Jianghan Road was originally named Guangli Alley, a dirt path about 300 meters long extending from the riverbank to Poyang Street. After Hankou was opened as a treaty port in 1861, the road was widened and paved with gravel, named “Taiping Road”. By the late Qing Dynasty, Taiping Road had been extended northwards to Hualou Street.
In 1901, Liu Xinsheng, known as Hankou’s “Land King” or real estate magnate, donated a tract of low-lying land he had acquired through loans, situated around the Zhang Gong Embankment in Hankou, to the then British Concession. In recognition of his contribution, the British authorities named the road built in this area “Xinsheng Road”, which was the early form of Jianghan Road. Xinsheng Road quickly began to serve as a commodity distribution center between the Chinese-administered area and the concession, already showing initial signs of commercial prosperity.
In 1927, with the victory of the Northern Expedition, the National Government recovered the Hankou British Concession, including Xinsheng Road. The authorities subsequently unified the administration of Taiping Road and Xinsheng Road and officially named it Jianghan Road, using the characters “Jianghan” from Jianghan Customs located at the road’s southern end.
Jianghan Road underwent its first major renovation in 1929. By this time, well-known establishments like Hendry Watch Shop and Sino-British Pharmacy were already operating here.
On May 1, 1950, the Central Retail Branch of Wuhan City Department Store opened on Jianghan Road, becoming the largest department store in Hubei Province at the time.
The northern end of Jianghan Road was once adjacent to the Xunlimen Station of the Old Beijing-Hankou Railway. As early as the Republican era, Jianghan Road crossed the station’s track area. After 1949, with urban development, the limited size of the station area became unfavorable for freight transport. Furthermore, due to the station’s layout, the Jianghan Road level crossing would close whenever a train entered or stopped. Many citizens, in an attempt to pass quickly, would cross the tracks or even crawl under train cars, leading to frequent accidents and posing significant safety hazards. Xunlimen Station eventually ceased passenger services and was fully closed in 1996, with only the station building remaining. Subsequently, the station building was also demolished due to urban land development.
Liu Xinsheng, the developer behind Jianghan Road, once proudly declared, “The Governor-General created the Republic, and I created Hankou.”
The name Liu Xinsheng carries immense and weighty significance in the modern history of Wuhan. He was a highly influential Chinese merchant-comprador in the early 20th century, a renowned “Land King”, and Hankou’s wealthiest man, whose fortune was said to rival the national treasury.
In 1899, Liu Xinsheng became the comprador for the French firm Lising & Co. Three years later, he also assumed the role of comprador for the Hankou branch of the French Banque de l’Indochine (Oriental Bank). On one accidental occasion, learning that major foreign firms in Shanghai were preparing large-scale purchases of white sesame, Liu swiftly mobilized funds to buy large quantities at low prices in sesame-producing areas like Xiangyang. Reselling it in Shanghai, he reportedly earned a staggering 500,000 taels of silver. Following this success, his investment career continued to develop rapidly. He successively invested in and established a series of enterprises, including Liu Wanshun Leather Firm, Liu Wanshun Transport Company (later renamed Oriental Transport Company), Hubei Commercial Railway Company, Xinshengji Ironworks, Xinsheng Land Filling Company, Xinsheng Oil Press and Bean Cake Factory, a Bare-Shell Manufacturing Workshop, Futong Money Exchange, Tanshanwan Coal Mine, and the Jiangxi Copper Mine.
