Lishui under the Sui and Tang

Founding and Sui jurisdiction

In 589, after the Sui conquest of Chen, Danyang Commandery was abolished and Jiangzhou established, and the former Liyang County was transferred to it. In 591, the eleventh year of the Kaihuang era, Lishui County was carved out of the northwestern part of Liyang together with the former lands of Danyang, and remained under Jiangzhou. The Kangxi edition of the Lishui County Gazetteer, Volume One (Annals), closes the entry with the words 县之始:

十一年辛亥，析溧阳西北境及丹阳故地置溧水县，仍隶蒋州。县之始。 — Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer, 卷之一·邑纪·隋开皇十一年辛亥

Translated: In the eleventh year of the Kaihuang era, the northwestern part of Liyang and the former lands of Danyang were detached to form Lishui County, which remained under Jiangzhou. This was the beginning of the county.

The district government's "Historical Evolution" page agrees with the gazetteer and adds that the former Danyang lands lay in what is now Xiaodanyang in Jiangning. In 598, the eighteenth year of the Kaihuang era, Liyang was merged into Lishui and the county grew. In 608, the fourth year of the Daye era, Jiangzhou was made into Danyang Commandery and Lishui was transferred to it.

The editorial rules in the prefatory volume of the Guangxu edition state that "the county of Lishui was founded in the eleventh year of the Kaihuang era, and the table of changes through the dynasties has been fully collated", which shows that the old gazetteers themselves treated the founding year and the sequence of jurisdictions as the opening business of the book.

The Tang: jurisdiction repeatedly changed

The Tang is the period in which Lishui's jurisdiction changed most often. In 620, the third year of the Wude era, Lishui and Jiangning counties were placed under Yangzhou; the county of Lishui was not abolished and remained under Yangzhou, with its rank recorded as shang, the upper grade. In the same year Liyang was again carved out of eastern Lishui and the county shrank. Thereafter:

• 624, the seventh year of the Wude era: Jiangzhou was restored and Lishui transferred to it;
• 625, the eighth year: Yangzhou was restored and Lishui remained under it;
• 626, the ninth year: the seat of Yangzhou was moved to Jiangdu and Lishui was transferred to Xuanzhou;
• 742, the first year of the Tianbao era: Xuanzhou became Xuancheng Commandery and Lishui stayed under it;
• 757, the second year of the Zhide era: Jiangning Commandery was established and Lishui transferred to it;
• 758, the first year of the Qianyuan era: Jiangning Commandery became Shengzhou and Lishui went to Shengzhou;
• 761, the second year of the Shangyuan era: Shengzhou was abolished and Lishui returned to Xuanzhou;
• 890, the first year of the Dashun era: Shengzhou was restored and Lishui went back to it.

After the fall of the Tang the annalistic record continues into the Wu and Southern Tang: in 920, the second year of the Wuyi era, Shengzhou was renamed Jinling Prefecture, and in 937, the third year of the Tianzuo era, Xu Zhigao founded the state of Qi at Jinling and made it Jiangning Prefecture; Lishui followed each change.

Territory and county rank

The county as first founded was made up of northwestern Liyang and the former Danyang lands. After Liyang was merged in 598 the county covered the whole of the former Liyang; after Liyang was detached again in 620 it shrank once more. As to rank, Lishui is recorded as shang in 620; under the Song it is recorded as ciji, a secondary metropolitan county, and under the Yuan, after its elevation to a prefecture, as of the middle rank — the last two points are set out in "Lishui under the Song and Yuan". No source held by this site gives the boundaries of the county, and none are drawn here.

Uncertainties

First, on the restoration of Shengzhou in 890 the annalistic record adds an earlier gazetteer's remark: "the old gazetteer says that for Ningguo the Junji merely records that Xuanzhou was made into the Ningguo army in that year and does not say that Lishui was transferred to Shengzhou." The old gazetteer itself points out that the Junji does not record this transfer; this site sets the two accounts side by side and does not choose between them.

Second, under 626 the annalistic record notes that "the Junji alone states that Danyang and Liyang belonged to Xuanzhou, which is an error". This is the old gazetteer correcting another gazetteer, and it is reproduced as such.

Third, under 620 the record states that Du Fuwei sent Fu Gongshi against Danyang, that Fu took it and moved his troops into Lishui, and that "south of the county there are Ducheng Mountain and an old battlefield, which tradition holds to have been the camping ground of those troops". The word "tradition" is the gazetteer's own, and it is retained here without being turned into fact.

Fourth, the sources agree on the founding year, but none of them gives the extent of "the northwestern part of Liyang", and no boundary is supplied here.