Historical Traveler: Those place names changed by Wang Mang...

Picture/Wang Jianfeng After Wang Mang came to power, in addition to launching a series of bizarre policies, he also carried out drastic reforms in the administrative place names of the Western Han Dynasty. Wang Mang is a fanatical Confucian retrotist who is bent on restoring the Zhou system, so he also has his reasons for changing place names - "In response to the classics". In other words, I didn't change it on a whim, I did it according to the instructions of the classic books. There is evidence for this. For example, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty divided the country into thirteen states, and later added a Sili Xiaowei Department. When Wang Mang came to power, he first divided it into twelve states. Jiaozhi was renamed Jiaozhou, in order to respond to the allusion of ""Zhao, Nanjiao" in "Yao Dian", and then because the name Liangzhou was not ancient enough, it was changed to Yongzhou. This was based on "Yu Gong", where the There is no Liangzhou in Kyushu, only Yongzhou. This is a relatively normal change. At the county level, the style suddenly changed. Compared with the late Western Han Dynasty, the number of counties in Xinmang increased from 106 to 116. , with continuous changes and additions, 91 county names were changed in one day, and only 25 retained their original names; the number of counties increased from 1,587 to 1,585, of which 730 counties changed their names, which means that nearly half of them changed their names. When I opened my eyes, half of the place names in the country had changed. What a violent change. For example, the second auxiliary of the three auxiliaries (Jingzhao, Feng Yi, and Fufeng) located in the central area was divided into six lieutenants: Jingwei, Division Lieutenant, and Fufeng. The six counties of Yiwei, Fuwei, Guangwei and Liewei have all been renamed. Nanyang is called "front team", Hanoi is called "back team" and Ying Sichuan is called the "Left Team", Hongnong is called the "You Team", Hedong is called the "Zhao Team", Xingyang is called the "Qi Team", collectively known as Yuzhou Sixth Team. In fact, the word "" Team" is " " The provincial character "tunnel" means smoothness, but this is too easy for people to misunderstand. This is not the end. The Western Han Dynasty had four counties (Zhangye, Wuwei, Jiuquan, Dunhuang) in the Hexi Corridor, among which Wuwei For some reason, Wang Mang said that the name of Wuwei should be changed to Zhangye. But there is already a Zhangye County among the four counties. What should I do? Then Zhangye should also be called Sheping. -It's good to set up Pingfan to resist foreign enemies. So, two old places were changed to a new name. However, Jiuquan and Dunhuang were not happy. These two counties were changed to Fuping and Dunde respectively. This bad luck is not limited to Hexi. Shandong was not spared. Qi County (today's Zibo and Qingzhou areas) also changed its name. What was it called Jinan? The neighboring Jinan County suddenly turned green. What should I do if it was changed to Jinan? With a wave, you can call it Le'an! So, a new name and two old places were changed. Just mentioned that the six counties of Yuzhou changed the six teams. In fact, the original place names were not wasted. Passed on. Hedong was changed to Anyi County, Hanoi was changed to Huai County, Yingchuan was changed to Yangzhai, and Nanyang was changed to Wan County. Wang Mang also had two characteristics: first, it was downgraded from a county name to a county name. He is superstitious and is unhappy when he sees unlucky words. Secondly, he has a strong rebellious mentality and tries to mess with normal people. He changed many place names just because he didn't like them. For example, Wuxi is a very popular name. The origin can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period. When Wang Mang saw this place name, he felt bad, Wuxi, can you tell me? Change is a must! Then Wuxi brazenly changed its name to ""Youxi"... Another example is Fuli, which sells roast chicken. Wang Mang especially liked the word ""Fu", a peach charm, which sounds auspicious. He changed the names of many places to X Fu For example, Peijun was called Wufu, Dingtao was called Yingfu, Lixiang was called Shangfu. He picked up the list and looked at it, huh? The word "Li" is so unlucky. With this experience, Wang Mang became more and more skilled. There was a county in Shangdang called Guyuan, and a county in Taiyuan was changed into Yuliu. Donghun County was changed to Dongming. Dongping State was changed to Youyan County because there was a ""Wuyan" Pavilion in the country. There was a father named Kang in Shandong. Wang Mang felt that the word "Kang" was unfilial, so he changed it to "Shunfu". . And in this antonym exercise, Wang Mang showed his true nature as a straight man, and he especially didn’t like bending.

