Jìng'ān

Jìng'ān was the county that housed the seat of Shenzhou on the Hebei plain. Created in 987 under the Song, it became the prefecture's centre in the same year. The Mongols made it a county of Dongwu Prefecture for a time, and from 1234 returned it to Shenzhou. In 1337 the place belonged to Shenzhou in Zhending Circuit, where county and prefectural institutions sat together. In February 1369 the Ming abolished Jing'an County and merged it into Shenzhou, leaving the department to rule from the old town. The prefecture moved to Wujiazhuang in 1412, the site of the later city of Shenzhou. The old settlement thus lost the administrative position that had sustained it for centuries.