Guǎnchéng

Guancheng, the "city of Guan", is the old heart of Zhengzhou on the plain south of the Yellow River. Its name goes back to the state of Guan, which King Wu of Zhou gave to his brother Shu Xian after the fall of the Shang; he rebelled with Shang remnants and the county kept the name. Earlier still, a large Shang town with rammed-earth walls, an inner rectangle inside an outer ring, stood on this ground around 1600 BC. From the Sui it was the seat of Zhengzhou, and under the Tang and early Song the town was the end of the New Bian Canal, where the great granary at Heyin fed the capitals and the northern armies.

In 1105 the Song made Zhengzhou one of its four "supporting" prefectures around Kaifeng. Under the Jin and Yuan the surrounding fields lay largely waste. After 1368 the Ming moved settlers from Zhejiang and Shanxi into Henan to refill the land. The City God temple of Zhengzhou honours Ji Xin, a general of the Han founder Liu Bang, to whom the Hongwu emperor gave the title Marquis Lingyou.