Jiāngxià

Jiāngxià was the county of Wǔchāng, the city on the southern bank of the Yangtze opposite Hànyáng. In 1281 the Yuán moved the seat of Húguǎng province here, and from it they governed lands reaching south to Guǎngxī and Hǎinán. On Yellow Crane Rock, where Snake Hill meets the river, stood the Yellow Crane Tower, long celebrated by poets; it was rebuilt in the 1370s, burned in 1566 and raised again in 1571.

Zhū Yuánzhāng took the city in 1364, and his sixth son Zhū Zhēn, born that year, took up his seat here as Prince of Chǔ in 1381. The princely house was never quiet: in 1603 a clansman charged that Prince Zhū Huákuí and his twin brother were no true sons of the line, setting off the Chǔ clan affair that shook the court. Nine Chǔ princes lie in tombs on Lóngquán Hill.