Jìngbiān

Jìngbiān lay on the southern approaches to the Ordos country, where the grass of the Mu Us sands gives way to the loess of northern Shaanxi. Not far to the northwest stood Tǒngwàn City, the white capital that the Xiongnu ruler Hèlián Bóbó built for his Great Xia kingdom in the early fifth century, its rammed-earth walls so hard that ruins remained standing. In the Ming, the northern wall of Yánsuí Garrison ran through the district, with fortified posts, stationed soldiers and the supply arrangements needed to sustain them.

The local gazetteer dates the establishment of Jìngbiān Guard to 1373. The Qing changed the purpose of the old frontier: in 1731 Jingbian became a civil county, with the former guard headquarters converted into the county offices. The later Qing gazetteer contrasted the Ming emphasis on garrisoning troops with the ordinary county government that followed once the Mongols had submitted. The place is best understood through the relationship between its fortified administrative centre and the surrounding border country.