After achieving remarkable success in the industrial sector, Liu Xinsheng keenly turned his attention to the real estate industry, which was still in its nascent stage. Situated at the confluence of the Han River and Yangtze River, Hankou possessed inherent geographical advantages that attracted merchants and businesses from within and outside the country. However, due to a lack of systematic urban planning and construction, large areas in the Houhu (Rear Lake) region would be extensively flooded and turn into swampland every summer during the high water season. Liu Xinsheng foresaw the immense future development potential of the Hankou urban area and, capitalizing on the characteristic of summer flooding which depressed land prices, pioneered a unique “boat-measured pricing” method to acquire vast amounts of land. The scope of the suburban land he purchased was extensive, stretching from the Zhang Gong Embankment in the west to the railway line in the south, and from Duoluokou in the north down to Danshuichi in the south, accounting for roughly one-quarter of Hankou’s suburban area at the time. In 1905, Liu Xinsheng heavily sponsored the project by the Governor-General of Hubei and Hunan, Zhang Zhidong, to build the Houhu Great Embankment. After the embankment was completed, the swampland was transformed into valuable flat land, achieving a significant leap in value where “yellow earth turned into gold.” Through these operations, he gained control over virtually all land with significant development potential within the Hankou urban area, becoming Hankou’s first and most important modern real estate giant.
Liu Xinsheng was convinced that Hankou’s growth would inevitably involve urban expansion, thus he strategically focused his primary investments on land. In late 19th-century Hankou, there were vast tracts of vacant land around the city, much of it marshy and low-lying, which attracted minimal attention. Few at the time considered developing these extensive watery, barren areas; even if the idea crossed their minds, they often dismissed it, believing the capital recovery period was too long with no immediate benefits. Liu Xinsheng, however, possessed unique insight and boldness, daring to venture into this business of barren, swampy land, especially since these plots could be acquired at extremely low costs. He seized opportunities, particularly during summer floods when farmers, facing crop failure, were desperate to sell their land to survive. It was then that Liu Xinsheng acquired vast tracts of low-lying land, including the Houhu area, estimated at about one-quarter of the suburban area, stretching from Duoluokou in the north down to Danshuichi in the south, west to the Zhang Gong Embankment, and south to the railway line. These lands could be bought for very little money. His method for calculating land area and payment while in the water was as follows: He would first plant flagpoles at the four corners or along the boundaries of the land in the water, then navigate a boat along the flag markers, determining the land area and payment based on the number of oar strokes. It is said that for each oar stroke, he would pay one chuan (a string of coins), typically valued at about 800 copper coins, settling with each household on the spot. This method was virtually unheard of at the time.
In his real estate development and management, Liu Xinsheng adopted a flexible strategy: for prosperous or potentially prosperous areas, he was willing to invest heavily in construction, but rentals were relatively strict (implying higher rates). For land still awaiting future development, he employed a low-cost model, either merely collecting ground rent and allowing tenants to build their own simple dwellings, or using minimal capital to construct temporary, basic board houses. For example, in the areas today west of the Jianghan Road and Shengli Street intersection, where high-rise buildings now stand, he pioneered the practice of constructing “bare-shell” buildings (structures completed externally but unfinished internally) and renting them out quickly. He would typically collect one to two years’ rent upfront, with tenants responsible for the interior decoration. The contract stipulated that the property would revert to the owner after a set lease term, and a new agreement would be required for continued tenancy. Later, Liu Xinsheng also developed numerous commercial buildings and residences in areas such as present-day Qianjin Road, Minyi Road, and along the railway line. Through this unique model of low-cost land acquisition, rapid development, and high-return rentals, Liu Xinsheng quickly amassed an immense fortune, becoming a real estate magnate arguably unparalleled in Hankou at that time.
As mentioned earlier, Liu Xinsheng established his own land-filling company as early as 1901, specifically to level and prepare the land he purchased for subsequent development. Among his many filling projects, the development of the area that would later become Xinsheng Road was undoubtedly the most famous and profoundly influential. It was precisely through his large-scale land filling and road construction efforts that the formerly low-lying, muddy central Hankou area was completely transformed into flat ground and entirely new streets, attracting the attention of numerous businesses and investors. This ultimately led to the bustling prosperity described by the line, “Carriages and horses like shuttles, people like weaving threads; singing and music never ceased deep into the night.” Liu Xinsheng’s land development and filling projects were not just monumental physical transformations but also innovations in Hankou’s urban planning and commercial practices, holding epoch-making significance.