Liyang County Established, 221 BCE

Background

Qin unified the empire and applied the system of commanderies and counties. In its long discussion of the origin of the name Lishui, the gazetteer already observes that the name Lai was well known in the Spring and Autumn period, that Qin accordingly named a county after it, and that the county Qin established at Gucheng stood on the old site of Laizhu Yi.

Time and place

The gazetteer records:

秦始皇二十六年庚辰，改金陵为秣陵。始置溧阳县，属鄣郡。

Translated: In the twenty-sixth year of the First Emperor of Qin, a gengchen year, Jinling was renamed Moling. Liyang County was established for the first time, under Zhang Commandery.

The twenty-sixth year of the First Emperor is 221 BCE. The entry is recorded together with the renaming of Jinling as Moling; the seat of Liyang County is not given here, and appears only in the opening discussion, which says the Qin county kept the old site of Laizhu Yi.

Liyang in the standard history

The earliest Liyang County in the standard histories appears in the Hanshu, juan 28A, "Treatise on Geography, Part 1," under Danyang Commandery:

丹揚郡，故鄣郡。屬江都。武帝元封二年更名丹揚。屬揚州……縣十七：宛陵……溧陽，歙，都尉治。宣城。

Translated: Danyang Commandery, formerly Zhang Commandery, attached to Jiangdu; in the second year of Yuanfeng of Emperor Wu the name was changed to Danyang, and it belonged to Yangzhou ... seventeen counties: Wanling ... Liyang, She, where the commandant had his seat, Xuancheng.

The Hou Hanshu, "Treatise on the Commanderies and Kingdoms," likewise lists Liyang under Danyang Commandery. Liyang is thus a Han county under Danyang Commandery, whose predecessor was Zhang Commandery. The Hanshu records only that it was a Han county, however, and gives no year for a Qin establishment. The Qin establishment comes from the gazetteer and later administrative histories: the Lishui District People's Government's "Historical Evolution" page states that in the twenty-sixth year of the King of Qin (221 BCE) the area of Lishui "belonged to Liyang County of Kuaiji Commandery", and the parallel accounts for Liyang City and Gaochun District agree.

Which commandery under Qin

The gazetteer places Liyang County "under Zhang Commandery", whereas the government histories of Lishui District, Liyang City and Gaochun District all place the Qin county "under Kuaiji Commandery". Fudan's CHGIS, following Tan Qixiang's "A Study of the Boundaries of the Qin Commanderies", dates the establishment of Zhang Commandery to the thirty-seventh year of the First Emperor of Qin (210 BCE), when it was split off from Kuaiji Commandery. If that holds, there was no Zhang Commandery in 221 BCE and the area belonged to Kuaiji Commandery. The two readings — "under Zhang" in the gazetteer and "under Kuaiji" in the government histories — are set side by side.

What happened

In that year Qin renamed Jinling as Moling and established Liyang County, which the gazetteer records as belonging to Zhang Commandery (the government histories have Kuaiji, as above). This was the first county-level unit in what is now the Lishui area.

Consequences

From then through the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties the area was known as Liyang, although counties such as Yongping and Yong'an were briefly carved out and soon abolished or restored. Only in 591 CE, the eleventh year of the Kaihuang era, was Lishui County carved out of northwestern Liyang and the former Danyang lands, which makes Liyang the predecessor of Lishui.

Dating basis

This entry is far earlier than the establishment of Lishui County in 591 CE, the eleventh year of the Kaihuang era. At that time Lishui did not yet exist as a county: what is recorded here concerns the Lishui area and its predecessor Liyang County. The year 221 BCE corresponds to the sexagenary year given in the source and is a later conversion.

Uncertainties

First, the gazetteer gives only the single sentence that Liyang County was established under Zhang Commandery, without its seat or extent. The opening discussion says that the Qin county at Gucheng kept the old site of Laizhu Yi, but that is the compiler's inference and the text itself concludes that such matters "cannot be known"; this entry does not use it to fix the county seat.

Second, no standard history states the founding year explicitly. A search of the Shiji and the Hanshu in this library found only the Hanshu's record of Liyang as a Han county under Danyang (formerly Zhang) Commandery; the Qin founding year comes from the gazetteer and the government histories, and this entry repeats it without asserting it as a standard-history fact.

Third, the commandery under Qin is disputed: the gazetteer gives Zhang, the government histories of Lishui, Liyang and Gaochun give Kuaiji, and CHGIS dates Zhang Commandery to 210 BCE. The two readings are set side by side. On these grounds the confidence level is set to medium.