Ānjí

Anji lies in the hills southwest of Lake Tai, on the west bank of the West Tiao Stream. The county was cut from Guzhang in 185 and took its name from a line in the Book of Songs; after wandering seats it settled in 907 at the site of the present old town. Its walls were not built until the Yuan collapse: in 1356 the chief administrator Zhang Junde raised an earthen rampart, and the next year the commander Fei Yu rebuilt it in stone. The oval circuit of about six li, with its four gates, looks like a peach on the map, and the people called Anji the Peach City.

In 1506 the Ming raised Anji from a county to a department, with Xiaofeng County under it, still part of Huzhou Prefecture. The walls were heightened by three chi in 1554 and repaired repeatedly under the later Ming and the Qing: a stele of 1768 records one of the repairs. In 1773 the Qing lowered Anji back to a county.