This is the Palace Museum, also known as the Purple Forbidden City. It is the largest and most well preserved imperial residence in China today. Under Ming Emperor Yongle, construction began in 1406. It took 14 years to build the Forbidden City. The first ruler who actually lived here was Ming Emperor Zhudi. For five centuries thereafter, it continued to be the residence of 23 successive emperors until 1911 when Qing Emperor Puyi was forced to abdicate the throne. In 1987, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization recognized the Forbidden City as a world cultural legacy.

It is believed that the Palace Museum, or Zi Jin Cheng (Purple Forbidden City), got its name from astronomy and folklore. The ancient astronomers divided the constellations into groups and centered them around the Ziwei Yuan (North Star). The constellation containing the North Star was called the Constellation of Heavenly God and the star itself was called the purple palace. Because the emperor was supposedly the son of the heavenly gods, his central and dominant position would be further highlighted by the use of the word purple in the name of his residence.

In folklore, the term “an eastern purple cloud is drifting” became a metaphor for auspicious events after a purple cloud was seen drifting eastward immediately before the arrival of an ancient philosopher, Lao Zi, to the Hangu Pass. Here, purple is associated with auspicious developments. The word jin (forbidden) is self-explanatory as the imperial palace was heavily guarded and off-limits to ordinary people.

The colors used to apply on the palatial buildings in the Forbidden City, except for the outside beautification, attributed much more to the feudalistic implications in politics. The purple - red walls in combination with the yellow roofs form a strong and eye - catching contrast, showing the absolute “authority,” “supremacy” and “richness” of feudal emperors.

Ever since ancient times, yellow color, has always been regarded by rulers of various dynasties as to denote supremacy. Because in the theory of Five Elements in ancient China, yellow, referring to the earth that occupies the central position, represents supreme royal power in the center.

 ”Red” in China has as always been mentioned in the same breath with righteousness and auspicious ceremonies, suggesting solemnity and happiness. It is said that even the upper - cave men of 40,000 - 50,000 years ago liked to paint their dwellings in red.
However, there were still a few palace buildings with black or green tiles. This is because these palace buildings were not used by emperors, and still, it was due to some superstitious reasons. For instance, the three palace buildings located to the south inside the Donghuamen Gate they were the residences for the Qing princes. According to the given rules only green tiles could be used for the Qing high - ranking nobles, such as princes and their like and no yellow tiles should in any case be used.

The other example is the Wenyuan Pavilion with black tiles. According to the theory of Five Elements, black represents water. Since the pavilion was meant for storing books, it was easy to catch fire. Therefore, in line with the superstitious idea of the ancients, black tiles were used instead in its construction so as to suggest that it could subdue

The Forbidden City is rectangular in shape. It is 960 meters long from north to south and 750 meters wide from east to west. It has 9,900 rooms under a total roof area 150,000 square meters. A 52-meter-wide-moat encircles a 9.9-meter-high wall which encloses the complex. Octagon-shaped turrets rest on the four corners of the wall. There are four entrances into the city: the Meridian Gate to the south, the Shenwu Gate (Gate of Military Prowess) to the north, and the Xihua Gate (Western Flowery Gate) to the west, the Donghua (Eastern Flowery Gate) to the east.

Manpower and materials throughout the country were used to build the Forbidden City. A total of 230, 000 artisans and one million laborers were employed. Marble was quarried from Fangshan County on the outskirts of Beijing. Five-colored rocks were cut from Mount Pan in Jixian County in Hebei Province. Granite was quarried in Quyang County in Hebei Province.

 Paving blocks were fired in kilns in Suzhou in southern China. Bricks and scarlet pigmentation used on the palatial walls came from Linqing in Shandong Province. The wood materials were taken from the mountains of Sichuan, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan and Yunnan. It is said that the trees felled had to be brought down by mountain torrents during rainy seasons, and then were towed to Beijing through waterways.
The structure in front of us is the Meridian Gate. It is the main entrance to the Forbidden City. It is also known as Wufenglou (Five-Phoenix Tower). Ming emperors held lavish banquets here on the 15th day of the first month of the Chinese lunar year in honor of their courtiers. They also used this place for punishing officials by flogging them with sticks.

Qing emperors used this building to announce the beginning of the new year. Qing Emperor Qianlong changed the original name of this announcement ceremony from ban li ( announcement of calendar ) to ban shou (announcement of new moon) to avoid coincidental association with another Emperor’s name, Hongli, which was considered a taboo at that time. Qing Dynasty emperors also used this place to hold audience and for other important ceremonies. For example, when the imperial army returned victoriously from the battlefield, it was here that the Emperor presided over the ceremony to accept prisoners of war.

Forbidden City

The winding brook before us is the Golden Water River. It functions both as decoration and fire control. The five bridges spanning the river represent the five virtues preached by Confucius : benevolence, righteousness, rites, intelligence and fidelity. The river takes the shape of a bow and the north-south axis is its arrow. This was meant to show that the Emperors ruled the country on behalf of God.
The Forbidden City consists of an outer courtyard and an inner enclosure. The outer courtyard covers a vast space lying between the Meridian Gate and the Gate of Heavenly Purity. The “three big halls”of Supreme Harmony, Complete Harmony and Preserving Harmony constitute the center of this building group. The implication of the names of the three main halls is: “He” in Chinese means the harmonized relation among various things in the world. “Taihe” (supreme harmony) means that the relations between various things in universe are in perfect harmony. “Zhonghe” (complete harmony) suggests “mean” or “impartial”, i.e. to handle things in a proper and restrained way. Only by doing so, can the relations between the various things be kept in harmony without going astray. “Baohe” (preserving harmony) denotes to keep in order the harmonized relations already obtained between various things. Flanking them in bilateral symmetry are two groups of palaces: Wenhua ( Prominent Scholars) and Wuying (Brave Warriors).
The Hall of Supreme Harmony sits on a triple “H”-shaped marble terrace that is 8 meters high and linked by staircases. The staircase on the ground floor has 21 steps while the middle and upper stairways each have 9.

The Hall of Supreme Harmony is the biggest and the tallest of its kind in the Forbidden City. This structure covers a total building space of 2,377 square meters, and is known for its upturned, multiple counterpart eaves.

The construction of the Hall of Supreme Harmony began in 1406. It burned down three times and was severely damaged once during a mutiny. The existing architecture was built during the Qing Dynasty. On the corners of the eaves a line of animal-nails were usually fastened to the tiles. These animal-nails were later replaced with mythical animals to ward off evil spirits.

The Hall of Supreme Harmony has 10 chimeras, ranking first in all the palace buildings in the Imperial Palace, has the most of them. The Hall of Heavenly Purity, a place for emperors to stay and handle their routine affairs of the state, has nine, next only to the Hall of Supreme Harmlony. The Hall of Earthly Tranquility, the residence for empresses has seven animals on the ledge, and only five animals can be seen on the ledges of the six eastern and western palaces, as they were the residential quarters for imperial consorts.

Transportation: Take No.1, No.4, No.20, No.52, No.103, No.802 and get off at the Stop of Tiananmen Square; or No.810 at the Stop of the Summer Palace. And you can also take the subway to go there.

Ticket Price : RMB40 and RMB60 for the whole scenic spots; RMB10 for Zhenbao Guan and Zhongbiao Guan.

Suggestion: For the common vistors, one day is enough. However, there are so many palces worthing visiting in the Summer Palace. If the time is adequate, you can spend more time to appreciate them.

Telphone Number: 010–65132255

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