From the choice of the capital of the dynasty, we can see the different temperament of different dynasties.

A country is made up of people, and everyone has personality and orientation, so to some extent, a country also has personality and orientation, which sometimes has very obvious external manifestations, for example, in the location of a country's capital.

The capital of China.

Before the Tang and Song Dynasties, the capital of China's largest empire was mainly located in Guanzhong, that is, in Chang 'an, Xianyang, the old capital of Qin Dynasty. Since the Han Dynasty, there are generally two capitals, Chang 'an in the west and Luoyang in the east, which are collectively called the two capitals. Luoyang, the capital of the Eastern Han Dynasty, also reflects its founder Liu Xiu's softer character than Liu Bang and his consideration for the interests of rich and powerful families. At the same time, his ambition to explore the western regions and expand the territory is far less vigorous than that of the broken Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty at home.

After the troubled times of the Three Kingdoms, the Southern and Northern Dynasties, although the economic center of gravity has completely shifted to the southeast, the unified Sui and Tang Dynasties still chose Chang 'an-Luoyang as the capital. Between capital and capital, Chang 'an's position is slightly higher than Luoyang's, which can be seen from the following facts: During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, due to years of war and excessive reclamation, the output of Guanzhong, once known as fertile land, was greatly reduced, and it was impossible to feed the population of a big country's capital. To support the growing bureaucracy and the huge population gathered from it, we can only rely on huge financial input from the southeast. In contrast, Luoyang is relatively closer to the southeast, so Luoyang can also get more supplies. In this case, the pig emperor of the Tang Dynasty still ran to Chang 'an whenever he had the chance, especially Li Longji, the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, who built a large building in Chang 'an and left many ambiguous legends with his famous concubine Yang Yuhuan. For the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, sitting in Chang 'an is not only a habit, but also an attitude, an attitude of looking around, an attitude of wanting both, which reflects his desire for the western regions and more land.

However, with the deterioration of Guanzhong's self-sufficiency ability, it is more dependent on southeast finance and taxation. From the end of the Tang Dynasty, Luoyang and the eastern Daliang area completely replaced Chang 'an's position, and this tradition continued until the Northern Song Dynasty. Kaifeng is surrounded by the Great Plains, which is like Ma Pingchuan in front of the nomadic people in the north. However, in order to support the extremely bloated bureaucracy and the equally huge imperial army, Kaifeng was the only choice for those in power in the Northern Song Dynasty. But it also reflects a kind of "orientation": that is, the need to consolidate political power by supporting larger bureaucratic groups and vested interests is overwhelming.

In the Southern Song Dynasty, there were actually more choices to build the capital, such as Jiankang, and Hangzhou, south of the Yangtze River, was chosen as the "temporary capital" instead of Jiankang or Yangzhou. Its political intention is very obvious, and its "positioning" is well known: don't expect me to fight back. If it doesn't exist, I just want to live (if only I could really live well).

After the Song Dynasty, the northern minority regimes established their capitals in Hebei, Shanxi and even Northeast China. In order to consolidate their Mongolian-Xianbei-Tunguska basic dish, Beijing is almost the southernmost choice. Kim seems to be a bad example. After winning Kaifeng, the country moved its center to the south, and as a result, it lost control of the "Longxing Land" in the north in a short time and was quickly annexed by the latter. In contrast, Yuan is not a fortune teller, but there are still infinite northern grasslands and deserts to turn back to.

Although Ming claimed to be the ancestor of Han people and wanted to expel Tatars and restore orthodoxy, it was deeply influenced by the north, as can be seen from the choice of the capital. Looking back at history, the importance of Hebei appeared at the latest in the warlord war in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. Cao Wei unified the north, and the most important military stronghold was Yecheng, Hebei. Cao Wei changed Chang 'an, Qiaocheng, Xuchang, Yehe and Luoyang into five capitals, and legally positioned Yecheng as one of the five capitals, showing its military and strategic importance. The so-called five capitals of Cao Wei also reflect the country's "orientation", that is, to inherit the Qin and Han Dynasties in culture and have heavier military needs. Except Luoyang and Chang 'an, Qiaocheng (Cao Cao's hometown), Xuchang and Yeh are all valued for their military importance, so the choice of these places embodies the characteristics of Cao Wei's "military affairs".

