Guōzhōu

Guōzhōu lay in the Xin-Dai basin of north-central Shanxi, where the Yuyang and Hutuo rivers open a broad valley between the Wutai and Ningwu mountains, on the road from Taiyuan to Daizhou. The Jin made the place a military post, and in 1220 the Mongols raised it to the department of Guozhou. After the Ming founding in 1369 it became Guo County, and from 1375 it answered to Daizhou.

The town walls followed the line of an older city that had been cut down and rebuilt in the confused last years of the Yuan. In 1598 and 1599 Ming officials faced them with brick and stone and added twenty-one defensive platforms and towers at the four gates. To the south the market town of Yuanping grew up behind earthen walls, repaired and faced with brick in 1669. In 1724 the Qing placed Daizhou directly under the province, and Guo County stayed under it.