Yuyang Commandery ( zh, 漁陽郡) was a

commandery In the Middle Ages, a commandery (rarely commandry) was the smallest administrative division of the European landed properties of a military order. It was also the name of the house where the knights of the commandery lived.Anthony Luttrell and ...

in imperial China from

Qin dynasty The Qin dynasty ( ; zh, c=秦朝, p=Qín cháo, w=), or Ch'in dynasty in Wade–Giles romanization ( zh, c=, p=, w=Ch'in ch'ao), was the first dynasty of Imperial China. Named for its heartland in Qin state (modern Gansu and Shaanxi), ...

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

. It was located in present-day

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and ...

province as well as

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...

and

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...

municipalities. The commandery was established by the state of Yan, and was so named because of its location to the north of the Yu River (now

Chaobai River The Chaobai River () is a river in northern China. The river is 458 km long and flows from the confluence of the Chao and Bai Rivers at the Miyun Reservoir in Beijing Municipality through Hebei Province and into the Grand Canal of the Hai Ri ...

). The commandery was situated on the empire's northern frontier and played a major role in Qin and Han dynasties' defense against the

Xiongnu The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 20 ...

and other northern peoples. In

western Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a war ...

, the commandery administered 12 counties, including Yuyang, Hunu (狐奴), Lu (路), Yongnu (雍奴), Quanzhou (泉州),

Pinggu Pinggu District (), formerly Pinggu County (), lies in the far east of Beijing Municipality. It has an area of and a population of 396,701 (2000 Census). The district is subdivided into 2 subdistricts, 14 towns, and 2 townships. It borders the Be ...

(平谷), Anle (安樂), Tixi (厗奚), Guangping (獷平), Yaoyang (要陽), Baitan (白檀) and Huayan (滑鹽), the last 3 of which were abolished during the

eastern Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...

. The total number of households was 68,802 in 2 AD, while the population was 264,416. In 140 AD, the population was 435,740, and the households numbered 68,456.''

Book of Later Han The ''Book of the Later Han'', also known as the ''History of the Later Han'' and by its Chinese name ''Hou Hanshu'' (), is one of the Twenty-Four Histories and covers the history of the Han dynasty from 6 to 189 CE, a period known as the Lat ...

'', Chapter 113. In Jin dynasty, the commandery was abolished and its land were incorporated into the Principality of Yan (燕國). Yuyang Commandery was reestablished in

Northern Wei Wei (), known in historiography as the Northern Wei (), Tuoba Wei (), Yuan Wei () and Later Wei (), was founded by the Tuoba (Tabgach) clan of the Xianbei. The first of the Northern dynasties, it ruled northern China from 386 to 535 during t ...

from the former territories of Yuyang and

Beiping "Beijing" is from pinyin ''Běijīng,'' which is romanized from , the Chinese name for this city. The pinyin system of transliteration was approved by the Chinese government in 1958, but little used until 1979. It was gradually adopted by various ...

Commanderies, with the seat at Lu (in present-day Beijing). It administered 6 counties, and the ''

Book of Wei The ''Book of Wei'', also known by its Chinese name as the ''Wei Shu'', is a classic Chinese historical text compiled by Wei Shou from 551 to 554, and is an important text describing the history of the Northern Wei and Eastern Wei from 386 to ...

'' documented 6,984 households and a population of 29,670. The commandery was abolished in early

Sui dynasty The Sui dynasty (, ) was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China that lasted from 581 to 618. The Sui unified the Northern and Southern dynasties, thus ending the long period of division following the fall of the Western Jin dynasty, and la ...

. In

, Yuyang became an alternative name for Ji Prefecture (薊州). The seat was now in modern

Ji County, Tianjin Jizhou District (), formerly a county known as Ji County, is a district in the far north of the municipality of Tianjin, People's Republic of China, holding cultural and historical significance (''e.g''., the Buddhist Temple of Solitary Joy). O ...

, while Lu County became part of

You Prefecture You Prefecture or You Province, also known by its Chinese name Youzhou, was a prefecture ('' zhou'') in northern China during its imperial era. "You Province" was cited in some ancient sources as one of the nine or twelve original provinces o ...

(幽州), also known as Fanyang Commandery (范陽郡), in 627.''

New Book of Tang The ''New Book of Tang'', generally translated as the "New History of the Tang" or "New Tang History", is a work of official history covering the Tang dynasty in ten volumes and 225 chapters. The work was compiled by a team of scholars of the So ...

'', Chapter 39.

References

{{Han dynasty provinces Commanderies of the Qin dynasty Commanderies of the Han dynasty

See also

References