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Lishui History · Lishui District, Nanjing, Jiangsu

The history of Lishui, written one entry at a time

From the founding of the county in 591 CE to its reconstitution as a district in 2013; from annalistic gazetteer entries to the old bridges on the heritage list. Every entry carries its sources, marks what is uncertain, and appears in Chinese and English.

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121 Published entries
6 Content categories
8 Periods covered
125 Source records

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Six categories

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Administrative Historyjianzhi The founding of the county, its promotion to a zhou and back, its reconstitution as a district, and the changes of superior authority. 8 entries Browse all Annalsdashiji Entries tied to a year, each with its era name, date precision and sources. 53 entries Browse all Heritage Siteswenwu Bridges, pagodas and sites, with their protection level and listing. 27 entries Browse all Archaeologykaogu Cave sites, fossils and excavations, with the dating of each stated. 6 entries Browse all Gazetteer Selectionsjiuzhi Selections from the Lishui gazetteers and commentary on them, quoted by juan and page. 13 entries Browse all Modern Lishuijindai Wartime garrisons and organs, and the administrative changes after 1949. 14 entries Browse all

Timeline

Timeline

Five dynastic periods, with entries earlier than the county listed separately.

Prehistory

Before the county 4 entries
  1. c. 9200 BCE The Huifeng Mountain Hominid Fossil Site A cave site attested only by a human temporal bone and animal fossils
  2. c. 9200 BCE The Fauna and Dating of the Shenxian Cave Site An early Holocene fauna, dated to about 11,000 years ago

Pre-Qin and Six Dynasties

Before the county 8 entries
  1. c. 1000 BCE Rescue Excavation of Mound Tombs in Lishui Eight teams along an expressway route in 2005, and the usual finds
  2. 538 BCE Chu Destroys Lai, 538 BCE Chu attacks Wu and destroys Lai, that is the Laishui; Wu moves its settlement to Lingping

Sui and Tang

591–959 6 entries
  1. 591Sui Lishui County Established, 591 CE Carved out of Liyang and the former Danyang lands, under Jiangzhou
  2. 598Sui Lishui County Absorbs Liyang, 598 CE Liyang County is abolished and its territory merged into Lishui

Song and Yuan

960–1367 12 entries
  1. 975Song Cao Bin's Officer Defeats the Jiangnan Army at Lishui, 975 CE Tian Qinzuo defeated more than ten thousand men in the first month and killed the commander Li Xiong; Li Yu surrendered within the year
  2. 1018Song Shengzhou Renamed Jiangning Prefecture, 1018 CE Lishui passed under the new prefecture; the dynastic history calls it an elevation to Jiankang command

Ming and Qing

1368–1911 30 entries
  1. 1369Ming Lishui Zhou Reduced to a County in 1369 The Yuan-era prefecture becomes a county again, and a county school is ordered
  2. 1385Ming The Tax and Corvée Registers of 1385 Households graded into three classes, corvée verified against the registers

Republican Period

1912–1949 8 entries
  1. 1937Republic of China Monument to the Victims of the Japanese Bombing of Lishui Commemorating the civilians killed when Japanese aircraft bombed the county town on 29 November 1937
  2. 1938Republic of China The Rally of the New Fourth Army at Xinqiao The First Column under Chen Yi and the Advance Detachment under Su Yu met at Xinqiao, Lishui, on 8 June 1938

Contemporary

since 1950 5 entries
  1. 1959Contemporary Zhongshan Martyrs' Cemetery A cemetery for revolutionary martyrs, built at Fengxiangling in Jingqiao in October 1959
  2. 2013Contemporary The Nanjing–Hangzhou High-Speed Railway Opens Opened throughout on 1 July 2013, with Lishui station in Dongping Subdistrict

