For friends in Yantai, the place name "Longquan Town" should not be unfamiliar. This township is located in the eastern part of Muping District, which is close to the Kuncheng Mountains and has hot springs and other attractions, which is more famous in Yantai tourism circles.
The origin of the place name "Dragon Spring" is generally believed to be related to the local hot springs. The record in the "Gazetteer of Muping County" is that Longquan Township (before changing the town) was stationed in Longquan Tang Village, and the township station was named because there was a hot spring soup, and the soup spring gushed like a dragon spitting water.
Although the origin of the name is relatively clear, the time of its appearance is somewhat ambiguous.
(Photo of Longquan Soup in the Republic of China edition of "Muping County Chronicle")
The "Gazetteer of Muping County" says: "During the reign of Ming Hongzhi, a hot spring was built in the northwest of the current village, named Longquan Tang, and the Song surname moved here to build the village, and was named Longquan Tang. ”
According to this passage, the title "Longquan" seems to have appeared only during the Ming Dynasty. However, according to the Quanzhen Sect literature, at least in the period of Wang Chongyang, there was a place called "Longquan" in Ninghai Prefecture.
In the "Seven True Chronicles", which records the lives of Wang Chongyang and his disciple "Quanzhen Seven Sons", there is this passage:
"In August of the eighth year of Dading, the ancestor Wu zhenren moved from Yanxiadong to Jiang Shi'an in Wendeng County and established the Seven Treasures Society. Dading was ugly in the ninth year, and the ancestor of Chongyang was fifty-eight. Chun, Yuyang Zhenren resigned from the ancestors, and lived in seclusion in ChaShan (槎山). In April, Zushi led Danyang, Changzhen, Changchun and Guangning to move to JinlianTang in Ninghai Prefecture. En route to Longquan. ”
That is to say, in the eighth year of Jin Dading, Wang Chongyang took five disciples from yanxia cave in Kuncheng Mountain to Wendeng to preach. In the spring of the following year, Yuyang Zi said goodbye and went to Chashan Mountain in the east, while Wang Chongyang returned to Ninghai Prefecture with four other disciples to the west. On the way from Wenden to Ninghai Prefecture, the group passed by a place called "Dragon Spring".
Judging from the description of the geographical location (between Wendeng and Muping, there is an official road passing through), the "Dragon Spring" that Wang Chongyang passed through should be the current "Dragon Spring". In other words, at least in the ninth year of Jin Dading (1169), the place name "Longquan" had already appeared. Considering that the evolution of place names requires a process, it is not excluded that this possibility was not ruled out - in the Northern Song Dynasty or even the Tang Dynasty, there was the title of "Longquan".
The example of Muping 'Longquan' is actually a true portrayal of the lack of historical materials in Jiaodong before the Ming Dynasty. Since most of the official historiographies and folk genealogies can only be traced back to the early Ming Dynasty (in official sources, the earliest mention of Longquan may be Ming Jiajing's version of the Ninghai Zhou Zhi), in the gazetteer compiled in the late last century, many village names were cut off as after the Ming Dynasty. In fact, before that, many parts of the peninsula already had traces of ancestor activities. Unfortunately, due to the lack of historical records, it is difficult for future generations to understand the original situation in detail.