Xīnchéng

Xincheng stood on the Lei River between Hengyang and Leiyang. The river carried the Tang poet Du Fu past the settlement in his final years. Under the Ming, Xincheng County was abolished and its territory absorbed into Hengyang in the fourteenth century. The old town survived as a riverside street, later divided between Hengyang and Leiyang; a stone set into the street marked the boundary between the two counties. Its buildings preserved the character of an old southern Hunan market.