thoroughly dredged by Chinese authorities to create a safe shipping channel for the communities on its banks, including Qianshan. On 22–23 September 1874, Qianshan was hit by a devastating typhoon: around 4000 were killed in Macao, Wanzai ("Lapa"), and Qianshan and hundreds of bodies that washed ashore had to be buried by local hospitals or incinerated by the government. The area continued to be pummeled by typhoons—56 in the century from 1883 to 1983—but none on the scale of the 1874 disaster. Qianshan benefited from Deng Xiaoping's Opening Up Policy and was granted town status in 1987. As settlements throughout the Pearl River Delta expanded, though, Qianshan no longer formed a separate settlement and was reorganized as a subdistrict of Zhuhai's Xiangzhou District in August 2001. Qianshan Port, which opened onto the Qianshan River, was closed in the 2000s, with its ticket hall becoming a warehouse and the waterfront being developed as a public park. Landmarks Qianshan's Meixi Village is the home to the Meixi Royal Stone Archways. The three engraved granite archways were built by order of the Guangxu Emperor in 1886 and 1891 in honor of Chen Fang (t s Chén Fāng) or Chun Afong, a native of Meixi who served as China's first consul to Hawaii and became a prominent philanthropist. It is surrounded by a park covering the old Chen estate, expanded by Chen's son Tony (t s Chén Xírú), and its gardens. The site also houses the Waxworks Hall of Historical Figures of Zhuhai and a folk art exhibition. The Agricultural Paradise is an agricultural tourism park affiliated with the Zhuhai Agricultural Scientific Research Demonstration Base. It covers at the foot of MtShuanglong in Meixi Village. It also serves as a demonstration facility in its own right, as with its research into techniques for growing organic olecranon peaches (t s yīngzuǐtáo, "eagle-beak peaches") in the Pearl River Delta. Since 2010, Qianshan Waterfront has been developed as a large community park. Economy Through the early stages of Qianshan's history, the main industry was refining salt from the Qianshan River under the auspices of the Jindou Bay Saltworks in Xiangshan, which began operation under the Tang. Under Deng Xiaoping's Opening Up Policy, Zhuhai was established as one of China's first special economic zones in 1980. Companies based in Qianshan enjoy preferential government policies, and some have grown into some of the largest firms in the world. Qianshan-based