Wǔxiāng

Wǔxiāng lies in southeastern Shanxi among the hills of the upper Zhuozhang River, between the Taihang and Taiyue ranges. In the Yuan it was one of the three counties of Qinzhou. In 1369 the Ming merged the seat county into the department, which answered directly to the province, and the Qing kept it that way.

At Gucheng, the seat of Nieshi County in the Eastern Han, stands the Dayun Temple, once a monastery named Yanjing and renamed in 1064 under the Northern Song. Its Hall of the Great Hero is a building of the Jin dynasty, while the Guanyin Hall and the side halls were added in the Ming and Qing, so that several centuries of building gather around the Jin hall into a complete old temple.