The most direct road from Hanch'eng to Hsian lies through the cities of T'ungchou Fu and Weinan Hsien across the plains along the Yellow River, but we followed a slightly longer route further north across the loess uplands via Hoyang, Ch'engch'eng, P'uch'eng, Fup'ing, and Sanyuan, a week's journey by a good and mostly level trail.[…]

Hoyang is a fairly large city, the centre of a first class district; but it is a poor-looking place inside, like most of these purely agricultural prairie towns, and is not to be compared with Hanch'eng, which probably does a good deal of trade with prosperous Shansi.]