Beijing...... my home for more than ten years.
From Forbidden City to Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace to Yonghe Lhama Temple,
Longqing Gorge, White Cloud Mountain, etc.
It is the place where the ancient and modern blend into one.
History: After Zhu Yuanzhang toppled the Mongolian led Yuan Dynasty, he took Nanjing in 1358 and making it his capital, his army then attacked the Yuan empire capital of Khanbaliq/ Dadu (now Beijing) and captured it in 1368. He then established the Ming Dynasty. The Ming then burned down the preceding Yuan Dynasty's palaces in Dadu, and Zhu Yuanzhang officially named himself the Emperor of the Ming Empire. Nanjing was the Ming dynasty's first capital city. Emperor Hongwu had several sons and he chose the oldest as his successor. When that son died before he did, he chose his grandson as the next in line. Following the death of Hongwu, the fourth son, Zhu Di, attacked his nephew and took over the throne. Zhu Di (1360 - 1424) became the third Ming emperor in 1402. He chose the name Yongle, 永乐 (Yǒnglè). Yongle captured Nanjing in 1402. The former palace burned down. He purged the former emperor's bureaucracy. In 1403, he moved the capital to Dadu and renamed it Beijing. In 1406, Beijing was destroyed and its people were impoverished. After consolidating his power, Yongle started to build his palace. His palace construction of the palace and the rest of the city required much planning. Many architects and engineers, including Cai Xin, Nguyen An (a Vietnamese), Kuai Xiang, Lu Xiang and others, worked on the Forbidden City's design, and the plans were examined by the Emperor's Ministry of Work. From 1409 onwards, the Emperor spent most of his time around Beijing. Construction lasted 14 years, and they used 100,000 skilled artisans and up to a million workers and slaves. The pillars of the most important halls were made of whole logs of a kind of hardwood tree called phoebe zhennan (楠木 nánmù) that grows about 30 meters tall and is very straight. They were transported from the jungles of southwestern China all the way to Beijing in the northwest. Rock blocks were cut and transported from quarries near Beijing. Some of them were huge. The heaviest of these giant blocks, aptly named the Large Stone Carving, weighed more than 330 tons (300 metric tons) The heavy ones could only be moved along on special trenches that were dug and filled with water in the winter. They were dragged on the ice! For example, according to a written record, one large monolith measured 9.5 meters (31 feet) long and weighed 135 tons (123 metric tons), and it was hauled over ice by a team of men over 28 days in the winter of 1557. Another major construction project was the dredging of the moat and using the dirt to create a small artificial hill north of the palace called Jingshan. The moat is 6 meters (20 feet) deep and 52 meters (171 feet) wide. The Rebuilding of the Grand Canal (1411–1415) The Grand Canal is a big part of the emperor's grand plan to reconstruct Beijing and build his palace was the dredging and rebuilding of the Grand Canal. The canal was necessary because it was difficult to transport enough food to satisfy Beijing's burgeoning population of craftsmen, laborers, army personal, and officials. To build the capital, an enormous amount of materials and supplies from the south were required. Water transport was the cheapest method that they had available to transport the heavy bricks, wood and building materials, but Beijing was an inland city. The old Grand Canal system that was built by the Yuan that linked the Yangtze River valley and Dadu had become largely unusable. To raise the water level in the canal, they built a dam to divert the Wen River into it. Between 1411 and 1415, a total of 165,000 laborers dredged the canal bed in Shandong and built new canal locks. In 1421, when Beijing formally became the national capital, deliveries of grain began to exceed 200,000 tons annually, and so the Forbidden City and Beijing prospered. 