French troops sailed into a fishing bay on the Leizhou Peninsula in the warship Bayard in April 1898, found a deep natural harbour and by November of the following year had forced China into a 99 year lease. The territory became Kouang-Tchéou-Wan, or Guangzhouwan.
一八九八年四月，法国军舰”白雅特”号驶入雷州半岛一处海湾，发现这里拥有天然深水良港；到次年十一月，法国已迫使中国签下九十九年的租约。这片租借地被称为”广州湾”；法国人后来又将今霞山一带修建的港口命名为”白雅特港”。
Those servicemen landed at Haitou, today’s Xiashan district, before the border had even been agreed, and pushed inland against local militia. By the time the lease was signed in November 1899, close to 300 Chinese people had been killed or wounded, including about 130 deaths, against roughly 60 French casualties including five deaths.
法军在边界尚未划定前，便已在海头（今霞山区）强行登陆，并向内陆推进，遭到当地民团的抵抗。到一八九九年十一月租约签订时，中方伤亡近三百人，其中约一百三十人死亡；法方伤亡约六十人，其中约五人死亡。
According to the Zhanjiang municipal government’s own account of the episode, sustained local resistance during the fighting forced France to pull its western boundary back from a crossing then called Wannian Bridge to another one nearer Chikan, shrinking the leased territory’s depth from more than a hundred li to about thirty; local figures including Wu Bangze were killed in the year and a half of fighting. In 1925, local residents built a bridge there and named it Cunjin Bridge, an inch of river and mountain worth an inch of gold, in memory of the resistance.
据湛江市政府对这段历史的官方记述，由于当地持续的抵抗，法方被迫将租界西界从原本的万年桥后撤至赤坎附近的一座桥，租界纵深也因此从一百多里缩减至约三十里；在这一年半的战斗中，包括吴帮泽在内的多名当地人士牺牲。一九二五年，当地民众在这一带修建寸金桥，取”一寸山河一寸金”之意，以纪念这场抗争。
The Bridge Called an Inch of Gold
那座叫作”寸金”的桥
Much of the local population had fled the fighting. According to historical accounts of the period, Cantonese-speaking peasants from north of the peninsula were then brought in to resettle the area, helping Cantonese become dominant in the port itself while the older Leizhou dialect remained widespread across the peninsula.
战乱期间，当地人口大量流失。据相关历史记载，法方其后从半岛以北招募讲粤语的农民前来定居，这一人口迁入也促使粤语逐渐成为港区内的主要方言，而较早的雷州话则继续广泛流行于半岛其他地区。
France intended Fort Bayard as a logistical hub for its concessions across southern China, with plans for a railway and mineral projects reaching into the interior; surrounding poverty and underdevelopment limited how much of that ambition was realised. The leased territory covered about 2,100 square kilometres of land and water.
法国原打算将白雅特港打造成其在华南各租界的物流枢纽，并计划修建铁路、开发矿产、深入内陆；但周边地区的贫困与落后，令这些设想大多未能实现。租借地水陆总面积约二千一百平方公里。
Japanese forces landed in the Guangzhouwan territory in February 1943. French authorities did not mount a military resistance and instead signed a joint defence agreement with Japan on 21 February; the former French mission building served as a Japanese military headquarters until, in March 1945, Japan disarmed the remaining French military and police and took full control. A local resistance movement grew regardless; local historical accounts say one anti-Japanese youth association eventually claimed more than 50,000 members.
一九四三年二月，日军在广州湾租借地登陆。法方未作军事抵抗，反而于二月二十一日与日方签订共同防御协议；原法国公使署一度沦为日军司令部，直至一九四五年三月，日方解除了剩余法国军警的武装，完全接管当地。尽管如此，当地抗日力量依然发展壮大；据地方史料记载，其中一个青年抗敌同志会成员一度发展至逾五万人。
Japan surrendered in August 1945, and on 18 August China and France’s provisional government, then led by General Charles de Gaulle, signed a treaty in Chongqing returning the leased territory. Japanese forces formally surrendered at Chikan on 21 September, and the Sino-French handover ceremony followed on 19 October; the remaining French officials and residents departed for Saigon aboard a British warship that December. The former leased territory was renamed Zhanjiang later that year, with its new municipal government taking shape over the following months.
一九四五年八月，日本投降；同月十八日，中国政府与当时由戴高乐将军领导的法国临时政府在重庆签订条约，将租借地归还中国。九月二十一日，日军在赤坎正式投降；十月十九日，中法两国举行交接仪式；同年十二月，留守的法籍官员与侨民乘英国军舰启程前往西贡。这片原租借地当年即更名为湛江，其市政府机构则在其后数月间逐步建立。
A Peninsula Shaped like the Tail of China
一条形似中国尾巴的半岛
Zhanjiang encompasses the entire Leizhou Peninsula, a strip of land roughly 140 kilometres long and 60 to 70 kilometres wide that narrows towards Hainan across the Qiongzhou Strait, which is only 18 kilometres wide at its narrowest point. Xuwen county, at the peninsula’s tip, is mainland China’s southernmost point, sitting directly opposite Haikou, Hainan’s capital.
湛江辖区包括整个雷州半岛，这片陆地南北长约一百四十公里，东西宽约六十至七十公里，向南延伸、隔琼州海峡与海南相望，海峡最窄处仅十八公里。位于半岛尖端的徐闻县，是中国大陆最南端，与海南省会海口隔海相对。
The Song-dynasty poet Su Shi, exiled through the region on his way to Hainan, wrote in his Stele Inscription for the Fubo General Temple that the people of four prefectures treated Xuwen as their throat, a description still used locally for the county’s position guarding the crossing to Hainan and beyond.
宋代诗人苏轼被贬途经此地前往海南时，曾在《伏波将军庙碑记》中写下”四州之人，以徐闻为咽喉”之句，形容徐闻扼守通往海南乃至更远处的咽喉要道，这一说法至今仍为当地人所沿用。
Zhanjiang is now home to the headquarters of the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s South Sea Fleet.
如今，湛江是中国人民解放军海军南海舰队司令部驻地。
