Dragon pavilion,Kaifeng-China local life travel arragement

Ladies and gentleman, welcome to Kaifeng. Kaifeng is one of the most famous ancient capitals of China,?in Chinese history , she used to serve as the capitals?for seven dynasties,?namely,?State Wei of the Warring States Period?(340.B.C.),?Later Liang,?Jin,?Han,?Zhou of the Five Dynasties (907-960.A.D.), Northern Song (960-1127?)and Jin?(1214).?All?these magnificent cities and palaces have been buried underground by the floods of the Yellow River,?today I’ll take you to the Imperial Palace Ruins of Six Dynasties except State Wei.

??In 907 A.D.,?the unprecedentedly powerful Tang Dynasty collapsed and a unified China was divided into Five Dynasties in the north and Ten Kingdoms mostly in the South.?Four of the Five Dynasties established their capitals here in Kaifeng,?at the end of the Five Dynasties in 960, a general of the later Zhou called Zhao Kuangyin staged a ?famous coup at Chenqiaoyi near Kaifeng,?his soldiers put the imperial robe on his body,?and supported him to replace the young emperor of the Later Zhou and to establish a new dynasty---Song,?this incident was recorded by history as the “Chenqiao Mutiny”.?The Song Dynasty conquered all the small dynasties and kingdoms,?and unified China once again,?but Song’s unification couldn’t be compared with that of the Han and Tang Dynasties precedingly,?because Shijingtang---first emperor of the Later Jin Dynasty used to cede a large land of sixteen prefectures in north China to Khitan People in exchange for the support to overthrow the Later Tang Dynasty. Therefore from the first day the Song Dynasty was established,?it has never been safe and peaceful as its territory was threatened by Khitan People’s?(ancestors of Manchu’s Qing Dynasty)?Kin Kingdom to the north,?and Dangxiang People’s Western Xia Kingdom to the west.?Having considered the reason, emperor Zhao Kuangyin decided to establish the capital in Luoyang which was strategically located and surrounded by mountains on four sides,?besides,?crisscrossed rivers and the Grand Canal provided Luoyang with a very convenient transportation,?but after the Tang Dynasty,?Luoyang was destroyed and the Grand Canal’s Luoyang section was also blocked up,?it was not suitable to be the capital?any longer,?in addition,?many officials of the Song Dynasty found Luoyang so far from their hometowns,?so they suggested Emperor Zhao Kuangyin still make Kaifeng the capital of the Song.?Having no other choice,?emperor Zhao Kuangyin at last established the grand capital in Kaifeng, which is situated on a boundless plain and close to the Yellow River, he concluded,“We must meet with a great catastrophe in not more than 100 years!”Even so, the Song is still one of the most important unified dynasties in Chinese history,?its culture, art,?economy,?trade and commerce;?its scientific technology,?transportation and colorful city life reached a new peak in the feudal history of China.?As expected, 168 years later, the Kin People went southward and crossed the Yellow River easily before they occupied the capital of Kaifeng, although 800,000 soldiers and three layers of high city walls protected the capital,?the last two emperors of Huizong and Qinzong were taken away to the Kin Kingdom in present-day northeast China and died there, the rest of the Song Imperial house hurriedly escaped out of Kaifeng to present-day Hangzhou and reestablished the Song in South China.?In order to divide the two periods of the Song Dynasty,?according to the capital’s location,?historians call them the Northern Song and Southern Song respectively.

???In the Kin Dynasty,?in order to elude from the powerful Mongol Legion, Xuanzong Emperor moved the capital from Beijing to Kaifeng once again,?after the Kin Dynasty,?Kaifeng gradually lost its past glory and the position as the capital.

???Ladied and gentlemen,?here we are on the former site of the Imperial Palaces of the six dynasties that I have told you.?The present architectures were built in the Qing Dynasty. Because of wars and the floods of the Yellow River,?the magnificent imperial palaces of the past dynasties have been buried underground. During the Qing Dynasty, although?Beijing became the capital of China, Kaifeng was still a very important place in Central China, Emperors and imperial officials usually went here, the local officials built a touring palace for the emperors on the original site of the former palaces, and named it the “Longevity Palace”, and because emperors often resided here, local people called it the “Dragon Pavilion”.

???Presently, the former forbidden Palace for the emperors has been opened to the public.

午门：Meridian Gate

玉带桥：Jade Belt Bridge

嵩呼：（山呼/高呼）“Long live, Your Majesty”was shouted

朝门：Gate of emperor

大殿：Main Hall

潘湖（东）：Crafty and treacherous

杨湖（西）：抗辽名将Loyal to the court/Heroes against Khitan

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杯酒释兵权：Release the military?power from generals with a cup of wine.

In 961 A.D., the second year the Song Dynasty was established, Emperor Zhao Kuangyin held a sumptuous banquet to entertain the military leaders who made great exploits to help himself to be the emperor. Because he used to be a general who possessed the highest military power and usurped the throne easily, he was quite afraid that his generals would also follow suit one day, so Zhao Kuangyin decided to release the military power from the generals and rewarded them with lands and beauties. There’s a saying in China, “Accompanying the Emperor is just like to accompany a tiger”, one day, the tiger must eat the people, before long, many generals resigned from their post and went back to their hometowns, and later, the Song Dynasty went into a period administered by civil officials, while the supreme military power was only controlled by the Emperor himself.

???This incident was very famous in Chinese history. After it, the Song Dynasty also took many precautions to prevent the military generals from possessing high power, which weakened greatly the combat capacity of the army, that’s why the Song Dynasty appeared weaker than other unified dynasties like the Qin, Han and Tang.

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