The Luoyanggong Palace in the Wei and Jin periods was built on the site of the North Palace of the Eastern Han Dynasty and was divided into two parts, the South Palace and North Palace, with the avenue inside the Qianqiu Gate as the boundary. The reconstruction started in the North Palace and was expanded to the South Palace during the reign of Emperor Ming of the Wei Dynasty. The new palace had continued the basic system of the Han Dynasty and was still divided into areas such as the palace, Hall Precinct, and Forbidden Precinct. The Changhe Gate, Sima Gate, West Ye Gate, and East Ye Gate are palace gates; the Duan Gate, Yunlong Gate, and Shenhu Gate are court gates; the Qianqiu Gate, Wanchun Gate, East Shang Ge, and West Shang Ge are Forbidden Precinct gates. The courtyard in front of the Taiji Hall has East and West Zhonghua Gates. The name of the South Gate was not recorded, maybe Zhonghua Gate. Since Cao Fang, the emperor, had been living in the Zhaoyang and Hanzhang Halls, administering affairs in the East Room of the Taiji Hall, and holding court assemblies and other ceremonial events in the Taiji Front Hall. The Eastern Jin and the Northern and Southern Dynasties roughly followed this layout.

The overlapping capital spaces of Luoyang in the Northern Wei period and its predecessor in the Han and Jin dynasties created an environment where residents developed rich imaginations about the historical sites, figures, and events during the Han and Jin dynasties within the same physical locations. This imaginative layer cultivated a distinctive urban sentiment that, on an atmospheric level, shaped a sense of continuity between the Tuoba regime and the Han-Jin states. The account of the hermit Zhao Yi and his identification of historical sites, recorded in the Record of the Monasteries of Luoyang, occurred against this backdrop. However, Luoyang in the Northern Wei period also exhibited clear differences from its predecessor in the Han and Jin dynasties. Beyond the well-known abundance of temples, pagodas, and precincts, a notable distinction lies in the absence of bronze casting installations. During the Han and Jin dynasties, bronze casting installations such as the bronze generals, bronze camels, bronze horses, and bronze feilian formed part of a continuous decorative tradition from Chang’an to Luoyang. After the Disaster of Yongjia, many of these bronze casting installations were relocated, and the Northern Wei court, upon moving its capital to Luoyang, did not attempt to restore them through recasting on their original sites.

During the middle Tang, as the systems for selecting and appointing officials gradually matured, literati bureaucrats who rose through the imperial examinations congregated in the capital. Chang’an served as the stage for their daily lives. There had been an interactive impact between the city and literati bureaucrats. Firstly, Chang’an’s development pattern affected residents within it. During the Sui and the early Tang, the capital lacked strictly demarcated zones. Following the relocation of the political center from the Taiji Palace to the Daming Palace during the reigns of Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu of the Tang, the importance of East Chang’an grew increasingly prominent. This politically driven shift in spatial orientation significantly influenced bureaucratic activities. Conversely, the residential choices and socializing of literati bureaucrats also reshaped the cultural landscapes and social functions of various urban blocks in Chang’an, giving rise to cultural hubs, such as the central and southern blocks of East Chang’an, also easily overlooked was West Chang’an. This interaction may serve as a starting point for examining the transformation of urban society during the transition between the Tang and Song dynasties. The case of the prominent civil officials Zhang Ji and Bai Juyi engaging in socializing across the Zhuque Avenue provides insight into the emergence of intra-urban functional zoning in the ninth-century Chinese capital, as well as the underlying political and socio-cultural implications.

This paper, using epitaphs as primary source materials, discusses the emergence and evolution of the fang from the Northern Wei Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty and analyzes the distribution of the fang within cities. It argues that the establishment of the fang as a planning and administrative unit in cities during that period possessed a certain degree of contingency. Based solely on epitaph evidence, the fang in local cities during the Tang Dynasty were not entirely confined within city walls; some existed outside the walls. Furthermore, the proliferation of the fang system in local cities likely occurred after the mid-Tang period. Given that the li held far greater significance and influence than the fang in both administrative management and people’s daily life, even if a fangshi system existed, a more accurate designation would be the lishi system.