Lying at the center of Beijing, the
Forbidden City, called gugong, in
Chinese, used to be the imperial palace
of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It is
called the Palace Museum now. It lies 1
kilometer north of the Tian’anmen
Square, with its south gate, the Gate of
Devine Might (Shenwumen), facing the
Jingshan Park. 960 meters long and 750
meters wide, the world largest palace
complex covers a floor space of 720,000
square meters, having 9,999 buildings.
The rectangular city is encircled in a
52-meter-long, 6-meter-deep moat and a
10-meter-high, 3,400-meter-long city
wall which has one gate on each side.
There are four unique and delicate
structured corner towers overlooking the
city inside and outside on the four
corners. Generally, it was divided into
two parts, the northern half, or the
Outer Court where emperors executed
their supreme power over the nation and
the southern half, or the Inner Court
where they lived with their royal
family. Until 1924 when the last emperor
in China was driven out of the Inner
Court, 14 emperors of the Ming dynasty
and 10 emperors of the Qing dynasty had
reigned here. About 500 years being the
imperial palace, it houses numerous rare
treasures and curiosities. It is now
listed by the UN as World Cultural
Heritage in 1987 and is the hottest
tourist magnets.
Construction of the palace complex
started in 1407, the 5th year of the
Yongle reign of the third emperor of the
Ming dynasty, and was completed 14 years
later in 1420. It was said that a
million workers including 100,000
artisans were driven into the long-term
hard labor. Stones needed were quarried
from Fangshan, suburb of Beijing. It was
said a well was dug along the road every
50 meters in order to pour water onto
the road in winter to slide huge stones
on ice into the city. Huge amount of
timbers and other materials were all
freighted from faraway provinces.
Ancient Chinese people fully displayed
their wisdom in building the Forbidden
City. Take the grand red city wall for
example, the ladder shaped wall has an
8.6 meters wide bottom and a 6.66 meters
wide top. The shape of the city wall
totally frustrate attempt to climb onto
the wall. The bricks of the wall are
said made from white lime and glutinous
rice while the cement is made from
glutinous rice and egg whites, and these
incredible materials make the wall
extraordinarily strong. |