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Southern Tang Heritage Sites Han Xizai's Reading Terrace A Southern Tang terrace site on Wuxiang Mountain, proposed for the district's fifth batch of place-name cultural heritage The site lies inside the Wuxiang Mountain scenic area in Honglan Subdistrict. The Kangxi gazetteer of Lishui County, in its mountains-and-rivers treatise, records that the mountain holds a meditation temple built in the Tang, the site of Han Xizai's reading terrace from the Southern Tang, and a Guanyin image, adding that the old cypress and ginkgo were planted between the Tang and Song dynasties. Tao An's record of a visit to Longming Mountain, written by a man of the late Yuan and early Ming, notes the ruin of Han Xizai's reading hall and that the cypress he planted still stood, which corroborates the gazetteer. The gazetteer calls it a terrace site while Tao An calls it a reading hall; whether the two names denote one structure is not established by any source held here. The terrace appears in no list of protected sites at any level, so no protection level is given; it has however been listed under Honglan Subdistrict in the fifth batch of place-name cultural heritage proposed by the district civil affairs bureau on 3 June 2026, a place-name heritage designation that is separate from the protection of monuments. Heritage sitesEducation and cultureSouthern Tang Confidence: Qualified Standard the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period Heritage Sites Yiqidun Mound A Spring and Autumn or Warring States tomb in Zhongyang Village, Hefeng Town Yiqidun Mound lies in Zhongyang Village, Hefeng Town, Lishui District. The municipal list records it as Spring and Autumn to Warring States and municipally protected, while the third district batch records it as Spring and Autumn and district-protected. Heritage sitesTombMunicipal-level protected site Confidence: Qualified Standard Textual criticism Gazetteer Selections The offices of Lishui through the dynasties The establishment of offices from Tang to Qing as recorded in the Shunzhi gazetteer's table of officials Juan 1 of the Shunzhi Lishui County Gazetteer contains a table of officials, and only its first half survives in the online transcription: the establishment of offices dynasty by dynasty from Tang to Qing, while the chronological table of officeholders that the preface says follows it was not transcribed. Drawing on that passage, this article sets out the six dynasties' establishments and notes three points: the gazetteer itself records that the Sui cannot be traced; in the Yuan, because the county was raised to a prefecture, two sets of offices are listed side by side and the title darughachi appears twice; and the Ming is the fullest, down to the tax office, the river and lake station, the salt certificate office, the Dongba inspection station, the yin-yang instructor, and the Buddhist and Daoist registries. Offices are recorded but officeholders are not, and that is the present limit of this subject. Textual criticismAdministrative history Confidence: Qualified Standard 1938 Modern Lishui The Rally of the New Fourth Army at Xinqiao The First Column under Chen Yi and the Advance Detachment under Su Yu met at Xinqiao, Lishui, on 8 June 1938 On 8 June 1938 the First Column of the New Fourth Army and its Advance Detachment met at Xinqiao in Lishui, opening the Army's advance east to fight the Japanese. A telegram of 15 June from Xiang Ying and the Chen Yi Chronicle corroborate the event, and the source that records it also notes that the episode long went unnoticed by historians. War of ResistanceNew Fourth ArmyMilitary affairs Confidence: Qualified Long-form 1125 Annals A Plea about the Three Lakes and their Polders, 1125 CE Lu Xiang memorialised about the Shijiu, Gucheng and Danyang lakes; the gazetteers read the plea in opposite directions In the ninth month of 1125 CE, the seventh year of the Xuanhe era, Lu Xiang, administrator of Jiangning Prefecture, memorialised about the polder land of the Shijiu, Gucheng and Danyang lakes. The county gazetteer has him asking that the three lakes be made into polders; a Ming water-conservancy work has him asking that the lake-polders be abolished instead. The two readings are set out side by side. PoldersWater conservancythe Song dynasty Confidence: Qualified Standard 1611 Annals An Earthquake in 1611 Recorded on the sixteenth day of the tenth month; the gazetteer has only one line In 1611, the thirty-ninth year of the Wanli era, Lishui was shaken by an earthquake in the tenth month. The Kangxi gazetteer gives only this single line, with no magnitude, epicentre or damage. EarthquakesNatural anomaliesMing dynasty Standard

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