Chēnyáng

Chenyang lies in the hills of southeastern Hunan, on the western edge of the Luoxiao mountains and in the middle reaches of the Nanling range. The Qin set up Chen county here, and the character chen, meaning a city within the forest, first appears in this period. Under the Western Han the district belonged to Guiyang commandery, and in 735 the commandery became the prefecture of Chenzhou. Xiang Yu moved the Chu prince Emperor Yi to Chen, and Tang and Song writers including Wang Changling, Du Fu, Han Yu, Liu Yuxi and Qin Guan left poems about the place. In 963 the Song set up a Chenzhou army.