Page 14 - PGA Community News - October '21

Page 14, PGA C.A.N.! October 2021 October 2021

The Forbidden City: Beijing’s Former Imperial Palace

By Don Kiselewski, MCC, For 224 years, the
D.S., Palm Beach Gardens Forbidden City was the
Travel Leaders seat of the Ming Dynasty.
A little more than 600 In 1644 the city fell to Li
years ago, in 1406, ground Zicheng, who proclaimed
was broken for the world’s himself emperor of the
largest palace complex Shun Dynasty. His reign
– known today as the was short-lived because
Forbidden City. of a counterattack by the
It was the fifth year of the combined forces of the
reign of the third emperor Ming and Manchu armies.
of the Ming Dynasty. The By the end of the year,
walled area that is now in the heart of Beijing, China, took the Manshu force had
only 14 years to build. This seems like an astronomical feat claimed supremacy in
considering that the complex consisted of 9,999 buildings northern China. In the fall
contained within a 20-foot-high wall that encapsulated of that year, Shunzi was
some 72 hectares (178 acres). The wall that encloses the proclaimed emperor of all
city is 2,300 feet from east to west and 2,900 feet from China. “Supremacy” was
north to south. It is 26 feet wide at the base sloping to a replaced with “Harmony”
width of 20 feet at the top. A moat that is 20 feet deep as the theme of the
and 60 feet wide surrounds the city, further buffering the dynasty, changing many
interior from the outside world. Records indicated that of the building names
more than a million workers, of which around 100,000 accordingly.
were artisans, worked around the clock to complete the There were other
construction of the complex. changes in ownership of
Designed and constructed as the “Imperial Palace,” the the city. Anglo-French
complex has been bestowed with numerous names over forces took control of the
the course of its history. The “Forbidden” aspect of the
name stemmed from the fact that no one could enter or The Forbidden City
leave the city without the permission of the emperor. Other on page 15
names associated with the palace throughout time were the
“Forbidden Palace,” “Purple Forbidden Palace,” “Layered
Inner City” and the “Purple Forbidden Walled City.”
The Mongols ruled China from an imperial palace
located in Beijing in the latter portion of the 14 century
th
during the Yuan Dynasty. When Emperor Hongwu
established the Ming Dynasty, he moved the palace to
Nanjing in the south and ordered the Mongol palace razed.
When Hongwu’s son Zhu Dii became the Yongle Emperor
in 1402, he ordered the construction of a new imperial
palace in Beijing (the Forbidden City). Northwest corner of the Forbidden City. Photo by Charlie Fong

A carved ramp over which the Emperors were carried to gain
entrance to the Hall of Supreme Harmony

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