1415–1420 Once the canal was finished, materials were transported to the city more quickly, and the court hastened construction. The bricks for paving the floors of major buildings were baked in Suzhou that is 1,000 km (640 miles) away and transported up the newly built canal. Starting from about 1417 large-scale work began on the reconstruction of the capital, and the emperor never returned to Nanjing after that. The Forbidden City palace was completed in 1420, and on New Year’s Day of 1421, he officially inaugurated the Ming capital. The Forbidden City falls into three parts: 1. The Defenses Around the city there is a 52-meter wide moat as the first line of defense. For security the Forbidden City is enclosed by a 10-meter-high defensive wall, which has a circumference of 3,430 meters. At each corner of the Forbidden City, there stands a magnificent watchtower (corner building), which was heavily guarded. There are four gates in each direction of the Forbidden City: the Meridian Gate (Wumen - 午门) on the south, the Gate of Divine Might (神武门 Shenwumen) on the north, East Glorious Gate on the east (东华门 Donghuamen) and West Glorious Gate on the west (西华门 Xihuamen) 2. The Outer Court The outer court has three main buildings, where emperors attended grand ceremonies and conducted state affairs. The first hall is the Hall of Supreme Harmony (Taihedian), the most important and largest structure in the Forbidden City. The emperors' Dragon Throne (Longyi) is in this hall. The second hall, behind the Hall of Supreme Harmony is the Hall of Central Harmony (Zhonghedian), the resting place of the emperor before presiding over grand events held in the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Emperors would rehearse their speeches and presentations here before departing to the Temple of Heaven for the sacrifice rites. The last hall is the Hall of Preserving Harmony (Baohedian), used for banquets and later for imperial examinations. 3. The Inner Court On the north of the Hall of the Preserving Harmony, there is a huge block of marble carved with cloud and dragon designs. The building is called the Gate of Heavenly Purity (Qianqingmen). This is the main gateway to the inner living court (大内 danei) The inner court has three main structures at the northern rear of the Forbidden City:
Besides the three main buildings there are the six eastern palaces and six western palaces, where the emperor used to handle everyday affairs, and which was the living quarters of the emperor, expresses, and concubines. The famous Empress Dowagers Xiaozhuang, mother of Shunzhi and grandmother of Kangxi used to live at The Palace of Compassion and Tranquility ( 慈宁宫 Cininggong )
Heaven was thought to be Polaris (the North Star), the only seemingly stationary star in the northern sky, and the Forbidden City’s layout points to “Heaven”. ***The emperor's seating throne was positioned on the north, and facing south. Only the emperor had the right to do that. Forbidden City carpenters used interlocking mortise and tenon joints to build its great palace building without nails. Nails were considered violent and inharmonious. Although it sounds superstitious, but actually this interlocking joints system is the best method for this huge wooden building. Engineers have discovered how actually this system is very powerful and earthquake proof. That's how this huge complex building survived so many earthquakes. Surrounding of the Forbidden City was the bigger imperial city, where there gardens, man made lakes, and the residential areas where the court officials and staff lived and worked. It too was enclosed by a wall that has been destroyed during modernization of Beijing. The old inner city wall, was 15 miles long and 20 meters thick at the base. The old inner city wall had nine gates which were called: 1. 德胜门 Deshengmen 2. 安定门 Andingmen 3.正阳门 Zhengyangmen 4.崇文门 Chongwenmen 5.宣武门 Xuanwumen 6.朝阳门 Chaoyangmen 7.阜成门 Fuchengmen 8.东直门 Dongzhimen 9.西直门 Xizhimen The old inner city wall is located around now what is called as Beijing 2nd ring road. While the names of the nine gates are still used until now. The gate of 正阳门 Zhengyangmen is still could be seen until now.
On the inner city wall, there are man made lake on the west side of the forbidden city, they are called Qianhai (Upper Sea), Zhonghai (Middle Sea), Xihai (West Sea) and Houhai (Rear Sea) - although basically it's all lakes. In ancient time, not only they purposed as recreational areas for the imperials and their officers, but also it was a mean of transportation where the emperors could go to southern areas with their imperial boats. Forbidden City in modern Beijing map. The old inner city wall was located around the current 2nd ringroad. The north south axis of Forbidden City shapes Beijing city structure.
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Author:I am Kangxi's big fan. I read books about him, and I travel and visit places he visited before. D'oh!! :p Archives
February 2020
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