Luoyang was the capital of thirteen dynasties, and its history runs through the ground like a seam of coal. On the edge of the modern city, the Hanjia Granary is one of the biggest ancient grain stores ever found. It was built in the Sui dynasty, in the early seventh century, and used through the Tang, and the site has hundreds of underground storage pits, each one large enough to hold hundreds of tonnes of grain. UNESCO listed it as part of the Silk Roads in 2014.
Grain was power. The Sui and Tang emperors needed to feed their capital, their officials and their armies, and they built storehouses along the Grand Canal and the Luo river to collect grain from the south. Pit number 160, the one that gives the site its name, was excavated in the 1970s, and archaeologists found the remains of millet, still recognisable after more than a thousand years. The storage pits were lined with wood, straw and clay to keep out damp, and some of the bricks carry inscriptions telling where the grain came from and how much was stored.
Luoyang has about one and a half million people and sits in a wide valley of the Luo river, with mountains to the south. It is famous for peonies, which bloom in April and fill the city with festival crowds. The Longmen Grottoes, a cliff of Buddhist carvings a few kilometres south, are among the finest monuments of Chinese art, and the White Horse Temple, said to be the first Buddhist temple in China, is nearby. The local food is excellent, including the water banquet, a series of soups served in sequence.
As in the rest of China, riding a motorcycle as a foreigner is complicated, so check the rules. Luoyang has fuel, hotels and restaurants on every street, and the traffic can be heavy. April is the peony season and a lovely time to come, but also very busy. Autumn is calm and clear. Take an hour at the granary to walk along the pits and imagine the carts arriving.