Live broadcast of Lin' an Zhongdu property party

Kaifeng, also known as Tokyo (East Capital or Bianjing) in the Northern Song Dynasty, is the commercial center of the whole country. Meng Yuan, a veteran of the Song Dynasty, once wrote Dream of Tokyo, which described the prosperity of Tokyo in detail. At that time, there were busy streets, restaurants, teahouses and brothels in Kaifeng, and the night market in the city did not disappear until midnight. At the fifth watch, the lights came on again, and there were people around the clock. It was a "city that never sleeps". In addition, the painter Zhang Zeduan painted a picture of the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival.

Due to the invasion of the Song Dynasty, only two-thirds of the territory of the Northern Song Dynasty remained. In the eighth year of Shaoxing (1 138), in March, Song Gaozong officially announced Lin 'an as its capital. Since then, Hangzhou has become the political, cultural and economic center of the country. Due to this historical opportunity, urban construction has developed rapidly. Due to the southern crossing of the Song Dynasty, a large number of people from the Central Plains and Northwest China moved in and settled, and the population increased sharply. By the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, Hangzhou had entered the most prosperous period in history and became the most advanced and prosperous metropolis in the world at that time.