The Venice of his day had little more than 50,000 citizens.It was thanks to Kaifeng's demand and inspiration that 11th-century China saw an extraordinary flowering in ceramics, as kilns and workshops sprouted in and around the capital, as well as elsewhere in Henan province and neighbouring Hebei.
Beijing is building a new airport, at an estimated cost of 80 billion yuan just north of the Hebei border (see map).
"QUALITY and safety are the foundations of social harmony," proclaim posters at the headquarters of the Sanlu Group in Shijiazhuang, capital of China's northern province of Hebei.
Dutifully, Hebei, which surrounds Beijing, has been trying to clean up.
Seven of them were in Hebei province (a perennial winner of this grim contest).
In January Hebei Daily, a state-run newspaper, said that in Mancheng county, to which Shijing township belongs, 37 rock quarries and rubble pits had been shut.Hebei's economy has suffered.
Baoding, close to Shijing township, came top of the list, displacing Xingtai (pictured above), another city in Hebei which took the crown in 2013.
The slowdown also happens to be helpful in curtailing pollution: China's consumption of coal, a huge contributor to smog as well as to climate-change emissions, fell slightly in 2014 after 14 years of growth.Mr Li's war is especially bloody in Hebei, which is blamed for much of the smog in Beijing.
The environmental ministry reported that in the region encompassing Beijing, Hebei and the city of Tianjin the average level in the air of PM2.5, the smallest measured particles which are most harmful to health, was 93 micrograms per cubic metre last year, down from 106 in 2013.
The aim is to allow industry and agriculture to keep functioning; already in 2008 Beijing started pumping in emergency supplies from its neighbouring province, Hebei.
Mr Wen, it appeared, was determined to play the crisis down and pretend that all was normal, even as Beijing's hospitals were struggling with an upsurge of cases.Town and countryOn roads leading into Beijing's neighbouring province of Hebei, officials have begun stopping some vehicles to check passengers for signs of SARS to prevent the disease from spreading.
