Imperial palace of Peking

In center of Peking, the golden Imperial Palace reverberates under the sun, defended very well by splendid watchtowers in each corner, the high walls and the wide channels surround that it.

The palace of the dynasties Ming and Qing was this one. From 1420, in which its construction – and throughout near 500 years until the fall of the Qing dynasty concluded in 1911 –, twenty-four emperors resided and exerted here from supreme being able.

“ was also called Prohibited City ". It was Zhu Di, second emperor of the Ming dynasty, that ordered its construction. The work began in the fourth year of its reign and lasted 14 years.

It is easy that one loses in the countless pavilions and buildings of the palace. They say that there are altogether 9 999.5 rooms. They believed the old ones that the God of the Sky dwelled in a palace of 10 thousand rooms. Even though Children of the Sky, did not have to exceed this number. Because of the wood structures, to a large extent, many constructions have undergone – alternatively – fires and restorations. However, the Imperial Palace conserve still more or except its original dimensions, With nine thousand rooms, is the architectonic joint major and better conserved of the world.

The cost is unimaginable that meant its construction. According to historical registries: one hundred thousand craftsmen and a million men carried out forced works. The materials were traidos of diverse parts of the country, and until of the provinces of Guangdong and Yunnan, to more than thousand kilometers of distance.

The bas-relief behind the Baohe Palace, carving in a white marble block of near three hundred tons, comes from a quarry to 50 km of Peking, and exploded by the hundred of meters under earth. In order to transport that one heavy marble, already entered the winter, the workers excavated wells to each five hundred meters, removed water and watered on the way, to drag it on the ice. They utilzaron themselves, they say, more than thousand horses than 28 days in arriving at their destiny took.

We can imagine for that reason whichever works have cost throughout all the process of their construction. According to an author, the cost of the Prohibited City is comparable to the one of metropolis modern. If an empire of so vast territory had not been ours and so numerous population, he would not have been able to conclude it.

It is divided in two parts: the Outer Court to the south and the Inner Court to the north. They dominate, in first, the palaces of Taihe, Zhonghe and Baohe, where it was celebrated the state ceremonies and the interviews of the emperor with the courteous ones. In the Inner Court, the emperors treated the ordinary political subjects. The three central palaces – Qianqing, Jiaotai and Kunning, offered shelters to emperors and empresses; and the lateral ones, to the concubines.

The Prohibited City inherited and developed the traditional architectonic systems. It reflects in all the details the supreme one to be able imperial and the severity of the hierarchies. From the southern door of the old Peking to the official alcove of the emperor, the strict Norm of Nine Doors is fulfilled. With the narrow and long corridors between the doors, the Imperial Palace seems impossible of being crossed and being known in its totality.

The constructions are aligned in the South North axis of the Prohibited City, also of the city of Peking, and at that time the central meridian of all China, and they unfold symmetrically to both sides. The main constructions, like the palaces Taihe, Zhonghe, Baohe and Qianqing, emphasize on this axis to show their unquestionable central position in all the Empire.

The Taihe Palace – of 35.5 ms of stop, was in Peking the highest construction during the dynasties Ming and Qing, the symbol of the supremacy of the imperial power. It was realized important acts and ceremonies here, like the imperial weddings, the concession of the title to the empress and the examinations of the court.

Every new year, in the solstices of winter, or the birthday of the emperors, these received here the congratulations of the courteous ones and civil service and they offered banquets to them. Some registries describe the scene of the ceremonies: To the dawn, the ready honor guard throughout 500 ms – from the Wumen Door to the place of 30 thousands m2 in front of the palace was full of courteous and prostrated civil servants reverentemente.

Suddenly, campanadas and drummings they broke such calm, which meant that “ son of the Sky " had left the Inner Court, Immediately, sounded music and in tripods, turtles and cranes of bronze it ignited sandalwoods and branches of pine. When the emperor arrived at the palace and raised the gold throne slowly, all the others had to make three times the supreme reverence standing up –, they knelt down again and they touched to three times the ground with the head and shouted: “ Alive Its Majesty! “