Déhuà

Déhuà lies in Jiangxi, on the southern approach to Mount Lu. The mountain rises abruptly above the Yangtze plain, creating cool uplands, cloud forest and waterfalls. Tea, timber and Buddhist temples gave the slopes a sacred and commercial importance.

Mount Lu became a major religious centre during the Tang and Song periods. Monasteries attracted pilgrims and scholars, while paths and bridges linked them to Jiujiang and the Yangtze trade. The surrounding district supplied tea, grain, charcoal and labor to the mountain communities.

Lianxi remained a rural district within the Jiujiang prefecture. Its villages occupied low hills between the river plain and Mount Lu, with local markets connected by roads and waterways. Déhuà's early identity belongs to the pilgrimage economy and mountain agriculture around one of eastern China's most famous landscape sites. Tea gardens, bamboo groves and monastery estates occupied the mountain slopes, while pilgrims and merchants connected them with Jiujiang.