The Great Wall of China, Forbidden City,Terra-Cotta Warriors,Yangtze River, Bird's Nest, Water Cube....

  the 'Inner Court'

Gate of Heavenly Purity, QianQingMen in Chinese, is the main entrance to the Inner Court. It is acted as both the dividing and integrate part of the Inner Court and the Outer Court.

In the period of Qing Dynasty, emperors used to enthroned under the center of QianQingMen for the purpose of hearing reports and making decisions on matters presented to him, known as "Yu Men Ting Zheng" in China. And the smaller buildings on both sides were duty rooms for officials and waiting rooms to prepare ministers themselves for interviews.

Qianqingmen is the frontispiece of the yard in which there are QianQingGong Palace, JiaoTaiDian Hall, and KunNingGong Palace. Through this gate, the minister can meet the emperor. Maybe that's why QianQingMen Gate is called imperial gate.

Palace of Heavenly Purity is a bit smaller than the Hall of Supreme Harmony, and they have the decorations similarly with each other, such as sun-dial, tortoises, grain measure, storks etc. However it is the largest palace of the Inner Court.
In front of the Palace of Heavenly purity, there are small miniature pavilions on both sides. One is called Jiangshan pavilion that stands for territorial integrity; the other is Sheji Temple, the God of Land and Grain that symbolizes a bumper harvest.

Up in the right center of the main part, there lays a plaque engraved with four Chinese characters written by Emperor Yongzheng and which reads: "Be open and aboveboard". From that time on, the name of each crown prince would be written on duplicate files and a copy would be placed in a box behind this plaque. The emperor himself would retain the other copy. Only if the name on each document were the same would the designated prince take the crown upon the death of the emperor.

The first two Qing emperors lived here for their daily life and state affair. Usually they read here, checked the documents and granted ministers & audience an audience. For some reasons, some banquets were held here as well. From 1722-1785, the “Banquet for A Thousand Seniors”, QianSou Yan in Chinese, had held here twice.
Moreover, there is a traditional customs that no matter where the emperors died, his coffin would be placed here for a few days for mourning. Then they would be moved to Jinshan and chose a day to burn.

KunNingGong was first built in 1420 and restored in 1655. It is the only palace of Manchurian architecture style in the Forbidden City and was the residential palace of the empress during the Ming and Qing dynasties. And the emperors held their weddings in the East Warmth Chamber while the West one for sacrifice purpose. But the emperor and empress only lived here for a few days. Later the emperor moved to the Hall of Mental Cultivation (YangXinDian) and the empress moved to another palace.
Every year the royalty would hold religious sacrifice in the West Warmth Chamber. If for very important occasions, emperors and empresses would preside over the ceremonies in person. The East Warmth Chamber was wholly painted in red, which stands for happiness. And the refining and beautiful embroidered bed curtain and quilt both feature a hundred playing children that revealed the emperors' strong will for plenty of children, or said to be the imperial family's prosperity.
Gate of Earthly Tranquility (KunNingMen) is behind the Palace of Earthly Tranquility, with the imperial doctors' duty room, dispensary and eunuchs duty room to the sides.

The Palace of Union and Peace, JiaoTaiDian in Chinese, the name itself reveals a lot the royalty's strong wish of good marriage. JiaoHeDian has exactly the same structure as the Hall of Complete Harmony (ZhongHeDian), but smaller in size. It is the smallest palace among the three main palaces of Inner Court.
There are two obvious clocks right on each side of the central throne. It is an ancient Chinese water pot clock - equivalent to an hourglass, on the right side while on the left is a chime clock. The water pot clock just as its name goes, measuring time by dripping waters, which is one of China's most outstanding inventions and traces back about 2,500 years. These two timers were a reference to the Drum Tower and Bell Tower.
Besides, some 25 similar imperial seals there standing around the palace—they are the symbols of hopeful 25 generations that Emperor QainLong had ever been desired for. He wanted a lot to continue Qing Dynasty as long as possible, at least 25 reigns. In that way, Qing would be the longest empire ever lasting in history so far. But to his disappointed, his Dynasty only last out 10 generations.
As for the plaque hanging on the top line, only two Chinese characters “Wu Wei” carved on it. “Wu Wei” means to govern the country by noninterference, as was done by Shun, a legendary sage king in ancient China. “ Wu Wei” is a kind of Taoist philosophy, implies that one should adjust himself to the nature, one should keep in the position right of the middle between heaven and earth. But the feudal governor laid particular stress on the mind to discourage ordinaries from taking action.

