The account that goes by the name of Famous Gardens of Luoyang describes nineteen gardens, and touches on a few others, in the city of Luoyang at the end of the eleventh century. By the time it was written the city, which lies a little way south of the Yellow River in north central China, was already ancient and had served as capital for a number of earlier dynasties. It had also long been known for its gardens. But, though the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) still accorded it the status of a secondary capital, its importance was in fact already on the wane. The centre of political power lay to the east, in Kaifeng. Luoyang's attraction, for those away from the court but who wished to remain au courant with affairs of state, was its cultural life'and history. And, as we shall see, there were many senior officials in this position, for there were two major attempts to reform political institutions in China during the eleventh century: in the 10403 and from the late Io6os onwards. The latter in particular, led by WANG Anshi (1021-1086), who introduced fiscal, defence and security, agricultural, educational and bureaucratic changes, involved reforms that were far-reaching and hard fought. The resulting conflicts - a mixture of ideological principleand political opportunism involving both civilised debate and often bitter in-fighting - led to the formation of alliances (it is not too much of a simplification to think of them as reformers and conservatives, though parties in a modern sense they were not) and consequently sharp reverses in political fortunes as one side or the other gained the upper hand.
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