Kāihuà

Kaihua lay in western Zhejiang under Quzhou, a county established in 981 from an earlier administrative settlement. In the Yuan period it belonged to Quzhou Circuit. The wars of the dynasty's last years brought changes of jurisdiction and damage to the county offices: officials used temporary quarters before rebuilding on the old Song site in 1369. Under the Ming and Qing, Kaihua remained attached to Quzhou Prefecture.

Papermaking gave the district a distinctive livelihood. Writing in the fifteenth century, Lu Rong described people in Kaihua and neighbouring Changshan making paper from bark. They steamed and cleaned it, treated it with lime, soaked and pounded it, then used plant additives and bamboo screens to form sheets. Heated drying surfaces completed a process requiring water, fuel, skilled labour and repeated handling. This detailed contemporary account places specialised rural manufacture alongside the county's administrative history, connecting its working households with the wider demand for paper in late imperial China.