Xiàngchéng

Xiangcheng lies on the plain of eastern Henan, in the country of the Sha and Ying rivers, in the old Chenzhou. The Western Zhou had enfeoffed the Xiang state here, and the county of Xiang carried the name down the centuries; the Sui gave it the name Xiangcheng. Through the Song and Yuan its seat stood at Huaidian, on the river bank in what is now Shenqiu.

The Yellow River turned the place into a disaster zone in the early Ming. A flood in 1398 destroyed the county town at Huaidian, the Sha-Ying embankment broke again in 1408, and in 1428 the river rose once more and the walls of the town were submerged from Chen to Xiang. The government then moved the county seat west to Tankou, the old town of Xiangcheng, and the name of Xiangcheng disappeared from the ground around Huaidian.