Bìshān

Bishan lies among the hills west of Chongqing, between the ridges of central Sichuan and the Yangtze valley. Its name refers to the pale stone of a nearby mountain, said to shine like a jade disc. In 757 the Tang government carved Bishan County from Ba, Jiangjin and Wanshou, with its seat at Bishan town. Eleven years later the western portion was separated to form Yongchuan County, while Bishan continued under Yu Prefecture and its successors.

War depopulated Bishan, and the Yuan merged it into Ba County in 1285. The county was restored in 1483, when magistrate Zhang Ben cleared the ruined site and built its stone wall. That wall had a circumference of 684 zhang and five gates, enclosing three main streets and six lanes. In 1532 the written name was changed from the older form using bi for wall to the character meaning a jade disc, matching the local story of the bright stone.

Yongchuan administered the depopulated county from 1662, but the Qing restored a separate Bishan administration in 1729. Market towns and farm villages spread through its valleys and low hills, linked by roads toward Chongqing and the Chengdu plain. Bishan remained a small but durable county seat: repeatedly reduced during warfare, refounded around its wall, and sustained by the agricultural and commercial routes of western Chongqing.