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Pingju began in Tangshan in the 1910s, when Cheng Zhaocai joined a narrative ballad to a local opera and borrowed from Hebei clapper opera, Peking opera and shadow play. Its speech-like delivery made it the most famous regional opera of the Republican period, and it kept writing plays about its own time.
Before dawn on 28 July 1976 an earthquake of magnitude 7.6 broke directly under Tangshan. In minutes most of the city's buildings were unusable, the mines and railways were damaged, and 242,000 people were dead by the official count. The city was rebuilt, and coal, steel and a port are the result.
At Zunhua in Tangshan, a valley of 80 square kilometres holds the tombs of five Qing emperors, fifteen empresses and 136 imperial concubines, laid out along paved spirit ways and enclosed by mountains. The complex was inscribed with the Western Qing tombs in 2000, and its underground palaces are why it is studied.