According to Records of the Historian Qin Benji, "In the tenth year of Qin Wugong (688 BC), Luan was first cut and a county was built. In the eleventh year, Du and Zheng were in Chu County. " Some scholars understand this: Qin Wugong captured Lu 'an and established Yunxian and Jixian. Therefore, according to this record alone, it is believed that Qin established the county system in 688 BC, and Luanhe and Hebei counties were the places where China began to govern the county system. Professor Zhou Zhen Crane thinks this is a misunderstanding of historical materials.

Zhou's research on the origin of the county system concluded that Qin Wugong actually turned the territory of Luan and He into a county (despicable place) of Qin State, which did not necessarily mean that Qin State set up four counties of Lu 'an, Ji, Du and Zheng at that time. This passage in Historical Records was written more than 500 years later, but it did not appear in Zuo Zhuan, not the factual record at that time. During the Spring and Autumn Period after Qin Wugong, there was no record of Chu County in the State of Qin. Therefore, it is difficult for us to take the isolated evidence of "the first county" in Qin Wugong as the basis for the establishment of counties in the early Spring and Autumn Period, but it should be understood that the territory of Qin State should develop westward to Luanhe River and Hebei, and eastward to Zhengzhou. To say the least, even if Qin Wugong had established counties at that time, these counties were also counties and cities, not counties. The history books also did not explain whether the officials in charge of Yun County and Ji County were appointed at that time.

Zhou also believes that the establishment of 10 county by the State of Jin in 5 14 BC can be regarded as a sign of the germination of local administrative system.

He promoted the research on the evolution of the county's nature and divided the meaning of the county into three different stages of development during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. "County is county, county is county, county is county. The county name is obtained by the county, the county shape is obtained by the county city, and the county is actually guarded by the county. "

Xie Zitu (formerly known as Xie Daping), a native of Gangu County, was taken from Zhou's Three Stages of the Origin of County System (this article was published in the third issue of China Historical Geography Theory Series, 1997, and later in Zhou Wenxuan 1999).