Imperial China
Following Qin unification, the region was organized as Sichuan (四川) commandery. During the Qin collapse, Pengcheng became a locus for Chu cultural revival: it was where Emperor Yi of Chu moved his seat in 208 BCE, and it was where Xiang Yu established the capital of Western Chu in 206 BCE, designating the area as his capital. Despite Xiang Yu's victory at the Battle of Pengcheng (205 BCE), the city passed to Han control.
In 202 BCE, it became the capital of the Chu Princedom under Liu Jiao. In 154 BCE, Prince Liu Wu joined the Rebellion of the Seven Princes. Despite his defeat and subsequent territorial reductions, his Shizishan (獅子山) tomb exceeded standard sumptuary limits and contained gold-threaded jade burial suits.
Following Prince Liu Yanshou's failed conspiracy in 69 BCE, the princedom was briefly abolished but restored in 51 BCE. During the Eastern Han, it alternated between a princedom and commandery under various princes, including Liu Ying and Liu Qing. During this period, Pengcheng emerged as one of the earliest recorded sites of a Buddhist community in China.
In the 190s, Cao Cao's campaigns against Tao Qian damaged Pengcheng, forcing a Buddhist community of ten thousand—led by figures such as Ze Rong—to flee toward the Yangtze valley. After Lü Bu's defeat in 198 CE, the seat of Xu Province moved from Tancheng to Xiapi, and was finally fixed at Pengcheng under the Western Jin, making the city the administrative center of the province.
In the early 4th century, Pengcheng became a frontier stronghold for the southern dynasties. Control of the city shifted—it fell to Later Zhao in 324 and was retaken by Eastern Jin forces in 384—while many of its inhabitants fled south to the lower Yangtze. These émigré (qiaoren) communities provided the recruits for the Beifu Army, a force that became the military base of Liu Yu, a member of the Liu clan of Pengcheng. He went on to found the Liu Song dynasty.
Administrative boundaries were frequently adjusted to reflect these military shifts. In 411, the Eastern Jin established North Xuzhou at Pengcheng, distinct from Xuzhou at Guangling, later Jingkou. By 421, the Liu Song dynasty restored the "Xuzhou" designation to Pengcheng and renamed its southern counterpart South Xuzhou.
Pengcheng withstood a Northern Wei siege in 450–451. This siege was also accompanied by "Disputation at Pengcheng", where envoys from both sides contended over which regime held the legitimate mandate over China. However, the city's eventual capture by the Northern Wei in 466 ended southern dynastic rule over the Huaibei region.
Located at the junction of the Si and Bian rivers, Xuzhou was a transport hub, though navigation was hindered by the "Two Rapids"—the Xuzhou Rapids [徐州洪, 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) southeast of the city] and the Lüliang Rapids [呂梁洪, 24 kilometres (15 mi) south of the city]. Due to these rocky obstructions, the Sui dynasty's Tongji Canal adopted a circuitous route to bypass the city.
During the early Tang dynasty, the region's registered population grew substantially. The registered population of Pengcheng, Feng, and Pei counties rose from 21,768 individuals in 639 to 205,286 by 742.
Following the An Lushan Rebellion, Xuzhou secured the defense of the Bian Canal—the main Jianghuai–Guanzhong logistics route. In 781, during the Rebellion of the Four Garrisons, the rebel Li Na seized the city to sever imperial logistics until the prefect Li Wei restored Tang control. In 788, the region was reorganized as a military circuit under Zhang Jianfeng, and was formally designated as the Wuning (武寧, "Pacification through Force") circuit in 805.
Subsequently, the circuit underwent a process of localization, evolving into a localized military interest group centered on the "Silver Sword" (Yindao) corps. Driven by their own strategic interests, this elite unit frequently prevented imperial governors from effectively exercising their mandates.
In response, the Tang court disbanded the garrison in 862, when Governor Wang Shi disbanded the garrison. This measure drove many displaced soldiers into banditry or long-term border service in Lingnan. In 868, citing grievances over delayed rotations, 800 Wuning soldiers mutinied in Guilin under Pang Xun. Exacerbated by regional famine, the rebellion swelled into a composite force—reportedly numbering 200,000—that seized Xuzhou.
