Dai Prefecture, also known by its Chinese name Daizhou, was a prefecture (''zhou'') of imperial China in what is now northern

Shanxi Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...

. It existed intermittently from AD585 to 1912. Its eponymous seat Daizhou was located at Shangguan in

Dai County Dai County, also known by its Chinese name Daixian, is a county in Xinzhou, Shanxi Province, China. Its county seat at Shangguan is also known as Daixian. The county has an area of and had a population of 178,870 at the time of the 2020 ...

. The territory it administered included all or part of what are now the counties of Dai, Wutai, Fanshi, and

Yuanping Yuanping is a county-level city under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Xinzhou, in north-central Shanxi Province, China. History The territory of present-day Yuanping was held by Zhao during the Warring States Period of Chine ...

's Xinzhou Prefecture.

Name

Atlas Van der Hagen KW1049B13 037 Xansi (Shanxi)

''Dàizhōu'' is the

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...

form of the

Standard Mandarin Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standa ...

reading of the Chinese

placename Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

. In the system of

romanization Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, an ...

devised by Thomas Wade and systematized by Herbert Giles, the same pronunciation is written Tai Prefecture, ''Tai Chou'', or ''Tai-chou''. It appeared as Taichow or TaichowSha on the

Chinese Postal Map The history of the postage stamps and postal history of China is complicated by the gradual decay of Imperial China and the years of civil war and Japanese occupation in the 1930s and 1940s. In modern times, postal delivery is handled by C ...

.. Although " prefecture" only refers to an administrative office or area in English,. the Chinese name can refer to either the prefecture or to the prefectural seat at old or new

Guangwu Emperor Guangwu of Han (; 15 January 5 BC – 29 March AD 57), born Liu Xiu (), courtesy name Wenshu (), was a Chinese monarch. He served as an emperor of the Han dynasty by restoring the dynasty in AD 25, thus founding the Eastern Han (Later ...

.. The prefectural seat was also known for a time as

Yanmen Yanmen Pass, also known by its Chinese name Yanmenguan and as Xixingguan, is a mountain pass which includes three fortified gatehouses along the Great Wall of China. The area was a strategic choke point in ancient and medieval China, contr ...

.. During periods when the prefecture was demoted to

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

status, its seat was also known as Daixian. Daizhou was named after Dai Commandery,. which was abolished around the time of its formation,. even though

Guangwu County Dai County, also known by its Chinese name Daixian, is a county in Xinzhou, Shanxi Province, China. Its county seat at Shangguan is also known as Daixian. The county has an area of and had a population of 178,870 at the time of the 20 ...

, in which Daizhou is located, had not been part of it.. The commandery in turn had been named after the former capital of the Baidi Kingdom of Dai, whose name represented a transcription of the native name using the

Chinese character Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as '' kan ...

,. which is pronounced ''dài'' in present-day Mandarin but had probably sounded like in

Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 12 ...

. That city had been in

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 ...

's Yu County,. but it was used for a series of petty states and appanages during the

Warring States The Warring States period () was an era in ancient Chinese history characterized by warfare, as well as bureaucratic and military reforms and consolidation. It followed the Spring and Autumn period and concluded with the Qin wars of conquest ...

Eighteen Kingdoms The historiographical term "Eighteen Kingdoms" ( zh, t=十八國), also translated to as "Eighteen States", refers to the eighteen ''fengjian'' states in China created by military leader Xiang Yu in 206 BCE, after the collapse of the Qin dynasty. ...

, and Han which spread the name into

and Yunzhong Commanderies. This confusion sometimes caused some medieval writers to erroneously conflate locations in Dai Prefecture (like

Mount Wutai Mount Wutai, also known by its Chinese name Wutaishan and as is a sacred Buddhist site at the headwaters of the Qingshui in Shanxi Province, China. Its central area is surrounded by a cluster of flat-topped peaks roughly corresponding to the ...

) with places from the ancient stories concerning the Zhao conquest of the first Dai Kingdom.

History

Dai Prefecture was created by renaming and reorganizing the earlier Si Prefecture. in Yanmen Commandery.. This occurred in AD585 under the Wen Emperor of Sui. Its seat was at present-day Daixian, which was known as Guangwu until 598 and then as Yanmen when its surrounding

was renamed due to the Chinese naming taboo. It was abolished and merged with Yanmen Commandery . Dai Prefecture was reëstablished by the Tang in 618, abolished and merged with Yanmen Commandery again in 742, and reëstablished a second time a few years later in 758. Under the Tang, it formed part of Hedong Circuit. During this period, the seat at Daizhou administered a prefecture covering what are now the counties of Dai, Wutai, Fanshi, and

.. Under the

Hongwu Emperor The Hongwu Emperor (21 October 1328 – 24 June 1398), personal name Zhu Yuanzhang (), courtesy name Guorui (), was the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty of China, reigning from 1368 to 1398. As famine, plagues and peasant revolts ...

of the

Ming The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peop ...

, it was demoted to a

for six years beginning in 1369. Under the

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

, Dai was removed from the authority of Taiyuan Prefecture and made a directly-administered prefecture in 1724 or 1728. Following the

Xinhai Revolution The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, ended China's last Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty, the Manchu people, Manchu-led Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of Chi ...

, it was converted into various counties in the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northea ...

References

Citations

Bibliography

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External links