Dōngliú

Dongliu is a small county on the south bank of the Yangtze, upstream of Chizhou and facing Anqing across the water. The Ming gazetteer Mingyitongzhi explains the name: after leaving Penchang, today's Jiujiang, the great river winds eastward past here, so the county was called "east-flowing". It began as a riverside tax station, and in 953 the Southern Tang raised the Dongliu station to a county under Jiangzhou.

Under the Yuan it was a lower county in Chizhou Circuit, and under the Ming and Qing it belonged to Chizhou Prefecture. The Southern Song poet Xin Qiji wrote a lament to the tune Niannujiao, titled "Written on a Village Wall at Dongliu", looking back on a parting on the curved bank among willows where horses were tethered, and an upper room now empty.