Linyi County 临邑县

Setting and landscape

The county is part of the Yellow River floodplain and grows grain and cotton. It measures up to 30 kilometres east to west and 60 kilometres north to south, and the Dehui River (德惠河) also crosses it. Oil and natural gas lie beneath the plain: the Linpan oilfield (临盘油田) lies within the Dalujia anticline (大芦家背斜) and four fault blocks. Springs tend to be dry, summers waterlogged and late autumns dry again.

History

In the Western Zhou and Spring and Autumn periods the area belonged to Qi, and under the Qin it was Luoyin County (漯阴县), named for lying south of the ancient Luo River (漯水). In 455 the Liu Song dynasty merged Luoyin with part of neighbouring Zhu County (著县) and gave it the borrowed name Linyi, taken from a Han county of Dong Commandery at today's Dong'e (东阿). The Eighth Route Army set up an anti-Japanese county government here in 1939, and the county has belonged to Dezhou, apart from spells under Huimin, Liaocheng and Zibo prefectures, since 1950.

What to see and hear

Yigougou (一勾勾), a local opera grown out of northern flower-drum song, is on the first national intangible heritage list of 2006. Its name, "one hook", comes from a saying that its singing hooks the listener's soul, and because the four-stringed sixian (四弦) is its main accompanying instrument it is also called "four strings" (四根弦). Troupes were active by the mid-Qing, and the county troupe founded in 1959 ran until 1971.

Deping da yangge (德平大鞅歌) from Deping town (德平镇) traces itself to the Yuan dynasty; the county government explains the character yang (鞅) as a horse's neck strap, recalling songs sung under compulsion. Village troupes of dozens to over a hundred people, with four umbrella carriers leading four drummers and many other roles, run through set formations to the beat of a big drum, and neighbouring villages link their processions with trails of lamps.

The Xing Tong Memorial Hall (邢侗纪念馆), in Xing Tong Park, opened in 1992 in honour of the late-Ming calligrapher Xing Tong (邢侗). It keeps the stone-carved Laiqin Guan model calligraphy (来禽馆帖) that he had cut, the pear-wood blocks of his sister Xing Cijing (邢慈静), and a corridor of 88 inscribed stones added in 2003.

Highlights

• Yigougou opera 一勾勾: County opera accompanied mainly by the four-string sixian; national intangible heritage since 2006.
• Deping da yangge 德平大鞅歌: Umbrella-and-drum procession dance traced to the Yuan dynasty.
• Xing Tong Memorial Hall 邢侗纪念馆: Holds the Laiqin Guan model-calligraphy stones of the late-Ming calligrapher Xing Tong.