Huīzhōu

Huizhou in the Longyou country governed the area around present-day Hui County in Gansu. Its position connected the Qin and Long districts with routes towards Hanzhong and Sichuan. Writing in the seventeenth century, Gu Zuyu stressed this relationship: the old Hechi district was a place contested whenever forces fought between the northwestern uplands and the Sichuan approaches. His geographical account treated its roads and neighbouring jurisdictions as matters of military importance.

The administrative name also changed during the period. Established as Huizhou in 1264, the prefecture was reduced to a county in 1377 and subsequently restored to subprefectural status under Gongchang Prefecture. It governed Liangdang as its subordinate county. In 1729 the Qing administration again reduced Huizhou to Hui County and placed it under Qinzhou. This was the northwestern Huizhou of the old Shaanxi administrative world, with a history shaped by the routes between Longyou and Sichuan.