Xiāngyáng

Xiāngyáng stands on the southern bank of the Hàn River, facing Fánchéng across the water, and its walls guarded the road from the north China plain into the middle Yangtze. Its fame came from the Mongol siege of 1268–73, when the Sòng commander Lǚ Wénhuàn held out for nearly five years and surrendered only after Fánchéng had fallen.

Early in the Míng Dèng Yù rebuilt the walls on the old foundations, with six gates, the Hàn to the north and a moat cut on the other three sides. In 1436 the Prince of Xiāng, Zhū Zhānshàn, moved his fief here from Chángshā. Floods were a standing danger: in 1566 the Old Dragon Dike west of the city broke and the water swept along its southern side.

In 1641 Zhāng Xiànzhōng got into Xiāngyáng with captured army tallies and killed the Prince of Xiāng, and early in 1643 Lǐ Zìchéng occupied the city, renamed it Xiāngjīng and lived in the prince's palace. Under the Qīng, Xiāngyáng lived on the Hàn River trade, its wharves crowded with merchant boats. In 1796 Xiāngyáng men rose with the White Lotus sect, and the rebellion spread up the Hàn valley into Sichuan and Shaanxi.