It can be seen that the reason why China made its capital in ancient times was more for military and political reasons, while commercial or other reasons could be ignored.

But the situation outside China is quite different.

Let's start with the Arab Empire. After the Umayyad caliphate completed its general conquest, Damascus was its capital. Damascus was founded by semu people in the Middle East, but it was already Hellenistic at that time, and it was a city with the essence of Greek and oriental culture. At the same time, the city is close to the Mediterranean and has a strong commercial atmosphere, which shows the "orientation" of the newly rising Umayyad dynasty facing the sea and being inclusive.

But when Abbas replaced Umayyah, it chose Baghdad-Mosul as its capital. At that time, the two rivers region had filtered the "impurities" of Greece for more than 400 years in the washing of Sassanbos, and became more oriental and authoritarian. The choice of this place as the capital reflects Abbas people's more conservative "orientation" than Wu's predecessor. That is, from the outward-oriented "orientation" facing the ocean to the inward-oriented "orientation" relying more on bureaucrats and land. The Umayyad branch that remained in Spain continued the tolerant temperament of our ancestors in culture and commerce, and established a charming "export-oriented" country around Cordoba, Spain, which eclipsed Europe at that time.

Russia has the same problem. Peter the Great learned from the West and built a new city, St. Petersburg, by the sea out of thin air, and built its capital here. Compared with the barbarism, autocracy and lack of contact with the west when Moscow was the capital, it was much more "extroverted" (this does not mean that Peter the Great was not autocratic). The capital St. Petersburg is one of the important reasons why Russia has not been left behind by the rapid progress of European powers. But Russia is an authoritarian "Moscow" full of primitive land desire in its bones, which is also the real gap between them and western powers.

The Roman Empire was not spared on this issue. Rome, the land of Longxing, is a long-term natural capital, but many things have changed since Constantine the Great established a new Rome on the Black Sea. First of all, Constantine's action confirmed the fact that the economic center of the Roman Empire was in the Hellenistic East, while most of the emperors with higher status such as Diocletian lived in the East. Secondly, Constantine's behavior in turn accelerated the orientalization of the Roman Empire. After that, Rome's attribute of "* * * and country" gradually disappeared completely and became an out-and-out oriental autocratic country. Spqr, which has been used for hundreds of years, has become an oriental "kingdom". However, compared with Kaifeng, a city supported by the whole country, Junbao was still extremely rich and luxurious until the collapse of East Rome. In other words, Junbao, who has a superior geographical position, has a strong hematopoietic capacity, not a vampire created by administrative orders.

"Barbarian" countries rising from the ruins of the Western Roman Empire often choose important colonies before Rome as their capitals, such as Trier, Aachen, London, Milan and Lavaine. The western European cities that rose later, except for a few cities attached to military fortresses (such as Innsbruck), were mostly commercial settlements formed by businessmen on the only way to do business (often along the river and important commercial roads) and developed slowly. The basic path is roughly from commercial settlements to towns and then to cities. There are few so-called super cities like Kaifeng, which are supported by national strength for political purposes. So did Frankfurt, the early capital of the Holy Roman Empire, and later Prague. Frankfurt remains the most important financial center in Germany. Cities in northern Germany, such as Hamburg and Lubeck, are important members of Lufthansa Alliance, a commercial organization. In the lowlands, this trend is more obvious. The Netherlands can be said to be a country formed for commercial purposes, and its capitals Brussels, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Rotterdam and The Hague are all prosperous due to industry and commerce.

The situation in the new world America is different from that in Europe. Washington, D.C. can't compare with Philadelphia, new york and Boston in terms of industry and commerce, economy, population and academics. This reflects the unique "positioning" of the United States. Since you can do business anywhere, you can do business. On the contrary, the capital can be "liberated" from these functions and become a relatively neutral place, which coincides with the decentralization and depoliticization of administrative-military functions advocated by the United States.

The capital has different functions for different countries. On the contrary, different countries choose different places as their capitals for different purposes. From this, we can see the great differences in personality and "orientation" between countries. This article is a statement. Please correct me.