The capital of the Song Dynasty, Kaifeng, was not very far east, so why was it called Tokyo? After reading this, you will know!

The Northern Song Dynasty had four capitals, namely Tokyo Kaifeng, Xijing (Luoyang, Henan), Nanjing (Henan Shangqiu), and Beijing (Hebei Daimyo), and Kaifeng was called Tokyo as opposed to the other three capitals.

In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, it inherited the old system of the Five Dynasties of Jin, Han and Zhou, with Kaifeng Province as Tokyo and Henan Province (present-day Luoyang, Henan) as the western capital. In the third year of Emperor Zhenzong of Song (1006), because Taizu Zhao Kuangyin was serving as the envoy of the Later Zhou Dynasty, the seat of government was Song Prefecture (present-day Shangqiu, Henan), which also became the land of Longxing in the future Song Dynasty, so it was promoted to Ying Tianfu, and Emperor Zhenzong was again promoted to Nanjing in the seventh year (1014). In the second year of the reign of Emperor Renzong of Song (1042), Emperor Renzong of Song sent Emperor Zhenzong of Song to the Daiming Mansion (present-day Daming, Hebei) during his personal conquest of the Khitans in the third year of Xianping (1000), so he asked Emperor Renzong to set up the Daiming Mansion as Beijing.

Among the four capitals of the Northern Song Dynasty, Tokyo Kaifeng was the capital, which was the political, economic and cultural center of the country, and the other three capitals were the capitals. Luoyang, the western capital, is the seat of the sub-division, where the dynasty's magnates and scholars and celebrities gather; the Beijing Damingfu is the military and economic center of Hebei; Nanjing, although the smallest in scale, is the key to the water conservancy of Jianghuai.