Although from the Ming period onwards our interest is almost entirely centred in Ching-tê Chên, there were other factories which cannot be altogether ignored. A certain number have already been mentioned at the end of the first volume, our scanty information being drawn chiefly from the pottery section of the K’ang Hsi Encyclopædia. The same monumental work includes in another part[239] a discourse on porcelain (_tz’ŭ ch’i_), in which several additional factories are named. The passage in question is prefaced by a quotation from the _Tien hung k’ai wu_, a late-seventeenth century manual, in which we are told that the white earth (_o t’u_[240]) necessary for the manufacture of fine and elegant ware was found in China in five or six places only[241]: viz. at Ting Chou, in the Chên-ting Fu in Chih-li, at Hua-ting Chou in the Ping-liang Fu in Shensi, at P’ing-ting Chou in the T’ai-yüan Fu in Shansi, and at Yü Chou in the K’ai-fêng Fu in Honan, in the north; and at Tê-hua Hsien in the Ch’üan-chou Fu in Fukien, at Wu-yüan Hsien and Ch’i-mên Hsien in the Hui-chou Fu, in Anhui, in the south. As to the wares made in these localities, we are told that the porcelains of the Chên-ting and K’ai-fêng districts were generally yellow and dull and without the jewel-like brilliancy, and that all put together were not equal to the Jao Chou ware. It would appear, then, that the Ting Chou factories so noted in Sung times were still extant, though they had lost their importance. For the rest, the Ch’i-mên district supplied Ching-tê Chên with the raw material, the Tê-hua wares will be discussed presently, and we have no information about the productions (if any) of the other localities. The province of Fukien apparently contained several factories besides the important centre at Tê-hua. The Annals of Ch’üan-chou Fu (celebrated as a trading port in the Middle Ages), for instance, are quoted with reference to a porcelain (_tz’ŭ ch’i_) manufacture at Tz’ŭ-tsao in the Chin-chiang Hsien, and three other places in the district of An-ch’i are named as producers of white porcelain which was inferior to that of Jao Chou. Similarly, the Annals of Shao-wu Fu, on the north-east border of the province, allude to white porcelain made at three places,[242] the factory at T’ai-ming in An-jen being the best, but all were far from equalling the Jao Chou ware.