JiaoTaiDian also has the function of holding ceremonies and celebrations, such as the awarder of honorable titles and birthday celebrations. It is the place for empresses to receive formal birthday greetings. Empresses would check out preparations prior to they went to preside over memorial ceremonies for the Silkworm God and practice sericulture as well. A well-known order that eunuchs should be banned from attending state affairs announced by Emperor Shunzhi also placed here.

YangXinDian, the Hall of Mental Cultivation, has played an important role in history of Forbidden City as the Hall of Supreme Harmony. It served as the emperor's residence and office from the Emperor YongZheng. From that time on, all Qing Dynasty Emperors lived and ruled there as well.
And three emperors had died here.

The Hall of Mental Cultivation is an I-Shaped building as it has a front and rear hall, which served as the emperors' bedrooms. The central part of the front hall was used as a place where the emperors deal with the state affairs.
In the East Warmth Chamber, the notorious Empress Dowager Cixi administered state affairs behind curtains, which was put behind the throne. In fact, the emperor was too young to handle his power upon the nation, they were just puppet. Such kind of regent was called as “Chui Lian Ting Zheng” in Chinese, which has lasted for 48 years. In the East Warmth Chamber, from YongZheng to XianFeng, they did private meeting with ministers or dealt with secret issues. The small room in the west end ia called Sanxitang (Room of Three Rare Treasures). Just as the name goes, Qianlong collected three outstanding calligraphy masterpieces by Wang Xizhi, Wang Xianzhi, and Wang Xun, three famous penmen in Chinese history.

Between the front and rear hall, there are five bedrooms side by side. The central one is for emperor only, on the east of the chamber is Tishuntang (the Hall of Manifest Compliance)-the residence of the empress. To the west is Yanxitang (the Hall of Festive Joy), the waiting room for concubines and palace maids called upon to wait on the emperor.

The Huge Stone Craving is the central part of the staircase behind the Hall of Preserving Harmony. It carved with dragons and clouds, full of solemnity and mystery.
It was firstly carved in Ming Dynasty and recarved by emperor Qianlong. The stone slab is 16.75 meters long, 3.07 meters wide, 1.7 meters thick and weighs about 250 tons. It was quarried from Fangshan District, 70 kilometers southwest of Beijing, and the transportation required twenty thousand people. It is really a hard work that time for men to take the stones without modern ways of transportation. It is said that in Forbidden City there lies wells every 500 meters, in winter they would make use of water freezing to line an icy way for transporting the stones: and in summer they put rolling logs instead. The emperors' strong ambition burdened ordinaries a lot.

The Six Western Palaces, XiLiuGong in Chinese, is located to the north of the Hall of Mental Cultivation, three palaces on each side of an alley from north to south. They are similar in size and structures. It is the place where the empress and the concubines live. The original display inside the rooms has now opened to visitors, from which we could know and feel by ourselves what their life-like at that time.

The totally six palaces has got separate special names.The Empress Dowager Cixi lived in the Palace of Eternal Spring (Chang Chun Gong) during the reign of TongZhi. It was this son that born here as well. The last emperor's wife lived in the Palace of Accumulated Elegance (Chu Xiu Gong) until 1924 when she and Emperor PuYi were expelled. There was a famous and well-known saying that "3,000 beauties live in the Inner Court". Actually speaking, it referred to the concubines living in the Six Western Palaces.
The Six Western Palace remained exactly the original appearance after the great renovation in celebration of Cixi's 50th birthday in 1884, and later she had been lived there for 10 years. Even today, the "Eulogy of Longevity" was presented to Cixi by two scholars on her 50th birthday inscribed on the wall could be seeing clearly.

The Six Eastern Palaces stand on the east part of the Inner Court. They were also served as residential places for empresses and concubines. Most of the palaces renovated in 17th century, and now they have already opened to the public as special exhibitions such as the Museum of Bronzes and the Museum of Ceramics.

The Outer Eastern Palace of Forbidden City is different from other parts for that it could be treated as a separate part on further east without disturbing of other palaces. It was specially built for QianLong after he decided to abdicate and offer power to his son. And also Cixi had lived here around her 60th.

