According to the records in the Annals of Leling County in 1991, there are mainly four statements about the origin of the place name of Leling:
The first is to build a "coincidence" city, named after Leling. It is mainly based on the records in the Annals of Yuanhe County that "the old city is twenty-five miles to the southeast of the county. It was set up in the Han Dynasty and belongs to Pingyuan County, now known as the King City of Wei." It is "the county is one hundred and thirty-five miles north of Cangzhou and was built by Leyi when he attacked Qi."
Second, it was named "Yue Cheng Ling". It is mainly based on the record in the Annals of Leling County published by Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty: "Emperor Huan of the Han Dynasty succeeded the Great Emperor from Hejian and respected his grandfather's tomb as Lecheng Tomb. The name of Leling began from this."
Third, it was named after "Ah Dou Tomb". According to the Annals of Leling County written by Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, Liu Chan, the late leader of the Shu Han Dynasty, surrendered to the Wei Dynasty and was granted the title of "Duke Anle" here. After his death, he was buried on a high hill five miles south of the county seat (today's five mile tomb). Therefore, the county is named "Leling County".
Fourth, Dafu Yueling said. It is mainly based on the record in Shandong General Annals of the Qing Dynasty: "Da Fu is called Ling; the country is the meaning of peace and happiness when it is happy to take four people's feet." After repeated verification and examination by those who were compiling the annals at that time, they unanimously believed that the first three statements were wrong, but the later ones were more appropriate, and they continued to use them.
In the compilation of county annals in 1991, due to the large differences in the cultural level of the personnel, the reading of history books was obviously insufficient, leading to misleading. At that time, the chroniclers extracted ancient books out of context according to their personal needs, regardless of the logical relationship. To demonstrate the origin of the place name of Leling, we should first start with the Records of the Historian and the Book of the Han Dynasty, and then the local chronicles about Leling.