China has 24 dynasties, up to 4000 years of political civilization history, throughout the dynasties, the capital is basically located in the north, especially the great unified dynasty, basically will not be located in the south, why?
1. Topography - defense capability.
The national capital is the core of the country, so the location of the national capital should consider security and defense issues, which is reflected in reality as the choice of terrain and terrain. China's topography gradually decreases from northwest to southeast, the west and north are mostly plateaus and mountains, and the east and south are the lower reaches of major rivers, with many plains and hills. Therefore, from the perspective of terrain, the north has the advantage of being easy to defend and difficult to attack. The main threat to the ancient Central Plains dynasty in China was the nomadic peoples in the north. In the era of cold weapons, the North had a condescending advantage, so that it would not panic too much in the event of war. If you rely only on rivers, it will be difficult to resist the attack from the north. At the same time, in the era of cold weapons, transportation is inconvenient. War is not only a battle between soldiers, but also a competition between economies. The soldiers and horses did not move the grain and grass first, and transported the grain and grass from the south to the north, which cost a lot in the middle. And the cost of waging war by the northern nomads is ridiculously low. In the long run, the Central Plains will be easily dragged down by war.
The famous ancient capital in history is surrounded by natural hazards and artificial defense projects, such as Hangu Pass, Dasanguan and Tongguan in Xi'an, and Yanshan and Taihang Mountain in Beijing, Songshan and Taihang Mountain in Luoyang. If you want to conquer these cities, you must first pay a huge price to conquer these natural dangers and passes. Dating back to the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Great Wall began to be built, until the Qin Dynasty connected the Great Wall of the original six kingdoms, and since then, the Great Wall has become an important line of defense against the southern invasion of northern nomads.
Later Jin Shi Jingjiao ceded the sixteen states of Yanyun to the Liao state, causing the Central Plains to lose what is now Beijing, Tianjin north of the Haihe River, and the northern regions of Hebei and Shanxi, and the Liao border extended along the Great Wall. The entire Song dynasty failed to reclaim it, and despite its economic prosperity, it was always on the defensive in the face of the Liao and Jin states.
In addition to the mountains, there is also a source of water. In general, the capital is also an economic and population center, and the water source can not only provide daily water, but also meet the needs of water transportation, and can also be used as a moat to become the capital's dependence if necessary.
2. Economic and cultural development advantages.
From an economic point of view, the southern region of our country was known as the land of barbarians for a long time. The development time in the north is earlier than that in the south, and the degree of development is deeper than that in the south, so the economic center of gravity has also been concentrated in the north for a long time. In ancient times, China has always been a small-scale peasant economy, and the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River are important agricultural development areas, but the plains in the lower reaches of the Yellow River are connected into patches, and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River are densely covered with water networks, many hills, and the land is cut and fragmented, which is not very conducive to agricultural development. Too little arable land could not support a larger population, and people had to move or do business in order to survive. For example, the origin of Huizhou merchants in ancient Huizhou, ancient Huizhou is basically located in the south of Anhui Province, where the hills are all over, the cultivated land area is small, and the land can not survive, so there is a Huizhou folk proverb "the previous life is not cultivated, born in Huizhou, thirteen or fourteen years old, throw it away". This is a major factor in the formation of Hui merchants. Moreover, before the three countries, when the economic center of gravity had not shifted southward, the agricultural technology of the north was ahead of the south, and the prosperity of agriculture promoted the development of the economy, and the agricultural tax was a major economy. It was not until the Southern Song Dynasty that the capital moved south and the economic center of gravity shifted southward, and the technology and economy of the south were steadily ahead of the north. As a result, the long period of economic leadership also made the rulers tilt towards the north when choosing their capitals.
The longest city in Chinese history was Xi'an, a veritable world center during the Han and Tang dynasties. The ancients used poems such as "Chang'an is prosperous like a splendid splendor, and the jade trees and qionghua are dazzling", "the palace is heavy and the building drains the autumn water, and the ancient capital is prosperous and prosperous", "the palace is opened in nine days, and all countries are dressed and crowned" and other poems to describe the prosperity of Chang'an at that time. At that time, the south was still in an incomplete state, with a warm and humid climate, miasma, snakes, insects, and diseases, and a sparse population. For example, Su Shi was relegated to Huangzhou, Huizhou and Danzhou, which are now Huanggang in Hubei, Huizhou in Guangdong and Danzhou in Hainan. Bai Juyi wrote in "Twenty Rhymes of Sending Guests to Lingnan in Spring", "It is difficult to grow old in the miasma, and it is not easy to tame the barbaric." The people of the soil are sparse and white-headed, and the cave owner is full of yellow scarves. It can be seen from this that in the eyes of the ancient literati, what kind of "barbarian land" the south was.
3. Feng Shui-dragon vein convergence.
The ancients emphasized feng shui, which was integrated into the daily life of the ancients, and the Chinese people are still influenced by it. In ancient times, when choosing the capital, it was natural to carry out feng shui divination, in order to bless the prosperity of the country and the glory of the country for thousands of years. Feng Shui pays attention to the "dragon vein" and "dragon den", which the ancients believed could increase the body's natural qi. As the old saying goes, "the ups and downs of the leylines are called dragons", and the dragon veins refer to the mountains. Generally speaking, the mountain is the power of the dragon, the water is the blood of the dragon, the soil is the flesh of the dragon, the stone is the bone of the dragon, and a flower and a tree, a grass and a tree are all the appearance of the dragon. Not only that, but the shape and potential of the dragon vein are also very different.
Before the capital, the emperors of all dynasties would find strange people to observe the location of the "dragon vein". There are many high mountains in the north of our country, and the location of the dragon vein is closely connected with the mountain range, so most of the capitals are also set in the north, which meets the conditions of the unity of the dragon vein and the dragon's den. During the Qin and Han dynasties, there was already a relatively mature concept of leyline, and feng shui gradually prevailed. At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, the theory of feng shui was initially formed, and in the later period, the works of Dong Zhongshu and others provided a certain ideological theory for feng shui, making it mature day by day. In addition, during the Qin and Han dynasties, theories such as the Five Elements, Yin and Yang, and Bagua gradually took shape, enriching the theory of Feng Shui and influencing the thinking and life of later generations. In addition, there is a saying that "people go to higher places, and water flows to lower places", which is also one of the bases for the location of the capital in the north.
In addition to the above three points, there are also factors such as cultural heritage, people's livelihood construction; China had more than 400 emperors, most of whom were northerners; The Han Chinese originated in the Yellow River Valley. These are the reasons why the capital was located in the north.