Six Dynasties capital — Purple Mountain, the Ming tomb, and duck blood vermicelli soup
Nanjing is China's most tragic and most resilient ancient capital — six dynasties made it China's centre of power, and the 1937 Nanjing Massacre left a wound the city has built its identity around remembering. The Purple Mountain trails above the city lead to the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum and the Ming Xiaoling tomb through bamboo forests, and duck (consumed in more forms here than anywhere else in China) anchors the local cuisine.
Nanjing served as China's imperial capital under the Eastern Jin, Song, Qi, Liang, Chen dynasties, and again under the Ming dynasty (1368–1421) before the capital shifted to Beijing. It was declared capital of the Republic of China in 1912 under Sun Yat-sen. The Japanese invasion of December 1937 brought six weeks of mass killing known as the Nanjing Massacre — the Memorial Hall of the Victims stands on the site of one of the largest massacres.