The Northern Wei, the first of the Northern Dynasties, involved a geographic dualism between Northern Dai 代北 and the Central Plain 中原 from the time of its founding, so there had often been debates over which area was the dynastic center and policies were to be carried out based on that determination. Premised on the assumption that Northern Dai was equated with the non-Chinese and the Central Plain symbolized the Chinese, policies such as the capital's relocation to Luoyang have been explained as parts of a policy of Sinification. This paper, however, attempts to examine the change of consciousness toward Northern Dai and the Central Plain in the Northern Dynasties period as a result of the transfer of the capital to Luoyang. In 490-491, Emperor Xiaowen hosted a debate about the Northern Wei's inheritance of the five elements 五德, and there the secretariat supervisor Gao Lü 高閭 argued the inheritance had been from the Western Jin (metal) to the Later Zhao (water) to the Former Yan (wood) to the Former Qin (fire) to the Northern Wei (earth). In contrast vice director of the palace library Li Biao 李彪 and editorial director Cui Guang 崔光 argued inheritance was from the Western Jin (metal) to the Northern Wei (water). Emperor Xiaowen settled the matter by adopting Li and Cui's argument, but two years later he forcefully moved the capital from Pingcheng to Luoyang. During the debates over the inheritance of the five elements, he changed the temple name of Emperor Daowu from Liezu to Taizu, intending to adopt Gao's argument as the fundamental theory of the forthcoming relocation to Luoyang, but he finally accepted Li and Cui's argument and failed to link the relocation of the capital to the inheritance of the five elements. Cui Hong 崔鴻 was the first to try to resolve this problem. He recognized the official theory of the dynasty, but was aware of the necessity of writing a history of the Central Plain without violating the theory and finished writing the Spring and Autumn Annals of the Sixteen Kingdoms 十六國春秋. After this turn of events, Yang Xuanzhi 楊衒之 finally resolved this problem. He wrote Memories of Luoyang 洛陽伽藍記, creating the fictitious hermit Zhao Yi 趙逸 in this work. Zhao linked Western Jin to Northern Wei through the city of Luoyang and restored continuity from the Western Jin through the Six Kingdoms to the Northern Wei as the dynasties of the Central Plain by using the category of the Sixteen Kingdoms that Cui Hong had created. On the other hand, he demonstrated a historical view that ignored the Northern Wei dynasty before the capital's relocation from Pingcheng. Thus Zhao Yi depicted the Northern Wei as a completely pure Chinese dynasty of the Central Plain.