Dafu (大赋), a particular style of long compositions of the Han Dynasty, portrays the landscape of the capital city and the countryside to extol the aesthetic appeal of its brightness, splendor and grandeur. Coined in The Rites of Zhou, the concept tiguo jingye (体国经野) is an intertextual structure, and it means to set apart the capital and the countryside, decide the locations of the palaces and the temples, and measure the boundaries of the land. The dafu works mostly describe the prosperity of the capital, the majesty of the palaces, the wonders of the gardens, and the glory of hunting events. Through the descriptions and narratives of magnificent scenes and objects, they celebrate the Han Dynasty’s style and prestige, good governance and strength. Therefore Liu Xie (465?-520? or 532?) of the Southern Dynasties used this concept in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons to summarize the outstanding features of dafu works, revealing the deep-seated reasons that brought them into being, and setting out their great significance.

When the king builds his capital city, he must identify its exact location, determine the sites of the palace and the ancestral temple, delineate the division and demarcation between the capital and the countryside, and appoint officials with defined duties, thus laying down regulations for the people. (The Rites of Zhou)

In depicting the capital city, palaces, gardens, and hunting events, recounting travels and expressing emotions, dafu works of the Han Dynasty describe the institutions of the capital city and the planning of the countryside to extol the aesthetics of brightness, splendor and grandeur. (Liu Xie: The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons)

There are specifications for the height and width of palace gates, city towers, houses and other types of buildings when located in the capital city. This is called the planning system for the capital city. The division of arable land and pastures, the diigging of irrigation ditches, the regulation of which fields to cultivate and which to leave fallow, the determining of distances to and quantity of fields – all these that pertain to the countryside have to be planned and arranged. This is the planning system for the countryside. (Wang Anshi: An Interpretation of The Rites of Zhou)