The whole palace resembles the system of the Inner Court and Outer Court's building style. Making up of south and north part, the front part were HuangjiDian and NingShouGong, to the north of YangXingMen was the retired emperors' inner court, that were YangXingDian, LeShouTang, XiHeXuan side by side. As for the south part, there were ChangYinGe,YueShiLou and QingShouTang etc. The famous NingShouGong Garden, common saying as QianLong Garden is the place where Empress Cixi ever lived in.

Facing the Gate of Imperial Supremacy is the famous Nine Dragon Screen. So far it is the best of its kind and the biggest in China. It was built up by Emperor QianLong, and it is 3.5 meters high and about 30 meters long. As in China, dragon was all along be represented as the top symbol of supreme power, and stands for male only. Nine and five were considered as good numbers for nine is the biggest number in singular number and five is right in the central position between one and nine. So QianLong ordered to build nine dragons with five further ones in the border.

As a story goes like that, the day before Emperor QianLong checked out the Nine-Dragon screen, a tile of the third dragon was fallen off. And there was no way to repair it at once, if founded, all the carpenters would doom to death. So one carpenter used a piece of wood to prevent the flaw to be seen. As we could see today, there still left the wood on the bottom of the third dragon.

YuHuaYuan is located in the central axis of the Forbidden City, behind the KunNingGong, constructed during the Ming dynasty in 1417; it is rectangular in shape and covers an area of approximately 12,000 square meters. The palaces on both sides are bilateral symmetry. YuanHuaYuan is the typical imperial garden in China. It is a place of entertainment for the imperial families exclusively.

The Hall of Imperial Peace (Qin'AnDian) is the main structure in the garden and the only one on the central axis - it stands in the center of the garden, encircled by a rectangular wall. It was first built in the 15th century. The hall of Imperial peace is a Taoist temple and the religious building with two gilded unicorns (Qilin) guard the door that were considered to prevent the hall from catching fire.

Pavilions

Besides there were four pavilions surrounds the Hall of Imperial Peace in the corners of YuHuaYuan. Four pavilions just stand for the four seasons over years. On the north part are FuBiTing (Jade Green Floating pavilion) and ChengRuiTing (the Pavilion of Auspicious Clarity). And WanChunTing (the pavilion of Myriad Spring) and QianQiuTing (the Pavilion of One Thousand Autumns) lay on the opposite side. Of the four pavilions, WanChunTing is the most famous one that was built in 1535. It symbols as its name goes, the season of spring, the very fresh beginning of a year.

  DuiXiuShan—Collecting Elegance Hill

Collecting Elegance Hill, also called DuiXiuShan in Chinese, is located near the north gate. In fact, it is not a real hill but a number of man-made rockeries. There were fountains on both sides and mountainside concealed water pots for saving waters, which were connected by pipes on the purpose of supply water to the fountains.
During Qing Dynasty, every emperor would clime up to the pavilion on the Double Ninth Festival (the ninth day of the ninth lunar month) to enjoy the pleasure scenery with his empress and concubines. As the old saying goes, climbing up hills on that day would get away from misfortune. So that Chinese still follow such customs every year today.
Lastly to say, right at the north gate of the Imperial Garden are placed a pair of gilded bronze elephants represented everlasting peace.

  ZhenFeiJing—Well of Concubine Pearl

Concubine Pearl is Emperor GuangXu’s most lovable concubine. She felt compassion with GuangXu and supported him to carry out WuXu political reform, but finally they failed in result and therefore Empress Cixi always regarded her as an eyesore and wanted to get rid of her all the time. Empress Cixi took the advantage of the time when the Allied Forces forced their way into Beijing in 1900; she said that to avoid ZhehFei being humiliated she should choose to death. Therefore, ZhenFei was forced to jump into the well and from then on the well was named “Well of Concubine Pearl”.

  ShenWuMen—Gate of Divine Prowess

ShenWuMen is the north gate of Forbidden City. There are bells and drums on its tower that bells struck in the morning while drums beaten in the evening. Actually speaking it is the usual way to mark time in ancient China.
ShenWuMen, as the back gate of Forbidden City, is an important entrance of palace daily affairs. The Empress Ming and Qing left the palace through this gate to attend the ceremony of starting silkworm-breeding season. Every three-year selected emperor’s beauties, the entire candidates pass through the side door of the gate into Forbidden City. In 1924, PuYi, the last emperor of China left the Forbidden City through the Gate of Divine Prowess as well.

 
•Next :the 'Outer Court'-The Forbidden City