Seen from high above, the Yangtze River stretched like a ribbon, curving around Jiankang from its northwestern side and flowing east. North, farther north, beyond the Huai River and then the Yellow River, north of the Zhang River stood Ye City-the most prosperous capital in the Central Plains and Hebei since the Wei-Jin era.
Ye City was first built by Duke Huan of Qi, one of the Five Hegemons of the Spring and Autumn period. During the Warring States period, Ximen Bao served as magistrate of Ye, and the widely circulated story of how he controlled the waters and punished the shamans made the city famous. By the Three Kingdoms period, after Cao Cao defeated Yuan Shao, he made Ye City the center of his efforts to develop Hebei. With both Eastern Han capitals, Chang'an and Luoyang, destroyed by war and fire, Ye City became a major commercial and military center in the north, numbered among the "Three Wei" and "Five Capitals." Later, Shi Le and Shi Hu, father and son, undertook vast building projects there, constructing palaces whose splendor left Ye City without an equal. Even the wars of Ran Min had inflicted little damage upon it-
On the sixth day of the seventh month, Chen Caozhi and his party crossed the Zhang River and arrived at Ye City, the foremost capital of the north. The afternoon sun shone brightly, and its towering walls stood firm as mountains. Later Zhao and Ran Wei had both established their capitals here. Now the Xianbei had moved their capital here from distant Dragon City beyond the frontier, aspiring to unite the Central Plains, sweep through Guanzhong and Long, march south into the Three Wu, and establish an imperial hegemony.
Mounted on his fine black horse, Chen Caozhi gazed at the imposing city