Lishui Zhou Reduced to a County in 1369

Background

In the first year of the Yuanzhen era (1295) Lishui had been raised from a county to a zhou, or prefecture. At the end of the Yuan the area changed hands several times: Volume One of the Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer records that in the sixth month of 1355 the Ming forces took Taiping and Xu Da took Lishui Zhou, the local notable Yang Chong and others persuading the assistant prefect Tie to surrender the city intact; the following year the Ming took Jiqing Circuit and renamed it Yingtian Prefecture, with Lishui under it. The zhou survived both changes and was not reduced again until the second year of the Hongwu era.

Time and place

The reduction took place in 1369, in Lishui itself. The district government's "Historical Development" page agrees with the gazetteer and adds that the county thereafter belonged to Yingtian Prefecture.

What was done

The gazetteer records only two things under this year: that Lishui Zhou was changed into a county, and that a school was ordered to be established.

明太祖洪武二年己酉，改溧水州为县。令立学。 — Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer, 卷之一·邑纪·明太祖洪武二年己酉

Translated: In the second year of the Hongwu era, Lishui Zhou was changed into a county, and an order was given to establish a school.

Consequences

After the change Lishui continued as a county, under Yingtian Prefecture. The Yuan elevation and the Ming reduction are the only occasion on which Lishui moved between county and prefecture; neither the county system nor the name changed again until the county became a district in 2013.

The county school founded by the same order was repeatedly endowed later: school fields were granted in 1382, endowment fields for the school were set up by the magistrate Gao Chong and the education officer Li Dan in 1528, the school was moved inside the west gate in 1559, and further school fields were added in 1574 and 1579.

Uncertainties

First, the gazetteer gives only the year 1369 and not the month of the change.

Second, the order to establish a school gives no location or scale. The move of the school recorded for 1559 comes a hundred and ninety years later, and cannot be used to infer where the school stood in 1369.

Third, the officer who held Lishui Zhou in 1355 is recorded only by surname and title, as "the assistant prefect Tie"; his personal name is not given.