The River Chart and the Luo River Writing were borne by the dragon turtle, and Emperor Xi expounded upon them.
Heluo was the center of the world, the weight upon which it rested. In antiquity, the rulers of the Three Dynasties all dwelled between the Yellow River and the Luo River, for this was the land of kings.
As the saying went, south of a mountain and north of a river was called yang; north of a mountain and south of a river was called yin. Thus, the sacred city on the Luo River was named Luoyang.
Since antiquity, Heluo had been fit for habitation and held an exalted place among the various peoples. Most cities in this world flourished because of people or states. How magnificent Chaoge, the Shang capital, had been! Yet once its state fell, it gradually crumbled. Across thousands of li, how many cities had undergone planning, destruction, and reconstruction? Human greed and brutality could destroy everything.
Guanzhong was where Zhou rose, where Qin rose, and where Han rose. The Sons of Heaven of three dynasties had all emerged from Guanzhong, its royal aura flourishing as never before in all antiquity. Yet Zhou's Fenghao had become a stretch of broken walls, its former splendor swept away by wind and rain. Foxes and dogs increasingly thrived on the old site of Qin's Xianyang, while Han's Chang'an had also fallen into considerable decay during the Later Han. War was something that destroyed everything, but there was an exception in this world.
That was Luoyang.
King Wu of Zhou had ordered his younger full brother Zhao to build Luoyang in Heluo. This had originally been an ordinary move to intimidate the feudal lords of Shandong. Yet fourteen hundred years ago, no one could have imagined-even King Wu of Zhou,