Forbidden City History

The history of the Forbidden City covers six centuries. At the heart of Beijing, China, the Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty.

The content of this page：

The construction of the Forbidden City:

Qing Dynasty Forbidden City:

Forbidden City after the Revolution:

Forbidden City Today:

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The construction of the Forbidden City

The Ming Yongle Emperor ordered the construction of the Forbidden City

The site of the Forbidden City was the imperial palace is under the Mongol Yuan dynasty. After the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty, the Hongwu Emperor moved the Ming capital of Beijing in the north to Nanjing in the south, and ordered in 1369 that destroyed the Yuan palace. His son, Zhu Di was created Prince of Yan, which has its headquarters in Beijing. In 1402, Zhu Di usurped the throne and became Emperor Yongle. Beijing, he made a second capital of the Ming empire, and construction began in 1406, which is the center of the Forbidden City: Forbidden City plan is designed by many architects and designers, and then has been in the ministry of the emperor’s chief architect work.The considered Cai Xin and eunuchs An Nguyen, a Vietnamese, and chief engineers were Kuai Xiang Xiang and Lu.

The construction took 15 years and employed in the work of 100,000 skilled craftsmen, and up to one million laborers.The pillars of the main rooms of all logs of precious Phoebe Zhennan wood (they were Chinese, pinyin: nanmu), found in jungles of South-West China. Such a feat is not repeated in future years – the major pillars of our time have been reconstructed with several pieces of pine in the great Qing Dynasty.The terraces and stone sculptures were made of stone quarries near Beijing. The larger pieces are transported unconventional. Instead, wells were dug on the road, and the well water was poured on the way into the depths of winter, a layer of ice. The stones were dragged across the ice. TOP

The floors of the halls were Chinese with “gold bricks” (: Pinyin jīnzhuān paved), terracotta in seven counties of Suzhou and Songjiang prefectures. Each batch took months for cooking, resulting in smooth stones that cycle with a metallic sound. Many original interior plaster six years.

Soil during construction of the trench was dug, piled in the north of the palace to create an artificial hill, the Jingshan hill.
Has been completed even before the palace, went to Beijing, Zhu Di, under the guise of “tourism and hunting”: administrative center of the kingdom gradually shifted from Nanjing to Beijing. When the palace was completed in 1420, she moved Zhu Di and primary capital of Beijing officially empire.However still barely nine months after its construction, have been burned three large warehouses, including the throne room, and he would be 23 years before they established.

From 1420 to 1644, was the Forbidden City, the seat of the Ming dynasty. Conducted in April 1644, rebels captured and Li Zicheng Chongzhen Emperor, the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, hanged himself at Jingshan Hill. Li Zicheng proclaimed himself emperor of the Shun Dynasty in the Hall of Military Eminence. Soon, however, fled before the combined armies of former Ming general Wu Sangui and Manchu troops set fire to parts of the Forbidden City in this process.

Qing Dynasty Forbidden City

In October, the Manchu rule in northern China has achieved, and the Prince Regent Dorgon proclaimed the Qing dynasty as the successor of the Ming. A ceremony was held at the Forbidden City to proclaim the Shunzhi young as ruler of China. The Qing Ming dynasty rulers largely retained control of the palace, except the names of the main building. The Ming Dynasty, the names of people disadvantaged ji, which means “rule” or “end”, while the Qing names and new names mean “peace” and “harmony” is preferred, as Huangji Dian, the Hall of Imperial Supremacy “was changed to Taihe Dian, the Hall of Supreme Harmony. ”

Furthermore, signs and nameplates of bilingual (Chinese and Manchu were), and the most important part of the Official Chamber of the Empress, the Temple of Peace in the world, was a shamanistic shrine.

The Forbidden City was the center of power of the Qing dynasty. In 1860, during the Second Opium War, the Anglo-French forces took control of the Forbidden City and occupied it until the end of 1900 war.In Empress Dowager Cixi fled from the Forbidden City during the Boxer Rebellion and leaves it to be forces occupied the Treaty Powers to the following year. TOP

Once home twenty-four emperors, fourteen of the Ming dynasty and ten from the Qing Dynasty, ending the Forbidden City to the political center of China in 1912 with the abdication of Pu Yi, last emperor of China. However, under an agreement between the Qing imperial house and the new government of the People’s Republic of China, Pu Yi was signed has indeed necessary to live within the walls of the Forbidden City. Pu Yi and his family retained the use of the court, while the outer courtyard has been turned over to Republican. A museum has been created in the outer court in 1914.

