Hunan Billows F.C.

Hunan Billows Football Club (simplified Chinese: 湖南湘涛; traditional Chinese: 湖南湘濤; pinyin: Húnán Xiāngtāo) is a professional Chinese football club that currently participates in the China League One division under licence from the Chinese Football Association (CFA). The team is based in Yiyang, Hunan and their home stadium is the 30,000 capacity Yiyang Stadium. Their current majority shareholders are the Hunan Provincial Sports Bureau and high-tech industry company Hunan Corun New Energy co. ltd.

The club was originally founded on January 15, 2004 as Hunan Xiangjun to take part in the second tier at the beginning of the 2004 Chinese football league season. After three seasons the club was relegated and faced financial difficulties, however to preserve the representation of Hunan province within the Chinese football league pyramid, fans of the club raised three million Yuan in the hopes of keeping the team going before the local Hunan government sports body decided that it would be best to invest on a brand new team for the area where they essentially formed a new club called Hunan Billows (Simplified Chinese: 湖南湘军) on December 26, 2006. The reformed club have since gone on to win the 2009 Chinese League Two title and promotion to the Chinese League One division where they have since remained.

Hunan

Hunan Province (Chinese: 湖南; pinyin:  Húnán; Hunanese: Shuangfeng, [ɣəu˩˧læ̃˩˧]; Changsha, [fu˩˧lã˩˧]) is a province of the People's Republic of China. It is located in South Central China, south of the middle course of the Yangtze River, and south of Lake Dongting (hence the name Hunan, which means "south of the lake"). Hunan is sometimes called for short and officially abbreviated as "湘" (pinyin: Xiāng), after the Xiang River which runs through the province.

Hunan borders Hubei Province in the north, Jiangxi Province to the east, Guangdong Province to the southeast, Guangxi Province to the southwest, Guizhou Province to the west, and Chongqing to the northwest. The provincial capital is Changsha.

History

Hunan's primeval forests were first occupied by the ancestors of the modern Miao, Tujia, Dong and Yao peoples. It entered the written history of China around 350 BC, when under the kings of the Zhou Dynasty, it became part of the State of Chu. After Qin conquered the Chu heartland in 278 BC, the region came under the control of Qin, and then the Han dynasty. At this time, and for hundreds of years thereafter, it was a magnet for migration of Han Chinese from the north, who displaced or assimilated the indigenous people, cleared forests and began farming rice in the valleys and plains. The agricultural colonization of the lowlands was carried out in part by the Han state, which managed river dikes to protect farmland from floods. To this day many of the small villages in Hunan are named after the Han families who settled there. Migration from the north was especially prevalent during the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties Periods, when nomadic invaders pushed these peoples south.

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