View source for Bingzhou

{{Short description|Historical province of China}}
{{about|the historical province|the historical region with the same name covering a much smaller area|Bing Prefecture}}
{{Unreferenced|date=October 2024}}
{{Infobox Chinese|c=并州|p=Bīngzhōu}}
'''Bingzhou''', or '''Bing Province''', was a location in ancient China. According to legend, when [[Yu the Great]] ({{Circa|2200 BC}}-2100 BC) tamed the flood, he divided the land of China into the [[Nine Provinces (China)|Nine Provinces]]. Historical texts such as the ''[[Rites of Zhou]]'', and "Treatise on Geography" section (volume 28) of the ''[[Book of Han]]'', recorded that Bingzhou was one of the Nine Provinces. Bingzhou covered roughly the areas around present-day [[Baoding]], [[Hebei]], and [[Taiyuan]] and [[Datong]] in [[Shanxi]].
==History==
===Han dynasty and earlier===
Since the fifth century BC Bingzhou had been separated from the [[Ordos Desert]] repeatedly by a series of walls that would form the [[Great Wall of China]].
[[File:Han provinces.jpg|thumb|Map of Chinese provinces in the prelude of [[Three Kingdoms]] period<br/>(In the late Han dynasty period, 189 CE).]]
In 106 BCE, during the [[Western Han dynasty]] (206 BCE – 9 CE), [[Emperor Wu of Han|Emperor Wu]] divided the Han Empire into thirteen administrative divisions, of which Bingzhou was one. Bingzhou covered most of present-day [[Shanxi]] and parts of [[Hebei]] and [[Inner Mongolia]]. During the [[Eastern Han dynasty]] (25–220) Bingzhou's capital was designated in Jinyang County (晉陽縣; present-day [[Jinyuan District]], [[Taiyuan]], Shanxi), and the regions under its jurisdiction included most of present-day Shanxi, northern [[Shaanxi]] and parts of Inner Mongolia. In 213 Bingzhou was absorbed into another administrative division, [[Jizhou (ancient China)|Jizhou]] (or Ji Province). Near the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, during a succession dispute among the heirs of the warlord [[Yuan Shao]] (d. 202), Bingzhou eventually came under the control of Yuan's rival, [[Cao Cao]] (155–220). Yuan Shao's nephew [[Gao Gan]] surrendered to Cao in 203, rebelled in 205, but was defeated and killed by Cao in 206, and Bing Province was definitively annexed. Cao Cao moved [[Xiongnu]] herdsmen into Bingzhou and the adjacent [[Ordos Desert]]. By the 280s approximately 400,000 Xiongnu lived there, who later founded the states of [[Han Zhao|Han-Zhao]] (304–319) and [[Later Zhao]] (319–351).
===Three Kingdoms period===
Bingzhou was restored in 220 under the [[Cao Wei]] regime during the [[Three Kingdoms]] period (220–280) but the area under its control was reduced as compared to during the Eastern Han dynasty.
===Sixteen Kingdoms period===
In 396 during the [[Sixteen Kingdoms]] period (304–439), Bingzhou's capital was in Puban County (蒲坂縣; southwest of present-day [[Yongji, Shanxi|Yongji]], [[Shanxi]]), and the areas it covered were mainly in present-day southwestern Shanxi. Bingzhou was abolished in 399.
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{coord missing|China}}
{{Ancient Chinese provinces}}
{{Han dynasty provinces}}
[[Category:Provinces of ancient China]]
[[Category:Provinces of the Han dynasty]]