If you only use a ruler to measure the city of Bianjing, it will be impossible to measure it accurately.
It does not have Zhongnan Mountain behind Chang'an, nor does it have Yique Xingsheng near Luoyang. Looking around, the fields are spread out in all directions, and the sky is as low as a piece of rice paper spread out. But if you underestimate it because of this, you would be wrong. Because although this city does not have mountains, it has bought into the city all the mountain air in the world; although it is not close to the sea, it has brought the sea's salt wind, seaweed, shellfish, and the foreign noise to the street entrance. The Yellow River roared to its north, the Bian River flowed in its belly, and the cannons worked day and night, stuffing rice from the south of the Yangtze River, salt from Huaidian, Lingluo from Zhejiang and Zhejiang, medicinal materials from Sichuan, horses from Hebei, and sheep from Shaanxi into the stomach of the capital of the Song Dynasty. Therefore, the city of Bianjing is plain on the outside, but inside it is like a pot of boiling chowder, in which mountains and rivers all over the world are churning.
