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Luoyang does not belong to the south of the Yangtze River

Generally speaking, the south of the Yangtze River refers to Jiangsu, Zhejiang and northern Jiangsu, and there are different interpretations in different periods.

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Where is Jiangnan

The place name "Jiangnan" came out as early as the pre-Qin period, but its modern significance originated from the Tang Dynasty. Emperor Taizong divided the world into ten roads, including Jiangnan Road. Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty subdivided Jiangnan Road into Guizhou Middle Road, Jiangnan West Road and Jiangnan East Road, among which Jiangnan East Road includes Fujian, Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu and southern Anhui. Since then, the center of the authentic Jiangnan has gradually stabilized in southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang, and today

from "Jiangdong" and "Jiangzuo" to "Jiangnan"

Among all kinds of place names like the Ganges River, the most wonderful one is "Jiangnan".

this place name came out as early as the pre-Qin period. But up to the Sui Dynasty, the geographical scope it referred to was quite different from that later. At that time, it mainly referred to the present Hunan and Jiangxi areas in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

the modern significance of Jiangnan originated from the Tang dynasty. This place was originally called "Jiangdong". In the story of Farewell My Concubine, Xiang Yu, the heroic and affectionate Chu overlord, was defeated by the rogue emperor Liu Bang. He felt that he was "ashamed to see his elders in Jiangdong" and would rather commit suicide than flee to his hometown. That "Jiangdong" actually refers to the "Jiangnan" of later generations. During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, due to the tradition of China, the place name was nicknamed "Jiangzuo", which was frequently used in public and private documents and various works and literary works.

It changed from "Jiangdong" and "Jiangzuo" to "Jiangnan", which originated from the ten Taoist schools of Zhenguan in the Tang Dynasty. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, the two-level system of states and counties was implemented. Because there were too many states, reaching more than 3, it was very troublesome for the central government to manage them-it was said that Emperor Taizong had to write them on the screen because he could not remember the names of the state governors. Therefore, in the first year of Zhenguan (AD 627) at the beginning of his accession to the throne, he divided the world into ten monitoring areas, called "Tao". Among them, there are five roads in the north and five roads in the south. Jiangnan Road includes a large area south of the Yangtze River, north of Nanling, Guizhou in the west and the sea in the east. Because the number of divisions was too small this time, most of the southern districts were too vast. In the 21st year of Kaiyuan (AD 733), the number of roads was increased to 15. Jiangnan Road is divided into Guizhou Middle Road, Jiangnan West Road and Jiangnan East Road from west to east, among which Jiangnan East Road includes Fujian, Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu and southern Anhui.

"regional discrimination" in the Tang Dynasty

People in the Tang Dynasty have very interesting ideas about various regions. At that time, people put great emphasis on regional differences, and always talked about the north and the south, but it was often "Saibei" and "Jiangnan" that were cited for comparison, such as "the flowers and willows in the south of the Yangtze River are sung by the monarch, and I know the smoke and dust in Saibei alone" (Wang Zhixing).

"Saibei" is a long and vast area stretching from the east of Liaoshui to the west of Helan Mountain and Liupanshan Mountain, which always reminds people of harsh natural environment, such as cold, sandstorm, desert and cruel human environment, such as war and bones. Jiangnan, on the other hand, is not located at the southernmost tip of the south. It is pulled out because it is at the other extreme of environmental quality. This place has been a famous "land of beauty" since the Southern Dynasties.

this contrast makes us find an interesting thing, that is, in the north, there is a parallel relationship between regions, and no region can openly appear as a representative of the north. At that time, the prominent regional prejudice was the opposition between "Shandong" (east of Taihang Mountain) and Guanzhong, where people often made fun of each other and quarreled. In history, Emperor Taizong once talked about how Shandong people are and how Guanzhong people are at the banquet. There was a lot of similarities and differences between his words. A minister named Zhang Xingcheng immediately knelt down and said, "I heard that the emperor is home in the four seas and should not be limited to things." Emperor Taizong suddenly woke up.

in the south, there is an obvious gap between regions. Needless to say, because of the vast land, people in the Central Plains felt that they could only pick up half a life when they went there. The land of Bashu in the southwest is also known as the "difficult road to Shu" because of its seclusion in the southwest corner, which gives people a bad impression. This can be seen from Du Fu's famous poem "forlorn in the northeast among wind and dust, drifting in the southwest between heaven and earth".

Is Yangzhou "Jiangnan"

What really reminds people of the south is "Jianghuai". However, this place name contains this meaning. It was in the late Tang Dynasty, and now Hunan, Fujian and other places have no copies. In the past, many people took it for granted that "Jianghuai" refers to the area between the Yangtze River and Huaihe River, but it is not. In the concept of the Tang Dynasty, it is the abbreviation of the sum of "Jiangnan" and "Huainan". Huainan is the region between the Yangtze River and Huaihe River.

"Huainan" is a good place. At that time, it left a famous reputation: "Rich, riding a crane up the state". Unfortunately, there is only one good place in Huainan, and the surrounding areas are still not good. Jiangnan was divided into "Jiangnan West" and "Jiangnan East" when the Kaiyuan was mentioned above (733). By the late Tang Dynasty, "Jiangnan West" had been abbreviated as "Jiangxi". According to this logic, "Jiangnan East" should be abbreviated as "Jiangdong"-but no, it is still called "Jiangnan". Its dominant position can be imagined.

"Jiangnan" in the late Tang Dynasty has two meanings: broad and narrow. Broadly speaking, it refers to Jiangnan Road among the ten Zhenguan Roads. Since the Anshi Rebellion, the number of Daos (square towns) has increased to dozens, and it has been transformed into a de facto high-level administrative district. At this time, ten Daos of Zhenguan are still commonly used as an outlined regional concept. A document compiled regularly in the late Tang Dynasty, similar to the current administrative division atlas, with detailed text descriptions and statistical data, is called Shidaolu or Shidaolu.

but the narrow sense of "Jiangnan" is more commonly used, that is, the "Jiangnan East Road" in the middle of the Tang Dynasty. At this time, it has been under the jurisdiction of three observation envoys: Xuanwei, East Zhejiang and West Zhejiang. Among them, Xuankui (now southern Anhui) is on the edge of Zhejiang, as evidenced by Zhang Jiuling's saying that "an old friend defended Xuancheng, but also deviated from the south of the Yangtze River". The Tang people were very sensitive to the difference between Wu and Yue in the places of eastern Zhejiang (now eastern Zhejiang, southern Zhejiang) and western Zhejiang (now northern Zhejiang). In people's minds at that time, Wu (Taihu Lake) was the typical place in the south of the Yangtze River.

Since the Tang Dynasty, although the edge of the south of the Yangtze River has been extended and contracted, for example, Yangzhou, which is located in the north of the Yangtze River, is sometimes regarded as a part of the south of the Yangtze River, but the authentic south of the Yangtze River has always been centered on southern Jiangsu and northern Zhejiang.