Forbidden City after the Revolution

Resistance Puyi stay in the palace was built during the Beiyang Government of the Republic of China.

In 1923, Reginald Johnston, a professor of English Pu Yi, said the wealth of smuggling Puyi palace eunuchs and sell them in antique stores. Pu Yi has ordered an audit of the collections of the castle. Before launch, a fire destroyed the palace gardens of the institution in which well-being most of the collection of the Qianlong emperor was saved by works of art. In his memoirs, Puyi said the fire started by the eunuchs, to conceal his wrongdoing. The fire fed also sentiments of the public against the continued occupation of Puyi palace.The gardens were not established until 2005.
In 1924, Feng Yuxiang took control of Beijing in a coup. Termination of the prior authorization of the Imperial Qing Feng Puyi expelled from the palace. On October 10, 1925 (Double Ten Day), was created in the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City. The large amount of treasures and curiosities, it houses gradually cataloged and displayed in public. TOP

Soon, however, has threatened Japanese invasion of China, the safety of these national treasures, and they were moved from the Forbidden City. From 1933, major artifacts were packed and removed. They were delivered only in Nanjing and from there to Shanghai. But Japanese troops quickly threatened Shanghai. The Executive Yuan has decided to evacuate the surveys for the Far West. The subjects were divided into three lots. They took the road north to Shaanxi. One was transported along the Yangtze River in Sichuan. The last match was moved southwards towards Guangxi. The pace of growth in Japan forced the artifacts are gone too quickly to escape bombs and record, often with a period of several hours. Ultimately, all three collections from the relative safety of Sichuan Province reached, where they remained until the end of the war.

Meanwhile, the Japanese army conquered remove the Forbidden City in Beijing, but only in a position a couple of bronze, bath and some guns. Most of them were after the war, in Tianjin.

At the end of the Second World War in 1945, the artifacts were returned to Nanjing and Beijing. Remarkably, there was no lost or damaged.

In 1947, the Kuomintang lost the Chinese civil war, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the artifacts from the Forbidden City and the National Museum of Nanjing, will be moved to Taiwan. In cases where no artifacts were shipped from Beijing, but saved many of the best collections of Nanjing have been shipped to Taiwan and now form the nucleus of the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
Under the People’s Republic of China
Middle Glorious Gate under renovation as part of the process of restoration of 19.

Forbidden City Today

In 1949, the People’s Republic of China was established in Tiananmen Square, opposite the Forbidden City.
The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1987 as the Imperial Palace “of the Ming and Qing Dynasties” because of its strong position in the development of Chinese architecture and culture.

Currently, the Palace Museum for preservation and restoration of the Forbidden City is responsible. The height of buildings around the Forbidden City are limited. In 2005, a sixteen-year project has begun to rebuild, repair and restoration of all buildings in the Forbidden City in their pre-1912 state. It is the largest restoration of the Forbidden City, in two centuries and includes sections of gradual eviction of the Forbidden City in the evaluation, repair and restoration.Also in the project, parts of abandoned or destroyed are reconstructed. Destroyed the palace gardens of wealth creation, by fire in 1923, was rebuilt in 2005, but remains closed to the public. The interior was also decorated in a different style, and buildings are used by visiting dignitaries. TOP

Although efforts have been made to prevent the marketing of the castle, a variety of commercial enterprises, such as gift shops and photography is available. These corporations frequently controversial. Starbucks, which opened in 2000, has raised objections and ends July 13, 2007. The Chinese media also took note of a few souvenir shops that refused to Chinese citizens in 2006.According reports admit that the goal was to have an atmosphere in which foreigners may be victims of price gouging to preserve. The Palace Museum promised to investigate the matter. Some commentators, how influential television presenter Phoenix Luqiu Luwei, questioned the whole practice of renting rooms in the Forbidden City as an area of retail.

In 2005, IBM and Palace Museum Corporation announced a joint project to build a World Wide Web-based virtual model of the Forbidden City and associated sites Beijing.The online project of cultural heritage called the Forbidden City: In – Beyond space and time is presented in English and Chinese, and interactive three-dimensional representations of the Forbidden City, and cultural structures. The Virtual Forbidden City will consist of approximately 800 buildings, and sometimes begin in 2008.