Chapter 12 Section 3 The Confusion of Place Names in the Xinmang Period

In 8 AD, Wang Mang proclaimed himself emperor and changed the name of the country to "Xin".He still had his capital in Chang'an, changed his name to Chang'an, called Xidu Jingzhaoyin, and planned to move his capital to Luoyang, changing Henan County to Baozhongxin Township.There are six prefectures of left, right, front, back, Qi, and north around here, and six prefectures of Jing, Shi, Lie, Fu, Yi (yiyi), and Guang are set up around the western capital, but before the capital is moved , the new dynasty was overthrown. Xinmang's local administrative regions still adopt the two-level system of counties and counties, but the changes have been great, and there are often multiple changes in one place.The book "History of China's Territory Evolution" edited by Mr. Gu Jiegang and others said: "It is easier for counties and counties to be dismissed, and there are rules, that is, the officials and people at that time felt that it was cumbersome and could not remember their names again." Mang Zhuan (according to That is, in "Han Shu Wang Mang Biography"), it is said that the county changed at that time, and the year changed, and there were five changes in the name of a county and the restoration of its old name, which can be described as extremely complicated; ... often there are many Counties and counties are exchanged, counties have been exhausted, and it is unknown that the county has been abolished... It is really funny."

Although some county names are still in use, they are not the original places. For example, Changshan County in the Xinmang period was Zhongshan State in the Western Han Dynasty (now in the area of ​​Ding County, Hebei), and Changshan County in the Han Dynasty was renamed Jingguan in Xinmang. County (now in the area of ​​Yuanshi County, Hebei).Another example is that Jiujiang County in the Xinmang period was Yuzhang County (now Jiangxi Province) in the Western Han Dynasty, and Jiujiang County in the Western Han Dynasty was Yanping County in the Xinmang Dynasty (now Shouxian County and Hefei City in Anhui).

The frequency of county name changes is also very high. In the Western Han Dynasty, Shuofang County (which governed 10 counties) changed its name from Xinmang to Gousou County, and seven counties changed their names.Yanmen County in the Western Han Dynasty was changed to Didi County when it was in Xinmang, and 12 of the 14 counties under its jurisdiction changed their county names, from which we can see the magnitude of the changes. Among the place names changed by Wang Mang, many unfriendly words were used for the residents of the frontier areas, such as Yanrong (Longxi of the Western Han Dynasty, the names of the Western Han counties in the brackets below), Weirong (Northern Land), Filling Rong (Tianshui), Filling Yi (Langya), Fillman (Changsha Kingdom), Huojiang (Wuyuan), Shoujiang (Yunzhong), Dejiang (Dingxiang), Filli (Yanmen), Yandi (Daijun), the filling here Words are town characters, and hate characters are pressure characters. They are all unfriendly words, and of course they will arouse the hatred and resistance of the residents in the border areas.Before taking the throne, Wang Mang believed that China had the East Sea, North Sea, and South Sea, as well as the West Sea, so he asked people to hold more gold coins to tempt the Qiang chieftains near Qinghai Lake to offer their land. Xihai County was established, but it was lost soon, which made the nearby There is no peace in counties and counties.The Xinmang regime only lasted for more than 10 years, and was overthrown in the wave of peasant uprisings such as Lvlin and Chimei. However, the fruits of the uprising fell into the hands of Liu Xiu, a descendant of Han Gaozu. Liu Xiu used Luoyang as his capital. For the Eastern Han or Later Han.