Place Name Studies

Imagine a county whose territory was carved up repeatedly over centuries, leaving it with less than one-third of its original size. That is Youxi. In the 29th year of Kaiyuan of the Tang Dynasty (741 AD), it entered history with a vast territory of 3,424.64 square kilometers. Five hundred years later, this land had been split into three pieces, giving birth to two new counties: Yongan and Datian. I opened the Youxi County Gazetteer, and between its yellowed pages lay the story of a “mother county” torn apart. ...

Geographical Connections Yongan City (Yongan County), Yan River, Fuliu (Sha County), 26th to 29th Du (Youxi), Gongchuan, Datian County, Yanping Prefecture, Sanming City, Site of Provincial Capital Relocation, 13 Townships, 1 Town, 2 Sub-district Offices, 151 Village Committees. II. Ming Dynasty Genesis: From Borderland to the Birth of “Yongan” The creation of Yongan was a classic administrative experiment in “governance through security.” According to the Yongan City Gazetteer and the Yongan County Continued Gazetteer, the mid-Ming Dynasty saw large-scale uprisings led by Deng Maoqi, which created a power vacuum in the remote mountainous regions of central Fujian. ...