"Is Su Chao about to crush Anhui?"

On the evening of July 5th, 60,000 people watched the showdown between Nanjing and Suzhou at the Scottish Premier League (a local football league in Jiangsu Province, here used humorously) live. Outside the venue, a large screen in a Suzhou shopping mall displayed the slogan, "Anan (a nickname for Nanjing), it doesn't matter if you lose the game. At worst, you can go next door and become the provincial capital."

After Taobao Flash Sale, Alipay, and Huabei, the "scattered" sponsors from the Alibaba Group, cheered for the teams from Changzhou, Xuzhou, and Wuxi respectively, some netizens joked, "Waiting for an Anhui enterprise to support Nanjing."

This is not the first time Anhui has "stolen the spotlight" in the so - called "Scottish Premier League" in Jiangsu. As early as June 14th, the Nanjing Cultural and Tourism Channel reposted a funny video on Xiaohongshu titled "The Mental State of Hefei in the Scottish Premier League". The caption clearly read: "We don't know if Jiangsu is fragmented, but it seems that Anhui is about to fall apart."

This video is a second - creation of the famous scene in the movie "The Mermaid" where Deng Chao reports to the police. In the video, "Hefei" played by Deng Chao rushes into the police station with a face full of grief and indignation, accusing Jiangsu of being unfair in the game and luring away most of its "little brothers". Now, Wuhu, Ma'anshan, and Chuzhou don't even try to hide it. Their official cultural and tourism accounts have expressed their affection for Nanjing! Then, "Hefei" proposed the idea of holding a "Anhui Premier League"...

However, the netizens' comments were quite incisive: If Anhui also holds an "Anhui Premier League", what it may face is not a "free - for - all" among cities, but a "gang - up" against Hefei.

A football league within Jiangsu has exposed the "fragmentation" of Anhui. Then the questions arise: Why is Anhui more "fragmented" than Jiangsu? Why do the people within the province tend to gather towards other provinces? Why is Hefei, the "big brother", not well - received by its "little brothers" in the same province?

01 The "Fragmented" Province and the Embarrassed "Big Brother"

Anhui's embarrassment has been around for a long time.

In this Scottish Premier League game, the Nantong team defeated the Nanjing team in the first round. Thousands of Nantong fans at the scene shouted in unison, "Call Nanjing big brother." Meanwhile, Wuhu, Chuzhou, and Ma'anshan in neighboring Anhui were busy cheering for Nanjing. Ma'anshan even declared, "Regardless of the outcome, we only recognize Nanjing as our big brother." A song titled "Lovely Nanjing Wins" went viral on the Internet, leaving Hefei feeling awkward.

▲ The official media of various places in Anhui cheered for Nanjing one after another.

There's no way around it. The nickname "Huijing" (a humorous term referring to Nanjing's influence in Anhui) is deeply rooted in people's hearts. Previously, some netizens summarized: The largest "zhou" (a traditional administrative division) of Nanjing is Chuzhou; the deepest lake of Nanjing is Wuhu; the highest mountain of Nanjing is Ma'anshan.

Behind these geographical jokes lies the deep - seated economic and emotional bond between Wuhu, Ma'anshan, and Chuzhou and Nanjing.

Geographically, Wuhu, Ma'anshan, and Chuzhou are located in the southeast of Anhui and are adjacent to Nanjing. It only takes 16 minutes to take the high - speed rail from Nanjing to Ma'anshan, 4 minutes faster than going to Zhenjiang in the same province; it takes only 18 minutes to go to Chuzhou and less than half an hour to go to Wuhu. This convenience has made Nanjing the "back garden" of the cities in the southeast of Anhui.

In contrast, Hefei, the "big brother", seems a bit far away.

It takes 44 minutes to take the high - speed rail from Hefei to Wuhu, an hour and a half to Ma'anshan, and there is even no direct high - speed rail to Chuzhou. It takes 4 hours by ordinary train.

Take Ma'anshan as an example. This third - tier city borders Nanjing and is only about 60 kilometers away from the city center of Nanjing.

Official data shows that about 12,000 people travel between Ma'anshan and Nanjing through Ma'anshan East Station every day, and 20,000 vehicles pass through the Nanjing - Ma'anshan Expressway. Many people live in Ma'anshan but work in Nanjing. The permanent population of Ma'anshan is only 2.2 million.

Biscuit, who works in an eye hospital in Nanjing, told "Noise Reduction NoNoise" that he has been commuting across provinces for a year and a half. He has tried taking the high - speed rail, driving, and taking the bus, and finally chose to drive. Currently, it is 52 kilometers from his home to the company, which takes about 50 minutes to 1 hour. Occasionally, he can pick up a passenger on his way home from work.

However, the good news is that Biscuit's long - distance driving commute is about to end. At the end of the conversation, he excitedly told us that Line S2 of the Nanjing Metro will directly connect to Ma'anshan.

▲ After the completion and opening of Line S2 of the Nanjing Metro, the commuting time between Nanjing and Ma'anshan will be shortened. At that time, the central urban areas of the two cities can be connected in only 30 minutes.

In Ma'anshan, license plates starting with "Su A" and Suguo Supermarkets can be seen everywhere on the streets. In the past, one could buy the Nanjing Morning Post at newspaper stands. Milkmen deliver Weigang milk (a Nanjing - based enterprise) every day. During the epidemic, the Ma'anshan government specifically reminded: "Nanjing is outside the province."

▲ Discussions among netizens in the comment section of a funny video about Nanjing and "Wuhu, Ma'anshan, and Chuzhou".

