Wùyuán

Wùyuán lies in the wooded hills of northeastern Jiāngxī on the border with Ānhuī and Zhèjiāng. Cut in 740 from Xiūníng and Lèpíng, it came under Huīzhōu in the Sòng and in 1295 the Yuán raised it to Wùyuán Subprefecture. In 1357 Zhū Yuánzhāng made Huīzhōu Xīng'ān Prefecture and in 1367 renamed it Huīzhōu again; in 1369 Wùyuán returned to county status, one of the six counties of Huīzhōu until the end of the Qīng. Its streams flow to the Poyang basin, carrying tea and timber down to Jiāngxī.

Wùyuán belonged to the merchant country of Huīzhōu, whose traders ranged across the empire during the Míng and Qīng. Its hills also yielded the Lóngwěi inkstones prized by scholars, and clan halls and villages in its valleys recall the lineages that sent merchants and scholars out of the county.