Suīyáng

Suiyang is the old name of Shangqiu, the ancient city of the Song state on the plain between the Yellow River and the Huai, where the Zhou had enfeoffed the descendants of the Shang. The Song dynasty raised it to the prefecture of Yingtian in 1006 and to its Southern Capital in 1014, and in 1127 Zhao Gou took the throne here as Emperor Gaozong, founding the Southern Song. The Jin renamed it Guide Prefecture, and in 1232 their last emperor Aizong fled here from Kaifeng.

In 1368 the Ming demoted Guide to a department under Kaifeng and merged Suiyang County into it. In 1545 the Ming restored Guide as a prefecture and set up Shangqiu County in its seat. By the Yongle years the town's market, called Zhuji, had made it a trading hub of eastern Henan.