Wu. The agriculture (rice and fish as major products) and industry continued to develop and until the early 20th century, Wuxi became a center of the textile industry in China and one of the four most important rice markets nationwide. During the period between 1900 and 1940, Wuxi was considered a most important county in China. That is why in dramatist Caoyu's famous drama "Leiyu" ('Thunder Rain') Wuxi was mentioned several times with a comment "Wuxi is a good place". After the PRC was set up by communist in 1949, Wuxi continued to grow in importance, with the establishment of more textile production and both light and heavy industry. This city was considered a third important city in the Jiangsu province just after the capital city Nanjing and Suzhou, with being given driving sequence "Jiangsu 02" (Nanjing is "Jiangsu 01"). However, its developmental model was criticized among people because of the cost of environmental deterioration. New strategies are demanded by the people to ensure its continuous development with heavy pollution.
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