During the Northern Song Dynasty, there were four capitals, the capital was Kaifeng Prefecture in Tokyo, and the other three supporting capitals were Xijing Henan Prefecture (now Luoyang, Henan Province), Nanjing Yingtianfu (now Shangqiu, Henan Province) and Beijing Daming Prefecture (now Daming, Hebei Province).
The capital of the Song Dynasty has always been Kaifeng Prefecture. Even though the geographical location of the Northern Song Dynasty was different from that of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Southern Song Dynasty designated Kaifeng as the nominal capital. Even if Kaifeng fell into the hands of Jin Guoren, Lin 'an was just the place where Emperor Hang Luan was stationed. At the end of the Jin Dynasty, Jin moved its capital to Kaifeng, and the Southern Song Dynasty issued a strong protest to jointly destroy Jin. After the fall of the State of Jin, the Southern Song Dynasty launched the action of bringing Duan Ping into Romania, and temporarily recovered Kaifeng House.
Reasons for Kaifeng's Capital Construction
Kaifeng, as an important node of ancient water transport, has become a water transport hub with four irrigation capitals after the development of Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties. Near Kaifeng, there are four rivers connected with the Grand Canal: Yellow River, Bianhe River, Huimin River and Guangji River.
In the ancient history of China, water transport was a relatively economical mode of material transportation. Compared with Chang 'an, Kaifeng had obvious advantages in water transport, which made it very convenient for materials from the southern region to be transported to Kaifeng.
The plain area made Kaifeng area have no danger to defend, but it also promoted the planting of crops such as grain, that is, under natural conditions, Kaifeng at that time was also due to Chang 'an. To sum up, the Northern Song Dynasty and Zhao Kuangyin finally made Kaifeng their capital, not Chang 'an.