After Hangzhou, which was the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, I am now in Kaifeng – the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty is my favorite dynasty. It was a period of scientific, cultural and economic prosperity of China. In fact, three out of four great inventions of Ancient China were finalized during the Song Dynasty – gunpowder, magnetic compass and printing press. The population doubled as a result of the introduction of a special quick growing Champa rice from Vietnam. The economy boomed to the extent that China ran out of metal to create new coins. As a result, ingenuous Chinese have invented paper money – the first national paper currency some 600 years before Sweden became the first European country to introduce paper currency in 1661. China also started running out of wood to power its economy – either to build houses or to use it as fuel to forge metal like iron. Chinese inventors again stepped to the task and started using coal in iron production – the first of its kind.

Some of these inventions are the bedrock of modern industrial revolution, initiated by Britain in the 19th century. Yet, Chinese had it almost 900 years ago. Why didn’t China start the industrial revolution? As an economic historian, this is the question that fascinates me, but it is a question for another day.

After reading all the splendid stories about the Song Dynasty, I was extremely disappointed about how little there is to see in Kaifeng. Before I started making detailed day-by-day activities schedule, I was expecting Kaifeng to be one of my highlights. My dreams were brutally shattered after googling best things to do in Kaifeng.    

Kaifeng has fallen on rough times since it was the capital in China. In fact, it is no longer even the provincial capital. Some 20 minutes by train is Zhengzhou, a city three times the size of Kaifeng, and Kaifeng clearly plays the second fiddle to that city.

I don’t know if it was my broken expectations, but the city really exudes backwardness. It is not a pretty city – it is very dusty and gray. I felt like I have returned 50 years back in time from Hangzhou. My hostel was based in the commercial part, near the Bell Tower. The hostel was in a side street, away from the main road so it took me some time to find it. After settling I immediately looked for a bike to start exploring the city. I walked a few streets until I found the first bike to rent! This could never happen in Hangzhou, Shanghai or Nanjing, which have bikes on almost every corner. Eventually I found one stacked in the corner, next to the house. It was so dusty it seemed like it wasn’t used in a month. But, beggars can’t be choosers so I used my hand to wipe the seat (not really the most hiegynic way of cleaning, I do confess) and was on my way to the Iron Pagoda.

It is advertised as the oldest Iron Pagoda in the world. It is a part of a large park with temples, gardens, lake and many stores. You can see it from afar and it looks imposing. After seeing the Iron Pagoda up close, my first impression was “it has a lot of bricks”. I don’t know why they call it Iron Pagoda. If you think it will be made entirely out of iron, like I did, you will be bitterly disappointed.

Next station on my itinerary was the old imperial palace of the Northern Song. Kaifeng was the largest city in the world from the 10th to 12th century with over a million people. In fact, China has so descended backwards from the time of the Song that no Chinese capital will reach one million until Beijing in the 19th century. This is 700 years! The Song China was very good at making money, writing beautiful poetry and inventing new things. One thing they were not good at was war. Unfortunately for the Song, they operated as the time when their archrivals – the steppe barbarians on the other side of the Great Wall were reaching the zenith of their power.

The end for the Northern Song and Kaifeng came during the reign of Emperor Huizong, who was truly a renaissance man. Not only was he a great sponsor of art and science, he was also a very talented artist and calligrapher himself. Unfortunately for the Song Empire, he had that other trait of the renaissance man – self-indulging in pleasures of this world. Why govern, when you can enjoy the beauties of life?

Well, life stopped being so beautiful when 200 000 Khitan barbarians have encircled Kaifeng demanding a massive ransom from the Song. Huizong even abdicated in favour of his son Qinzong, but it did little good. Poor Qinzong went to negotiate with Khitans personally, only to get abducted by the barberians who, now that the Emperor is their prisoner, demanded even more money. In the end, Khitans will take Qinzong, Huizong and most of the imperial family as hostages to their home in Manchuria and will loot Kaifeng, stripping this great city of all its treasures and glory. The city will never recover… but, the Song Dynasty will. One member of the royal family managed to flee south and start Southern Song Dynasty with the capital in Hangzhou. However, Southern Song will never regained control of northern China, which will be ruled by different barbarians – Khitan, Jurchen and Mongols – for the next 300 years.

