Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
posited the name of his chosen successor in a sealed box hidden in the hall. When the emper-
or died, it was sufficient to compare the two documents to proclaim the new Son of Heaven.
Jiaotaidian
Beyond the Qianqinggong is the
Jiaotaidian
(Hall of Union), the empress's throne-room
where the 25 imperial document seals were kept. The ceiling here is possibly the finest in the
complex, a gilt confection with a dragon surrounded by phoenixes at the centre; also here is
a fine, and very hefty, water clock. The two characters
wu wei
at the back of the hall mean
“no action” - a reference to the Taoist political ideal of not disturbing the course of nature or
society.
Kunninggong
The
Kunninggong
, or Palace of Earthly Tranquillity, was where the emperor and empress
traditionally spent their wedding night. By law the emperor had to spend the first three nights
of his marriage, and the first day of the Chinese New Year, with his new wife. On the left
as you enter is a large sacrificial room, its vats ready to receive offerings (1300 pigs a year
during the Ming dynasty). The wedding chamber is a small room off to one side, painted en-
tirely in red and covered with decorative emblems symbolizing fertility and joy. It was last
pressed into operation in 1922 for the wedding of 12-year-old Pu Yi, the last emperor, who,
finding it “like a melted red wax candle”, decided that he preferred the Mind Nurture Palace
(see
Yangxindian and Changchungong
)
and went back there.
Yangxindian and Changchungong
One of a group of palaces to the west of the Kunninggong, the Mind Nurture Palace, or
Yangxindian
, was where the emperors spent most of their time. Several of these palaces
retain their furniture from the Manchu times, most of it eighteenth century; in one, the
Changchungong
(Palace of Eternal Spring), is a series of paintings illustrating the Ming nov-
el,
The Story of the Stone
.
Nine Dragon Wall
Over on the east side of the complex, the
Nine Dragon Wall
is a relatively recent addition
to the Forbidden City (1772). This 30m-long screen of dragons, each toying with a pearl, is
composed of 270 pieces of coloured glaze. Note that the third white dragon has a mysterious
wooden replacement piece to its jigsaw pattern: just before presentation of the screen to the
emperor, the ceramic tile was damaged and, to save the lives of the designers, the inconspicu-
ous replacement was quickly carved from wood.
The Imperial Garden
From the Inner Court, the Kunningmen (Gate of Terrestrial Tranquillity) opens north onto the
ImperialGarden
, by this stage something of a respite from the elegant buildings. There are a
couple of
cafés
here amid a pleasing network of ponds, walkways and pavilions, designed to
be reminiscent of southern Chinese landscapes. In the middle of the garden, the
Qin'andian
,
