Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Constructed on the site of a palace dating to Kublai Khan and the Mongol Yuan dynasty,
the Ming emperor Yongle established the basic layout of the Forbidden City between 1406
and 1420, basing it on the now-ruined Ming-dynasty palace in Nánjīng. The grandiose
emperor employed battalions of labourers and craftspeople - by some estimates there may
have been up to a million of them - to build the Forbidden City. The palace once lay at the
heart of the Imperial City, a much larger, now-vanished walled enclosure reserved for the
use of the emperor and his personnel. The wall enclosing the Forbidden City - assembled
from 12 million bricks - is the last intact surviving city wall in Běijīng.
This gargantuan palace complex - China's largest and best-preserved cluster of ancient
buildings - sheltered two dynasties of emperors (the Ming and the Qing), who didn't stray
from their pleasure dome unless they absolutely had to. So highly rarefied was the atmo-
sphere that nourished its elitist community, it was as if a bell jar had been dropped over
the whole spectacle. A stultifying code of rules, protocol and superstition deepened its
otherworldliness, perhaps typified by its twittering band of eunuchs. From here the emper-
ors governed China, often erratically and haphazardly, with authority occasionally drifting
into the hands of opportunistic court officials and eunuchs. It wasn't until 1911 that re-
volution eventually came knocking at the huge doors, bringing with it the last orders for
the Manchu Qing and dynastic rule.
Its mystique diffused (the Běijīng authorities prosaically call the complex the Palace
Museum, or
gùgōng bówùguǎn
), the palace is no longer off limits. In former ages the
price for uninvited admission would have been instant death; these days ¥40 to ¥60 will
do.
Most of the buildings you see now are post-18th century. The largely wooden palace
was a tinderbox and fire was a constant hazard - a lantern festival combined with a sud-
den gust of Gobi wind would easily send flames dancing in unexpected directions, as
would a fireworks display. Fires were also deliberately lit by court eunuchs and officials
who could get rich off the repair bills. It wasn't just buildings that burned, but also rare
books, paintings and calligraphy. Libraries and other palace halls and buildings housing
combustible contents were tiled in black; the colour represents water in the
wǔxíng
(five-
element) theory, and its symbolic presence was thought to prevent conflagrations. Origin-
ally water was provided by 72 wells in the palace (only 30 have been preserved), while a
complex system took care of drainage.
In the 20th century there were two major lootings of the palace by Japanese forces and
the Kuomintang (KMT; Chiang Kaishek's Nationalist Party, the dominant political force
after the fall of the Qing dynasty). Thousands of crates of relics were removed and carted
off to Taiwan, where they remain on display in Taipei's National Palace Museum (worth