The Imperial Palace complex in Kaifeng looks much different than it did during the Northern Song. On the top of the main building, there is a replica of the complex in Northern Song time. Now, most of it is a lake. Other building have been reconstructed later. Visually, it looks really nice, but you cannot help feel that this is just a cover for how brutal time was to this once great city.

I have finished my day of sightseeing with Millenium City Park. If you want a proof of how little there is to see in Kaifeng, I submit as evidence that this park, which is nothing but a cheap version of Disneyland, came third on the list of most interesting thing to see. I am sure that children love this place. Everything is shiny, there are all kinds of people dressed in weird clothes, you can buy all kinds of food and toys. They even have camels you can ride on!

Goofy historians like me are not that impressed. There is an open theatre where they do plays on water about the Northern Song, the tickets were around 50 euros for the best seats. I would really love to see it, but it is all in Chinese so my curiosity quickly abated.

And that was it from Kaifeng… There are interesting things to do around Kaifeng, but these things are closer to Zhengzhou and Luoyang (my next destination), but I will finish this post with one must do activity for all Song enthusiasts – the Northern Song tombs.

To get to the Northern Song tombs, I took a train from Luoyang (but you can also get there from Kaifeng) to Gongyi. There, I took a taxi to drive me around the 7 imperial tombs for 120 yuan. Northern Song tombs are unlike any other imperial tombs since they are spread out all over fields.

Khitan barbarians did not just take the imperial family as slaves and plundered Kaifeng to the ground, they have also robbed all of the Song Dynasty tombs. Plundered and ruined, ruled over by hostile barbarians, these tombs were quickly forgotten by history. Unlike many other imperial tombs, Chinese government (still) hasn’t gotten to restoring most of the Northern Song tombs to their former glory. The first tomb I visited was that of Emperor Zhezong. He was the 7th Emperor of the Song Dynasty, and the last Emperor with his tomb at this place. It is a collection of statues in the field and at the back, you can see a hill which was where the Emperor was buried.

The Sacred Way to the tomb is guarded by statues of animals, generals and advisors. The concept is the same as with the other dynasties, but the animals are slightly different. Elephants are now in combination with soldiers, there are statues of tigers and rams, which did not exist in the Ming and Qing tombs – dynasties that will come after the Song. Instead of xiexi and qilin, the two mythical creatures guarding Ming and Qing emperors, Song emperors were protected in their burial grounds by the horse-head phoenix and LuDuan – a pig like

The next two tombs I visited were of the first two emperors and the founders of the Dynasty – Taizu and Taizong, who were brothers. I was gutted to see the lack of interest and attention given to the tombs of these two great Emperors who have united China and started its Golden Age. Just look at the photos, especially photos of the Taizu tomb. Maybe put some explanations about what this statue represents, some notice boards about this emperor and his rule. It would be too inappropriate from me to even suggest putting some flowers on the edges of the complex, since the Chinese did not even put grass around these monuments. Instead, all you get is pure dirt surrounded by fields. I have seen so many far less relevant historical monuments airbrushed into much better version of itself, even when comparing it with how they looked like when they were built, and these great monuments are left in this state of disrepair. China, you can do better than that!

There are two tombs which have been rebuilt, both are in the town of Gongyi. These are the tombs of Emperors Renzong and Zhenzong. After seeing these two tombs, fully manicured and facelifted to perfection, you start wondering about the point of renovation. Should we leave the ruined monuments in the state we found them, like the tombs of Taizu and Taizong (plus some grass and flowers, we should not compromise grass and flower), or we should rebuild buildings which have laid ruined for centuries.

There are seven imperial tombs in and around Gongyi. The last two Northern Song Emperors, Huizong and his son Qinzong will die in captivity in Manchuria and will not be buried next to their ancestors. After all, by the time of their death, all the tombs of their ancestors were already plundered and destroyed by their captors. A humiliating end to their lives and the life of their dynasty.