Jiankang Circuit Renamed Jiqing Circuit, 1329 CE

Date and content

In 1329 CE, the second year of the Tianli era, Jiankang Circuit was renamed Jiqing Circuit and Lishui passed under it. The entry for the year is a single sentence:

文宗天历二年己巳，改建康路为集庆路，溧水隶之。

Translated: In the second year of the Tianli era of Wenzong of the Yuan, Jiankang Circuit was changed into Jiqing Circuit, and Lishui was placed under it. This is a translation, not the words of the original.

The reason for the change of name

The gazetteer gives no reason for the change of name; the History of Yuan, juan 62, "Treatise on Geography V", under Jiqing Circuit, states it plainly:

集庆路，上……元至元十二年归附，十四年升建康路……天历二年，以文宗潜邸，改建康路为集庆路。户二十一万四千五百三十八，口一百七万二千六百九十。领司一、县三、州二。

Translated: Jiqing Circuit, upper. … It came over to the Yuan in the twelfth year of Zhiyuan, and in the fourteenth year was raised to Jiankang Circuit. … In the second year of Tianli, because it had been the residence of Wenzong before his accession, Jiankang Circuit was changed into Jiqing Circuit. It had 214,538 households and 1,072,690 persons. It governed one office, three counties and two zhou. This is a translation, not the words of the original.

The reason for the change, then, is that the place had been the residence of the future emperor Wenzong before he came to the throne. The "two zhou" of the same passage are Lishui Zhou and Liyang Zhou, each graded "middle"; the entry for Lishui Zhou reads "it had been a county from the Tang onwards, and was raised to a zhou in the first year of Yuanzhen of the Yuan". This confirms that after the second year of Tianli, Lishui Zhou was one of the two zhou governed by Jiqing Circuit, in agreement with the gazetteer's "with Lishui under it".

Background

Under 1277, the second year of the Jingyan era, the gazetteer records that the Yuan changed Jiankang Prefecture into a circuit, with Lishui under it, in agreement with the History of Yuan's "raised to Jiankang Circuit in the fourteenth year"; in 1295, the first year of Yuanzhen, Lishui was raised to a zhou, still under Jiankang Circuit, and the History of Yuan likewise says of Lishui Zhou that "it was raised to a zhou in the first year of Yuanzhen". In 1329 the circuit took the name Jiqing.

Consequences

Lishui Zhou belonged to Jiqing Circuit from that year. Under 1355 the gazetteer records that Ming forces took Taiping and that Xu Da took Lishui Zhou; in 1356, when the Ming took Jiqing Circuit and renamed it Yingtian Prefecture, Lishui passed under Yingtian. In 1369 the zhou was reduced to a county again.

Uncertainties

First, the reason for the renaming is given by the History of Yuan's Treatise on Geography as the residence of the future Wenzong, and is not in the gazetteer; this entry supplies it from the History of Yuan and does not go beyond that.

Second, the seat of Jiqing Circuit is not recorded in the gazetteer. According to the History of Yuan, it governed the three counties of Shangyuan, Jiangning and Jurong and the two zhou of Lishui and Liyang, its seat being at Shangyuan and Jiangning (present-day central Nanjing); this entry states only that, and gives no distance between Lishui Zhou and the seat of the circuit.