World of Pots: The Forbidden City

When you are in Beijing, the capital city of China, you surely don't want to miss this world heritage site, the Forbidden City 紫禁城 or the Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Tourists all over the over who visited the palace, marvel at its sheer size and the magnificent buildings that symbolise old traditional Chinese style of architecture. The palace is magnificent as the construction materials used include whole logs of precious Phoebe zhennan wood ( 楠木) found in the jungles of south-western China, and large blocks of marble from quarries near Beijing.The floors of major halls were paved with "golden bricks" ( 金砖), specially baked paving bricks from Suzhou.

Now, a brief history is presented here on the construction of this palace. When the Mongols ruled China during the Yuan dynasty from 1271 to 1368, they established the capital here but it was called Dadu 大都 at that time. The Yuan dynasty lasted less than a hundred years before it was overthrown by the Han Chinese under the leadership of Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋) and the Ming dynasty was established, the capital was then shifted to south to Nanjing and the palace built by the Mongols was burnt down by the first Ming emperor (Hongwu Emperor). However, it was during the reign of the third Emperor of Ming, Zhu Di ( Hongwu 's fourth son, also known as Yongle Emperor) who shifted the capital back to Beijing after realising the strategic importance of the city. This was after Zhu Di seized the throne from his nephew (the son of Hongwu 's crown prince who died before taking over the throne) after a 4 year civil war. At that time, the threat from foreign invasion was from the North, hence it was important to station troops and state administration in Beijing to safeguard the interest of the empire. So Zhudi planned to shift the capital to the north, to Beijing. Although most court officials were against the idea of shifting the capital (a waste of useful resources), he refused to listen to their advice and ordered the construction of this huge palace in 1406. It took 14 years before construction was finally completed in 1420 and this palace is what we know today as the Forbidden city.

Inside the Palace

The Front View

For almost 500 years, the Forbidden City was the home of emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties and their households. The whole compound consists of over 9000 rooms and covers an area of 720,000 m² (7,800,000 sq ft). You may ask why such a big palace was built for the emperors to stay. But if you think hard enough you will know why. The emperors those days had hundreds of concubines and their sons and daughters were numerous. For example, the Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty had over thirty children. Hence, it was not difficult to understand why such a big palace was indeed needed to house the emperors' households. When we were there, we could not even cover the whole compound of the palace. It was really tiring going from chamber to chamber. During peak season, I was told that the tourists could not even have space to walk. But having said that, the Emperors those days did not have to walk as they were carried around in sedan chairs. They were really fortunate and enjoyed supreme power.

Do you know, a total of 24 emperors from the Ming and Qing dynasties lived in the Forbidden City. With the abdication of Puyi, the last Emperor of China after the revolution in 1911, he was allowed to stay in the inner court of the palace where the outer court was assigned for public use. Puyi was finally evicted from the palace in 1924 and the Palace Museum was formed in 1925 to take over the administration of the Forbidden City. The Palace Museum houses the national treasures from the Ming and Qing era and for the first time ordinary citizens were allowed entry to the Forbidden City to view the valuable exhibits. With the invasion by the Japanese army in 1933, the national treasures were force to evacuate the museum.

The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. Since 1925, the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum, whose extensive collection of artwork and artifacts were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Part of the museum's former collection is now located in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Both museums descend from the same institution, but were split after the Chinese Civil War. After the war, the Forbidden City was under major repair to restore the palace to its original condition.