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Ye

Records

Yuan Shao’s capital, then Cao Cao’s base in the north after Guandu. Under Cao Pi it remained one of Wei’s five capitals. Later literature attaches the Bronze Bird Terrace to it.

Drawn from the Records of the Three Kingdoms and Pei Songzhi’s notes. Famous novel scenes are not stated as fact.

Modern site
Southwest of modern Linzhang, Hebei, north of Anyang
Region
Ji province

Ye was Yuan Shao’s root in Ji province. Guandu and the later Hebei wars put the city in Cao Cao’s hands. Xu housed the emperor. Ye was closer to Cao Cao’s own military and family base. The Bronze Bird Terrace made Ye, in later poems and in the novel, a sign of his private court.

After Cao Pi took the throne in Luoyang, Ye stayed one of Wei’s five capitals. It is also part of the rear from which the Sima house rose. On a map, Xu, Ye, and Luoyang are three layers: the emperor’s seat, the Cao family’s base, and the imperial capital. The novel piles Cao Cao’s luxury and suspicion into the terraces. In the histories Ye is first the political center of the north.