Huìchuān

Huichuan, the old town of Huili, stood on the high plateau above the Jinsha River, where the road from Yunnan climbs into the Liangshan country. The Han called the district Huiwu County. The Tang renamed it Huichuan in 675, for the plains and rivers that meet here. Local tradition holds that Zhuge Liang crossed the Lu, as the Jinsha was then called, in the south of this district during his southern campaign. In 1277 the Yuan raised Huichuan Route, with seven prefectures under it.

After the Ming armies put down the revolt of the local chief Yuelu Tiemuer in 1392, the post was made Huichuan Guard, a military garrison under the Sichuan Regional Military Commission. Soldiers and their families settled on the land along the Sichuan–Yunnan frontier, and the gazetteers recorded a Yuelu city that kept the rebel chief's name. In the late 1720s the Qing abolished the guard and moved the seat of Huili Department to its walled town, where temples to Confucius, to Zhuge Liang and to the God of War filled the old town.