Based on the Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties and its collections, the Palace Museum is a comprehensive museum and, owing to its splendid architecture and rich collections,was listed as World Cultural Heritage Site in 1987. Many imperial palaces once appeared in world history. But only a few are extant today. The Imperial Palace in Beijing is one of them and attracts about 8 million visitors every year, The Chinese history epitomized in the Palace occupies an important position in cultural exchanges between China and the world.
The Imperial Palace is also known as the Forbidden City.Its construction was prepared since 1406 and completed in 1420,The period was in the reign of the third Ming emperor Yongle,whose name is Zhu Di. After the downfall of the Ming, the Palace remained to be the imperial residence of the Qing dynasty until 1924, when the last emperor Puyi was forced to leave the Palace 12 years after his abdication. From the completion of its construction in 1420 to the downfall of the Qing dynasty in 1911,altogether 24 emperors lived and ruled there. During these 491 years, the Imperial Palace had been strictly forbidden to the general public, in whose hearts it was very sacred and mysterious.The name of the Forbidden City is closely related to traditional Chinese culture. The Chinese believed their emperor was the Son of Heaven. During their observation of the night sky, they found all the stars surrounded the Pole Star and believed the Lord of Heaven lived there and called the area around the Star “Purple Forbidden Enclosure”. Accordingly, the Imperial Palace was regarded as the center of the empire and called “Purple Forbidden City” and abbreviated as the Forbidden City.
The construction of the Forbidden City was a huge project, which accumulated nationwide human, material and financial resources and lasted for 14 years. In the fourth year of the Yongle reign (1406), Zhu Di ordered to build an imperial palace in his former feudatory Beijing. Marquis Taining Chen Gui and Vice Minister of the Board of Works Wu Zhong, as officials in charge of this project, recruited artisans and civilian workers to make bricks, fire tiles, cut timber and quarry stone. It took 10 years to prepare the building materials. After four-year large-scale construction. The Forbidden City was finally builtin the 18th year of the Yongle reign (1420). The next year, Zhu Di had the Ming capital moved from Nanjing to Beijing.
The Forbidden City is condensed with traditional Chinese architectural concepts and philosophical thoughts, Its strict layout, hierarchical buildings and at the same time flexible combinations perfectly reflect the essence and achievement of oriental civilization. It was built on the basis of the imperial palace of the Yuan dynasty and according to the plan of “Ancestral Tcmple on the left and Altar to the Gods of Earth and Grain on the right,court in the front and market at the back” recorded in The Zhou Rites. Its central axis coincided with the 8-kilometer-long axis of the Beijing city, on which are located the “Five Main Gates (the Gate of the Great Ming, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, the Gate of Origination, the Meridian Gate and the Gate of Supreme Harmony) and Three Main Halls(the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Middle Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony)”. The Forbidden City covers 780,000 square meters while its buildings cover nearly 160,000 square meters. Surrounded with a 3.428-meter-long city wall, it consists of 980 buildings and 8 ,728 bays (a bay in China is the space among four pillars). The buildings are arranged symmetrically on both sides of the central axis, which is also the imperial route reserved for the emperor and reflects the thought “imperial authority is supreme”.
The Forbidden City is mainly composed of the Outer Court and Inner Court. The former is a ceremonial quarter and centered on the Three Front Halls, i.e., the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Middle Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony, and flanked with the Hall of Literary Brilliance and the Hall of Military Glory, the places for Confucian classics explanation and imperial books printing. The latter is the residences for the emperor and empress and centered on the Three Rear Palaces, i.e., the Palace of Heavenly Purity, the Hall of Union and Peace and the Palace of Earthly Tranquility, and flanked with the Six Eastern Palaces and Six Western Palaces, residences for imperial concubines.
Most of the buildings in the Forbidden City belong to woodstructured architecture traditional in China, which makes strict demands on the quality and quantity of timber. Timber cutting was a dangerous work. The cut timbers would be tied into rafts. Which would be flushed into rivers by floods and travcl three or four years to Beijing via the Yangtze River and the Grand Canal. Bricks and tiles were also in great demand. It took over 80 million bricks to build the Forbidden City. The total weight of the bricks amounted to 1,930,000 tons.
With long and bright history, unique and majestic architecture as well as rich and precious collections, the Forbidden City is one of the most famous imperial palaces in the world. In 1961, it was listed as a key historical and cultural site under state protection by the State Council, the People’s Republic of China. In 1987, it was listed as World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. The former Imperial Palace is now a world-renowned historical and artistic museum and a popular scenic spot.
The Louvre in Paris as an imperial palace was built in 1541. During the next over 200 years, it experienced four expansions and became the political and cultural center of Europe.Its space is one fourth of the Forbidden City.
The Hermitage in St. Petersburg was built in 1764. After a great fire in 1837, it was rebuilt and expanded into a luxurious palace covering an area of 17,800 square meters.
The Kremlin in Moscow accounted for one fourth of the Moscow city and was the largest imperial palace in Europe. Its space is less than one half of the Forbidden City.
The Buckingham Palace in London is the residence of the monarch of the United Kingdom. It was built in 1703 by the Duke of Buckingham and expanded by George IV in 1825. In 1837, Queen Victoria moved there. Its space is about one tenth of the Forbidden City. The throne room of the Buckingham Palace is about 600 squa re meters while the Hall of Supreme Harmony covers 2,377 square meters.
The imperial palace in Tokyo was rebuilt in1888 after a fire. It covers over 217,000 square meters, about one third of the Forbidden City.
The Forbidden City is 3.5 kilometers long in circumference. The trapezoid-shaped city wall is pierced with four gates: the Merid-ian Gate, the Gate of Spiritual Valor, the Gate of Eastem Flower and the Gate of Western Flower, guarded with four exquisite corner towers and surrounded by a 52-meter-wide moat. At sun-rise and sunset, the corner tower and the moat set off each other and form a charming view.
With the Forbidden City as its center, Beijing in the Ming and Qing dynasties consists of four cities, one surrounded with another. They are the Forbidden City, Imperial City and Outer City, Their main gates are located on the central axis of Beijing, which is the imperial route paved with huge flagstones that could be seen as soon as one enters the Palace Museum. In the Qianlong period of the Qing dynasty (1736-1795), a mad monk once succeeded in entering the Cate of Eastern Flower with the help of a knife and the guards failed to block his way. After this incident, all he guards on duty were punished severely.
