Yìxiàn

Yìxiàn lies in the valleys at the foot of the Taihang Mountains, on the Yi River from which the town took its name. The Yuan governed Yizhou under Baoding Circuit, and in the Ming the county was merged into the department, which belonged to Baoding Prefecture. The Zijing Pass, one of the three inner passes of the Great Wall, stood in the mountains of the upper Juma River, in the district, and in 1449 the Oirat army of Esen came through it on its way to Beijing.

The Qing made the town an imperial necropolis. The Yongzheng emperor rejected an earlier site and chose Taiping Valley near Yizhou for his tomb. Work on the Tailing began in 1730, and the Western Qing Tombs grew up beneath the wooded slopes, with stone gateways, bridges and halls laid out along a ceremonial approach. In 1733 Yizhou was raised to a directly administered department, with Laishui County from Baoding and Guangchang County from Shanxi transferred to it, to manage the burial ground.