The court deployed Shatuo Turk cavalry under Li Guochang to suppress the insurgency. Following a year of intense combat, the circuit was symbolically renamed Ganhua (感化; "Transformation through Influence"), to signify pacification. Nevertheless, Xuzhou maintained a state of de facto autonomy through the final years of the Tang dynasty.
During the Northern Song, the Liguo Industrial Prefecture, 34 kilometres (21 mi) north of the city, emerged as a major metallurgical center; it operated 36 private smelters with thousands of laborers, reaching an estimated annual capacity of several thousand tonnes.
Local hydrological instability emerged in the 10th century. In 1019, a Yellow River breach caused widespread flooding that fully inundated the walled city of Xuzhou. A subsequent breach in 1077 necessitated further fortification; Prefect Su Shi oversaw the construction of defensive "Su Embankment" (Sudi, 蘇堤) on the city's western perimeter.
In early 1129, the Jurchen army captured the city. As the Yellow River permanently captured the Huai River course, Xuzhou was a major but flood-prone node for Grand Canal transit. In 1352, Yuan Chancellor Toqto suppressed the Red Turban forces led by "Sesame Li" in Xuzhou to secure imperial grain routes, briefly renaming the city Wu'an (武安; literally "Peace Restored by Force").
During the late imperial period, the city functioned as a key node at the intersection of Grand Canal logistics and the management of the volatile Yellow River. Following the Ming capital's relocation to Beijing, the city hosted the major granary and one of the seven national customs barriers (chaoguan, 鈔關).
To maintain the imperial tribute, tens of thousands of households in the region were responsible for approximately 40,000 annual corvée laborers, primarily rotary laborers (banfu, 班夫) and specialized rapids haulers (hongfu, 洪夫). The service levy for these duties reached up to 12 taels per hongfu, leading to late-16th-century reforms that halved the required payments. In 1605, the completion of the Jia Canal (泇河) redirected the Grand Canal's main artery to the northeast to bypass the rapids; consequently, the majority of canal traffic no longer passed through or docked at Xuzhou, after which the city's commercial activity declined.
Some historians argue that Yellow River management in the late 16th century prioritized imperial tribute and the Ming Ancestral Mausoleum over regional safety. The 1579 "flush silt with clear water" (xuqing shuahuang, 蓄清刷黃) policy was intended to scour the riverbed with high-velocity currents, but led to increased siltation near Xuzhou. By the 1590s, the city's embankments were raised level with its walls, and in 1624, a deluge buried the walled city under four meters of water and sediment. During the Ming-Qing transition, Xuzhou was one of the Four Jiangbei Garrisons (江北四鎮) defending the southern bank of the Yellow River for the Nanjing-based Ming court. The city was taken by the Qing in mid-1645. Local gentry Yan Ermei (閻爾梅) and Wan Shouqi (萬壽祺), known as "Two Ming Loyalists of Xuzhou", refused to hold office under the new dynasty.
The 1668 Tancheng Earthquake caused severe damage and casualties throughout Xuzhou. In 1733, the Qing government reorganized Xuzhou into a prefecture, establishing Tongshan county—named after an island in the Nansi Lakes—as its seat. The prefecture administered the counties of Tongshan, Feng, Pei, Dangshan, Xiao, Suining, and Suqian, as well as the department of Pizhou (encompassing modern Xinyi).
In the 1850s, the Yellow River shifted northward, restructuring the region's environmental and socioeconomic landscape. An 1851 breach flooded the western shores of the Nansi Lakes; when the river changed course again in 1855, the canal system was rendered defunct. As the water receded, the newly exposed land led to fierce competition between returning locals and Shandong migrants. These migrants organized paramilitary "Lakeside Communities" (hutuan, 湖團), sparking long-term land disputes along the Jiangsu-Shandong border.
In the aftermath of the Opium Wars, Xuzhou became a major opium-producing region. In 1891, the Native Opium Consolidated Tax Bureau was established to levy a uniform duty on merchants until 1910. Furthermore, the regional economic collapse of the canal system and the devastation of the floods fueled large-scale rural insurgencies, including the Nian Rebellion, and the Big Swords Society.