Statistics show that in the 1980s, one - third of the employees' wages in Ma'anshan flowed to Nanjing. Now, the annual consumption of Ma'anshan residents in Nanjing is increasing at a rate of 200 million yuan. For local people, if they can't be cured at the 17th Metallurgical Construction Company Hospital, they can go to Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital. If they can't find what they want at Golden Eagle or Wanda, they can go straight to Xinjiekou in Nanjing.

Similar to how people in Yanjiao introduce themselves as being from next to Beijing, people in Ma'anshan introduce themselves as being from next to Nanjing. In contrast, Hefei is more like a distant relative. Usually, people at home don't mention it, and they rarely visit each other. They are really not very familiar.

This is not an isolated case in Anhui.

Huangshan and Xuancheng in southern Anhui are more naturally inclined to the charm of the Yangtze River Delta region including Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai. In northern Anhui, a large number of people from Fuyang and Bozhou don't flow to Hefei but go straight to Shanghai, southern Jiangsu, and Zhejiang. Many cities in the province, such as Anqing and Bengbu, have had glorious histories, and their sense of identity with the provincial capital always seems to be a bit lacking.

In recent years, although Hefei, as the "big brother", has made rapid progress in economic strength and its GDP accounts for nearly 27% of the province's total (i.e., the economic primacy); however, it seems that it can't really bring the people in the province together. It has been working hard to develop, but some brothers in the province privately complain that it is "dominating alone", and other cities are treated like "power banks"; it wants to be the leader, but sometimes it seems powerless when coordinating provincial affairs.

Some netizens with an Anhui IP even compared the relationship between Hefei and other cities in Anhui to "Yaozu and his fifteen sisters".

02 The Dominance of One City Amidst the Controversy of "Power Banks"

Why are the contradictions in Anhui more prominent? The reason lies in its "fragmented" gene.

The Yangtze River and the Huaihe River divide Anhui into three regions with distinct geographical and cultural styles.

People in northern Anhui speak the Central Plains Mandarin, eat delicious sesame cakes, and think about business opportunities in Xuzhou and Henan. People in southern Anhui belong to the Wu dialect or Huizhou dialect area, have the same cultural origin as Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and have a profound tradition of Huizhou merchants. They drink Huangshan Maofeng tea and keep an eye on the money in the Yangtze River Delta region. People in central Anhui speak the Jianghuai Mandarin, eat Huaiyang cuisine, are influenced by the economic radiation of Nanjing, and try to be "peace - makers".

In terms of historical factors, Anhui was established as a province in 1667. By 1952, the provincial capital had changed many times (from Xuancheng to Anqing, then to Wuhu, and finally to Hefei). In the early 1950s, there was even a situation where the provincial capital changed five times in three years.

Hefei became the provincial capital in 1952. However, due to the lack of historical heritage (compared with Wuhan and Nanjing, which have long - standing historical status), Anqing (the former provincial capital) and Wuhu (a modern trading port) in southern Anhui have long been dissatisfied. Locals jokingly call Hefei the "Overbearing Capital".

If the geographical and cultural segmentation and the controversy over the "rootless provincial capital" have sown the seeds of "centrifugal force" in "fragmented" Anhui, then the unbalanced economic development among cities in the province under the "strong provincial capital model" strategy has further deepened the estrangement among them.

In 2011, Chaohu in Anhui became the only prefecture - level city revoked in the history of the People's Republic of China. Lujiang County, which was originally under the jurisdiction of Chaohu City, was entirely incorporated into Hefei's jurisdiction. The former Juchao District was transformed into a county - level Chaohu City and was placed under the trusteeship of Hefei. The area of Hefei suddenly increased from 7,055 square kilometers to 11,400 square kilometers, and Chaohu Lake became an "inland lake" of Hefei.

▲ The administrative division after the revocation of Chaohu City.

Since then, Anhui's "strong provincial capital" strategy has gradually emerged, and a regional joke "One of the sixteen 'power banks' in Anhui has exploded" has started to circulate on the Internet.

In the scenario of the rise of central provinces, the "strong provincial capital model" is almost a strategy adopted by every province with limited resource endowments and low primacy. That is, by concentrating the province's resources to build the provincial capital city, after breaking through the development bottleneck, it is qualified to participate in the national urban competition and then support other regions.

Under this model, provinces such as Hunan and Hubei have achieved certain results. Although there are controversies, the situation is generally under control. However, in Anhui, the complaints within the province have never stopped.

The development gap within Anhui Province is obvious: The six cities in northern Anhui (Fuyang, Bozhou, Suzhou, etc.) are in a state of relative decline. The average per - capita GDP is about 7,444 US dollars, less than half of that of the six cities in southern Anhui (15,424 US dollars). The urbanization rate in Fuyang and Suzhou is lower than 50%, and the dependence on agriculture exceeds 10%, forming a gap with the industrial modernization of Hefei.

In terms of regional coordination, Hubei has long formed a situation of "one main and two deputy" with Wuhan, Xiangyang, and Yichang, and has entered the stage of external spill - over (for example, the industries in Optics Valley are being transferred to Xiaogan). In Anhui, although Wuhu, as the deputy center, has performed well, few people would attribute the credit to Hefei.

In 2024, the reporting team of "Anhui Daily" published an article titled "There is No Other 'Big City' Besides Hefei. How Can Anhui Solve This Problem?", directly pointing out the "pain of development" in Anhui due to the lack of big cities - besides Hefei with a GDP of over one trillion yuan, there is still a "gap" in cities with a GDP between 500 billion and 1 trillion yuan.

Hefei also has its own grievances. There are indeed many objective reasons for the limited ability of the provincial capital to support other regions.

Most of Anhui's manufacturing industries follow the "creating something out of nothing