Suídé

Suíde stands in a valley of the Wǔdìng River in northern Shaanxi, among steep loess hills. The river comes down from Mǐzhī and runs on toward the Yellow River. This was long a frontier stronghold: in 1067 the Song general Zhòng È took Suízhōu from the Western Xia, and the new Suíde district became the centre of a military command whose forts included Mǐzhī, Qīngjiàn and Kèróng. The Jin later made it a zhou, and its position on the river routes kept it important as administrations and borders changed.

The Yuan consolidated several neighbouring counties into Suide and its neighbours. Under the Ming the zhou belonged to Yán'ān Prefecture and governed Mizhi; the Qing raised it to directly administered status in 1725. Tradition placed the tomb of Fúsū, the Qin prince forced to take his own life, in the hills above the town, and Han-period tombs of the district were decorated with carved stone reliefs, work which Suide's stonemasons carried on for centuries. In the drought years of the 1620s and 1630s the surrounding hills fed the peasant rebellions, and Lǐ Zìchéng, who would march on Beijing, was born in neighbouring Mizhi.