Dazhigu

Dazhigu (大直沽) is the wharf district east of the old city, and its importance is older than the wall. In the Yuan period the court set up receiving offices, storage offices and a salt administration at Dazhigu, with the Linqing Myriad Household Office and granaries, and it built a Tianfei Palace and a Tianhou Palace there. The Yuan scholar Zhang Zhu described the junction as ten thousand ships gathering under the morning sun. Dazhigu, with Sanchahekou and Beidaguan, formed the wharf and commercial districts along the river outside the Tianjin Wei wall. The older form of Tianjin speech east of the river covered the old Hedong quarter, Dazhigu and the Hebei area together.