Jìngzhōu

Jingzhou here is the ruined Jin–Yuan city north of the Yin Mountains in the Dörbed grasslands, near present-day Siziwang Banner. Its origins lay in Tianshan, a regulated frontier market raised to Jingzhou in 1178. Under the Yuan it housed a route administration directly subordinate to the central secretariat, and its Confucian temples and inscribed steles expressed an urban administrative presence within the steppe.

In the fourteenth century the city stood on communications linking the Chinese interior with Mongolia. The route from Dadu through Jingzhou continued towards Karakorum, carrying imperial supplies as well as travellers. Archaeological remains include rammed-earth walls, building platforms, ceramics, metal objects and tombs; pottery from distant kilns gives material substance to these connections. Farming and stockraising also coexisted in the district. The surviving site belongs to that particular medieval city, whose recorded flourishing continued into the early Ming period, rather than to an indefinitely prosperous town lasting unchanged throughout later Dörbed history.