Kāifēng

Kaifeng stands on the broad plain south of the Yellow River, where the Bian canal once brought the grain of the south to the capital. As Dongjing, Bianjing and later Bianliang, it was the Northern Song capital and one of the largest cities in the world, a place of markets and entertainments that the Song court lost to the Jurchen in 1127. The Jin made it their southern capital, and Emperor Xuanzong fled here from the Mongols in 1214. After a long siege Kaifeng fell to the Mongols in 1233, and the Yuan made it the seat of the Henan and Jiangbei Branch Secretariat.

The Red Turban rebels made it the capital of their Song regime in 1358 under Han Lin'er, until Yuan forces drove them out. In 1368 Zhu Yuanzhang came to inspect Bianliang for a capital, renamed it Kaifeng, and then chose Nanjing instead; Kaifeng remained the capital of Henan. In 1381 his fifth son Zhu Su, Prince of Zhou, took up his fief here, where he compiled the Jiuhuang Bencao, a guide to wild plants that could be eaten in famine. A synagogue had stood in the city since the 12th century, and the Jewish community recorded its history on a stele of 1489.

The Yellow River was a constant threat. In 1410 floods breached the old city and struck some 14,000 households. In 1642, as Li Zicheng's rebels besieged Kaifeng a third time, the defenders cut the river dikes and the water drowned much of the city, including the synagogue. The Qing repaired the walls in 1662 and kept Kaifeng as the seat of the province and the prefecture.