Shízhào

Shizhao was the county seat of Hezhou, set where the Jialing, Fu and Qu rivers meet in eastern Sichuan, a place that took its name from the joining of the waters. Hezhou had been a prefecture since the Western Wei in 556, and its seat controlled boat traffic from three river valleys. When the Mongols invaded Sichuan, the Southern Song moved both the county and the prefectural seats in 1243 to the fortified height of Diaoyu Mountain on the south bank of the Jialing.

The fortress held out through repeated assaults. The Mongol great khan Möngke died during the campaign in 1259, and the defenders, led in turn by Wang Jian and Zhang Jue, did not surrender until 1279. The defence stayed in local memory: in 1494 a shrine was built to honour Wang Jian and Zhang Jue, and in 1618 an inscribed stone arch was raised to the resistance of the fortress and its people. Under the Qing, Hezhou passed to Chongqing Prefecture in 1728.