Sānshuǐ

Sanshui lies in the uplands northwest of Binzhou, in the district once called Xunyi, the old Bin of the Classic of Poetry, where the Zhou ancestors are said to have farmed before they moved to the Qi plain. The Qin had a county at Xunyi in the Warring States. In the Northern Dynasties the name Sanshui took its place, and the county kept it through the Sui, Tang, Song and Jin.

In 1270 the Yuan abolished the county and joined its territory to neighbouring Chunhua. The Ming restored Sanshui County in 1477, making it again a separate county of the Binzhou region. Under the Ming and Qing it was a hill district of dry-farmed millet and wheat on the road between the Wei plain and the loess north.