Níngxià

Ningxia stands on a plain watered by the Yellow River, between the Helan Mountains and the eastern desert. Canals carry river water across fields in a landscape that has supported cities and armies for centuries. Here stood Xingqing, the capital of the Tangut Western Xia kingdom, raised from a garrison town in 1020 by Li Deming and proclaimed an empire by his son Li Yuanhao in 1038. Its palaces, government offices, workshops and Buddhist temples made the city the heart of a state that ruled much of the northwestern frontier.

After the Mongol conquest the city became part of the Yuan realm and was known as Ningxia. Under the Ming it served as a major garrison town and one of the Nine Frontier Commands, guarding the irrigated plain and the approaches beyond it. In 1397 the Prince of Qing made it his seat, and in 1510 another prince, of Anhua, rose in revolt here. Chengtian Temple, founded by the Western Xia empress dowager in 1050, remained a prominent landmark; Ming rulers added halls and the Prince of Qing sponsored repairs, leaving a poem to mark the work.

The Qing governed the city as the seat of Ningxia Prefecture. An earthquake in 1739 destroyed the temple and its pagoda, and a new Manchu garrison town was built beside the old city; the tower was rebuilt in 1820, keeping the form of its Western Xia predecessor.