During the Song Dynasty, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty was called Bianjing. There were four capitals in the Northern Song Dynasty: Luoyang in Xijing, Kaifeng in Tokyo, Guidefu in Nanjing, and Damingfu in Beijing. Their respective names were based on the geographical location of each city. At that time, Kaifeng was located in the east of the Northern Song Dynasty, facing Luoyang in the west, so Kaifeng in Henan was named Tokyo and Luoyang was named Xijing.
Why was Kaifeng named Kaifeng in the Song Dynasty? Henan has always been the birthplace of Chinese civilization. During the Xia and Shang dynasties, Kaifeng was the capital at that time, such as "Laoqiu" in the Xia Dynasty, "Huohuo" in the Shang Dynasty, etc. During the Spring and Autumn Period, there was a state of Zheng. The monarch at that time was called Zheng Zhuanggong. He put down the rebellion within the country and won many battles with the Song Dynasty. King Huan of Zhou was also defeated by him. He was a very accomplished monarch at that time. Zheng Zhuanggong opened up territory in Zhuxian Town, which is now south of Kaifeng, and dominated the princes. He named the city "Qifeng". Qifeng means to open up the territory for enfeoffment in ancient proverbs, hoping to expand his territory. Later, Liu Qi became the emperor, also known as Emperor Jing of Han Dynasty. Everyone knew that the emperor's name was taboo. There is a word " Kai Feng " in it, which is very disrespectful to Liu Qi. So Kaifeng was changed to Kaifeng. Not only did the meaning of Kaifeng remain unchanged, but it also avoided the emperor's name taboo, killing two birds with one stone. Kaifeng as a place name has been passed down to this day, and it has a history of more than a thousand years.
Kaifeng, Henan also has two aliases: Bianliang and Bianjing. In 339 BC, after King Wei Hui moved the capital to Kaifeng, he changed the name of his country to Liang, so Wei was also called Daliang, Liang State, where does the Bian in Bianliang come from? This is because during the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Emperor Wu of Zhou changed Liangzhou to Bianshui, because the geographical location of Bianshui at that time was very important and had a great impact on Kaifeng. Since there were too many names to choose from, later generations simply merged the two names and named it Bianliang, also called Bianjing.
Judging from the changing place names of Kaifeng, Henan, Kaifeng is indeed a very famous historical city in China, with a very profound cultural heritage.