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1. clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Monday, 28-Aug-2023 08:04:55 EDT clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛

   TIL how Beijing ("North Capital") could previously (well, one of the previous times) have been Zhōngdū ("Middle Capital"). Sounds obvious, there must have been some other capitals in at least two directions, but I never looked up what those cities were.

   The summer capital of Shàngdū (Xanadu! Yes! That one!) ("Upper Capital") was north of it, in today's Inner Mongolia.

   In contrast to my assumption above though, there doesn't seem to have been a Lower Capital at the time. There was a Xiàdū during the Yan dynasty in the Warring States Period, but that's over 1000 years earlier, so that must have been lower than something else.

   *looks it up*

   Xiàdū was below Yan, which was the main capital of the Yan dynasty. That was *also* yet another name for Beijing. Beijing must be a *really* good place for a Chinese capital, huh.

   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhongdu (中都)

   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangdu (上都)

   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiadu (下都)

   1. clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Monday, 28-Aug-2023 08:39:49 EDT clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛

      in reply to

      So to sum it up and to skip a bunch of dynasties and capitals that are no fun for the purposes of this summary, there was the capital of Ji (not of a unified China, just of Yan).

      Then there was a Lower Capital, because it was "below" Ji.

      Much later Yuan renamed Ji to Middle Capital because it was between Lower Capital and a new (secondary) Upper Capital.

      Next up, Ming had a capital, but moved to old Ji again, and now it was North Capital because it was north of the old one. And the old one was renamed South Capital (Nánjīng) because it was south of the new one.

      1. clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Monday, 28-Aug-2023 08:50:44 EDT clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛

         in reply to

         Two hundred years later out in the Pacific, Japan renames their capital East Capital (Tōkyō), not for any Chinese reasons, but because it too is east of an old capital Kyōto.

         Still, it feels nice and consistent to know there's an East Capital east of North Capital and South Capital. There is no West Capital today, but Xi'an has from time to time been named that (Xījīng) and it is indeed west of the others.