In 204, Cao Cao wrestled the city of Ye from Yuan Shao's son
Yuan Shang. As the preceding
battle of Ye had destroyed the inner city, Cao Cao set about rebuilding the city in the mold of an imperial capital. He initiated a number of works in Ye, digging canals in and around the city to improve irrigation and drainage, building the Hall of Civil Splendour (文昌殿) which was to become the centerpiece of Ye's palace complex, and erecting the
Bronze Bird Terrace in 210 that became much-celebrated in
Chinese poetry. Cao Cao's impact on Ye was so extensive that he alone, more than any ruler of the city before and after, is associated with the city of Ye in the Chinese
cultural memory. After Cao Cao's grandson
Cao Huan was forced to abdicate to
Sima Yan in February 266, Cao Huan was relocated to Ye where he lived for the rest of his life. During the latter half of the
Western Jin dynasty, Ye was the command post for the Prince of Chengdu,
Sima Ying in the
War of the Eight Princes. The city was sacked by the
Xianbei in 304, and again by rebels in 307. In 312, the ethnic
Jie warlord,
Shi Le, after years of leading a roaming army, was advised by his Chinese aide,
Zhang Bin to establish Ye as his main base. However, as Ye was still occupied by Jin remnants at the time, they opted for the nearby city of
Xiangguo instead, which later became the first capital of the
Later Zhao dynasty. The Zhao capital was eventually shifted to Ye in 335 during the reign of
Shi Hu, who carried out extensive construction work and renovation on the city's palaces and architecture. After Shi Hu's death in 349, his adopted grandson,
Ran Min, seized control of Ye in a coup, where he soon founded the short-lived Ran Wei state in 350. Two years later, his empire was destroyed by the forces of
Murong Jun, ruler of the
Xianbei-led
Former Yan dynasty, who adopted Ye as his capital in 357. Ye would remain the Yan's seat of government until their fall to the
Former Qin in 370. As the Qin collapsed following the
Battle of Fei River in 383, a prince of the Former Yan,
Murong Chui restored his family's state as the
Later Yan and attempted to reclaim Ye. However, by the time the city was recaptured in 386, much of Ye had been devastated after a grueling year of siege, so Murong Chui decided to settle his court at Zhongshan (中山, in modern
Baoding,
Hebei) in the north. In the 490s,
Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei moved his capital from Pingcheng (平城, in modern
Datong,
Shanxi) to Luoyang. This move was not welcomed by all. Antagonism grew between Xiaowen and his sinicized court and those who preferred to cling to the traditional Tuoba tribal ways, and it only increased with further changes calling for the abandonment of Tuoba dress and names. Eventually, under the leadership of
Gao Huan (a Chinese general who was Tuoba in his ways and "outlook"), the
sinicization-dissenting 'northern garrisons' mutinied and captured Luoyang in 534. "At three days' notice, its inhabitants were required to accompany Gao Huan to his own base, the city of Ye...where he declared himself the first Eastern Wei emperor." "During most of the sixth century Ho-pei (Hebei) was the heart of an independent state with its capital at Yeh [Ye]...." It remained the capital of the
Eastern Wei dynasty and the
Northern Qi dynasty until 580. At that time Ye was being used by a resistance force led by
Yuchi Jiong, which was defeated by
Yang Jian, founder of the
Sui dynasty, and the city was razed to the ground. Following this event, the inhabitants of Ye were relocated to
Anyang, just 18km to the south. Anyang soon inherited the old city's function as the political center of Hebei, with many people even referring to Anyang as Ye. Some scholars, such as Ku Chi-kuang reported that the Hebei region continued to harbour separatist sympathies into the
Tang dynasty. It was the region from which
An Lushan launched his rebellion during the reign of the Tang
Emperor Xuanzong, and Ye was briefly used as a base for the rebels under
An Qingxu in 758–759. unearthed in the Ye city site,
Northern Qi dynasty. Housed in the Yecheng Museum. Extensive excavations of the city have been made in recent years, allowing Chinese historians to make detailed plans of the site. In 2012, archaeologists unearthed nearly 3,000
Buddha statues during a dig outside Ye. Most of the statues are made of white marble and limestone, and could date back to the Eastern Wei and Northern Qi dynasties (534–577 CE). A community of merchant
Sogdians resided in Northern Qi-era Ye. == Notes==