Central China Plain
The Central Chinese Plain (also: Middle Chinese Plain Chinese 中原 , Pinyin Zhōngyuán ) describes the flat land on the lower reaches of the Yellow River from which the first Han Chinese are said to have come from. It is part of the North China Plain .
In a narrower sense, the Central China Plain includes today's Henan Province , the southern part of Hebei Province , the southern part of Shanxi Province and the western part of Shandong Province . The broader term would also include the Guanzhong Plain in Shaanxi , the northwestern part of Jiangsu , parts of Anhui and northern Hebei.
Since the beginning of historical records, the Central China Plain has been of great importance to the Chinese people - both politically and strategically. In the time before the Qin Dynasty , the province of Luoyang and the surrounding areas were seen as the "center of the world" from the Chinese perspective . For this, the headquarters of the Xia dynasty was around the Songshan near the Luo River . Inscriptions on some bronze objects from this period describe this area as the "Middle Country". ( 中國 / 中国 , Zhōnggúo )
According to the book of Song , an official historical source from the Song Dynasty , "Capable ancient emperors descended from the northwest [China] and were able to conquer the Central Plains and later the southeast [China]." Zhuge Liang , a military strategist, claimed he would lead an army to conquer the Central China Plain. This could explain the location of capitals of later dynasties in Luoyang or Kaifeng .
Footnotes
- ↑ so u. a. with Georg Wegener: China, a country and folklore . 1930, p. 81, and China, a great power through the millennia . Verlag Kultur und Progress 1957, pp. 20, 44, 64.
- ↑ so u. a. at Ernst Neef: The face of the earth . 1965, p. 301, and Günter Dietrich: Große Illustrierte Länderkunde . 1963, p. 1511.