Qiānjiāng

Qiānjiāng stood on the Hóngshuǐ River in central Guangxi, a Zhuang country of rice terraces, river crossings and limestone hills. The Tang set up a loose-rein prefecture, Sīgāng Zhōu, among the local chiefs in 631, and in 1020 the Song replaced it with Qiānjiāng County, the name that the town kept for centuries. The Yuan placed it under Bīnzhōu Route.

After 1369 the Ming attached the county to Liǔzhōu Prefecture. In 1392 a military-farm battalion, the Qiānjiāng Túntián Qiānhùsuǒ, was founded at the town to settle soldiers on the land and hold the river road, and in 1528 the county seat moved to a new site to the southeast. The Qing lifted Bīnzhōu to a directly governed zhou in 1725 and passed Qiānjiāng to Sī'ēn Prefecture in 1734. Throughout, boats on the Hóngshuǐ linked the town with the rest of the Xī River system.