There is a place called "Quzhou" in Fuchang County, which was changed to "Zhizhou"; "Quliang" in the same county was changed to "Zhiliang"; there was a place called "Quni" in Changshan County, which was changed to "Zhizhou". ""Shunping". There are also ""Quping" changed to ""Duanping", ""Quyang" changed to ""Congyang". He can make round things square. There is a Xihe County in Bingzhou, which was renamed by Wang Mang Return to Xin County. There is a place in the county called Yuanyin. The word "圜" means to rotate around, just like a circle. I don't know why the circle offended Wang Mang and was renamed "Fangyin". China There is a naming rule for place names. Mountains to the south and water to the north are yang, and mountains to the north and water to the south are yin. Once there are two characters of yin and yang in a place name, its geographical location can be guessed very well. For some reason, Wang Mang is very fond of these place names. Sensitive, everything that can be changed has been changed. For example, Huayin County was changed to Huatan; Huaiyin County was changed to Jiaxin. You can keep changing it like this, but Wang Mang's name change is so mysterious that no one can figure it out. (Luo) Yang, he did not change the character Yang, but deleted the character Luo and changed it to Xuanyang; the character Yang of Xiangyang was also retained, but the character Xiang was lost and became Xiangyang. This is still good, Wang Mang's. The rebellious mentality was too strong, and some place names fell into his hands, but they were very unlucky. For example, Fan Yang was changed to "Shun Yin". Forget it if Fan changed Shun, why should the good "Yang" be changed to "Yin"? Huh? Wang Mang didn't explain, so no one could guess what he was thinking, so Liaoyang was changed to Liaoyin, and Niyang was changed to Niyin... At the same time, Wang Mang also devoted himself to resisting foreign enemies, especially in terms of spirit. He made great efforts. For example, he changed the name of Tianshui County to "fillrong" with the same character as ""zhen", which means to suppress Rongdi. This change of name is understandable and not without precedent, but he couldn't stop him from changing it. There were many changes in the counties along the border. Ji County was changed to Fa Rong, Beidi County was changed to Wei Rong, and Longxi County was changed to Yan Rong County - by the way, the word "Yan" also means suppression. A Di road was changed to ""caolu". This ""cao" means to control, control, control, and control. Rong was scolded bloody, but Di did not escape. Yanmen County, changed It was called Tiandi; Beidi County was renamed Yandi; there was also a small place called Bailang, which was renamed Qiu Di. Wuyao was also changed to Yanhu, and Pingyi was changed to Pinghu. As the saying goes, the Eastern Yi, the Western Di, the Southern Barbarians, and the Northern Hu. Now the Hu, Di, and Rong in the north and west have been scolded so hard that they can't hold their heads up, and Langxie County in the east has been brazenly changed to " "Fill the barbarians". Don't be happy in the south. The Changsha Kingdom also changed its name to "fill the barbarians". No one should laugh at anyone in the southeast and northwest. Foreign and international friends were not spared. Wang Mang once sent Yan You there. After attacking Goguryeo, I looked back and thought, are you worthy of the word "Gao"? So I changed the name to "Xiagouli". My old rival, the Xiongnu Chanyu, was also changed to "Jiannu Chanyu". It is said that in one place, five changes were made within one year. This time, there was no time to even engrave a seal, let alone use it for daily use. When the government issued an announcement, it had to add parentheses after the place name, saying that this is a place in the Han Dynasty. Even when Wang Mang issued an edict, he had to add a marginal note " " "Guhan XXXX", otherwise no one will understand. Later, the Guangwu Zhongxing restored the chaos and restored Wang Mang's random name changes to their original state, and the chaos was finally resolved.