Yantai (Chefoo) As A Treaty Port

In 1398, the Ming emperor Taizu commissioned a beacon on Beishan’s peak as a response to repeated Japanese raids. Those guarding the beacon could see miles out to sea and so warn the townsfolk when enemy sails were spotted. This beacon became locally known as Yantai (lit. ‘smoke tower’) and the vantage point on which it stood was renamed Yantai Hill.

The now-booming port of Yantai was, at that point, just a small agricultural community nestled in the mountain’s shadow. From humble beginnings, Yantai is now a major international port which welcomes cargo and tourists from throughout East Asia.

Chefoo (as Yantai was officially known) next appears on historians’ radar for the partit played in the second Opium War (1856-1860). This conflict between the Western powers and China was concluded by the Treat of Tianjin, under whose terms nearby Dengzhou (Penglai) was opened to foreign trade and investment as a ‘Treaty Port’. The first British consulate, Morrison, finding Dengzhou's port too small and shallow, recommended the title be shifted to Chefoo, with its large, sheltered bay (there is still a street in town named after him). Other consuls followed Morrison in setting up their establishments on Yantai Hill. The town never achieved the success of other treaty ports to the South, such as Shanghai, but brought some modest prosperity to the Shandong coast. The boarding school for the children of Western missionaries was sited in Chefoo because of its favourable climate. The treaty which ended the Sino-Japanese war of 1895 was signed in the Chefoo Club

Yantai is now a prosperous city of 3m people, dwarfing the town of Penglai, the original treaty port site.