-Location

The Forbidden Palace is located in the Eastern part of China in a city called
Beijing which is here, and it is located in the Dongcheng District at the center of
the Imperial City of Beijing which is over here.
-History of the Forbidden Palace
There really isn't any special story to why the building was created.
When Zhu Di the third emperor of the Ming dynasty became the Yongle Emperor in
1402, he moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing and he needed a building which
would serve as the seat of the Ming dynasty, so in 1406. construction began on what
would become the Forbidden City.
The construction of the palace lasted for 14 years and had more than a million
people working on it. All the materials used in the construction of it were
expensive, such as logs of Phoebe zhennan wood, marble and "golden bricks" which
were special baked paving bricks from Suzhou.
From 1420 to 1644, the palace was the seat of Ming dynasty and Beijing became the
political and economic center of China. In April 1644, during the final year of the
Ming dynasty and the Ming peasant rebellions, rebel forces led by Li Zicheng
managed to capture the palace, who proclaimed himself emperor of the Shun dynasty,
which didn't last long as combined armies of former Ming general Wu Sangui and
Manchu forces attacked the palace, which destroyed parts of the palace in the
process. By October, the Manchus had achieved supremacy in the northern part of
China and a ceremony was held at the Forbidden City to proclaim the 5 year old
child Shizu of the last Ming emperor the new ruler of all China under the Qing
dynasty.
During the peaceful times between 1644 to 1860, the palace has got changed a bit,
mainly made the name plates in the palace bilingual, so it was written in Chinese
and Manchu and introduced Shamanist elements to the palace.
During the Second Opium War, a war on rights to import opium to China, Anglo-French
forces took over the Forbidden City in 1860 and occupited it till the end of the
war in the same year. It wasn't long until it would be occupied again by foreign
forces, because in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion, a rebellion against foreign
spheres of influence and Christians in North China, when it was occupied by the
Eight-Nation Alliance of foreign powers. (UK, Russia, Japan, France, Germany, US,
Italy and Austria-Hungary) until the end of the war in 1901.
After being the home of 24 emperors, 14 which were of the Ming dynasty and the
other 10 of the Qing dynasty, the Forbidden city ceased being the political center
of China in 1912, after Puyi, the last Emperor of China, abdicated. The Palace
Museum was estbalished in the Forbidden City in 1925. But it wouldn't see alot of
peace because in 1933, during the Japanese invasion of China forced the evacuation
of the treasures. Part of the treasure was returned at the end of WW2, but the
other part was evacuated to Taiwan in 1948 and was kept in storage until 1965.,
when it was showcased in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. In 1949. the city
had some damaged done to it as the county was swept up in revolutionary zeal from
the establishment of the People's Republic of China. During the Cultural Revolution
that lasted from 1966 - 1976, the Forbidden City was protected by an army battalion
and no further destruction happened to it. The Forbidden City was declared a World
Heritage Site in 1987 as the "Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties" and
it is currently administered by the Palace Museum.
-Structure
The Forbidden City is a building in a shape of a rectangle that measures 961m from
N to S and 753m from east to west. It consists of 980 out of 999 surviving
buildings and 8886 out of 9999 rooms. It is surrounded by a 8m high wall and a 6m
deep moat. The walls are made with earth cores and surfaced with the golden baked
bricks. At the four corners of the wall sit towers and there are 4 gates in total.
The palace was divided into two parts: The South or Outer court which was used for
ceremonial purposes and North or Inner court which was the Emperors residence and
for day-to-day affairs of the state. You are able to get into the South court
through 3 gates: the main Meridian Gate, the West Glorius gate and the East Glorius
Gate. When going through the Meridian Gate, you enter a huge square with a river
piercing through it. Beyond the square stands the Gate of Supreme Harmony and
behind it the Supreme Harmony Square. The square is composed of three halls: Hall
of Supreme Harmony, Hall of Central Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony. The
Hall of Supreme Harmony was used as a place for hosting enthronement and wedding
ceremonies, and for holding court to discuss affairs of states. The Hall of Central
Harmony was used by the Emperor to prepare and rest before and during ceremonies
and the Hall of Preserving Harmony was used for rehearsing ceremonies. In the south
west of the Outer court is the Hall of Military Eminence which was used to receive
ministers and hold court sometimes. In the south east of the Outer court is the
Hall of Literary Glory which was used by scholars for ceremonial lectures and later
it became the office of the Grand Secretariat and a copy of the Complete Library of
the Four Treasuries which is the largest collection of books consisting of 2,3
millon pages of text full of story books, history pages, reports, etc. And finally
to the north-east is the Southern Three Places, which was the residence of the
Crown Prince.
The Inner Court is seperated from the Outer Court by a courtyard between them and
it was the home for the Emperor and his family. During the Qing time, the Emperor
lived and worked almost exclusively in the Inner Court. At the centre of the Inner
Court is another set of three halls and from the south, these are: Palace of
Heavenly Purity, Hall of Union and Palace of Earthly Tranquility. They were smaller
than the Outer Courts. The Palace of Heavenly Purity was used as the Emperors
residence until the fourth Emperor of the Qing dynasty started living in the Hall
of Mental Cultivation to the west. The hall was then used as Emperor's audience
hall. Located around the Hall of Mental Cultivation were various key government
bodiesand the Grand Council. The Hall of Union was to the north and it served as a
bridge between Empeor and the Empress and also as a storage of the 25 Imperial
Seals of the Qing dynasty and other ceremonial items. North of that is the Palace
of Erthly Tranquility which was used as Empresses residence until the Qing dynasty
came and converted large portions of the Palace for Shamanist worship. Behind these
the halls lies the Imperial Garden and the Gate of Divine Might. To the west and
the east of the three halls were six palaces each and they were the residences of
the imperial consorts. Each Palace was managed by a consort with the rank of
Concubine and lower ranking consorts lived in the side-halls of the Palaces. Many
of the Qing Emperors were born and raised inside these Palaces. To the west of the
Hall of Mental Cultivation is the Cining Palace which was the residence of widowed
consorts of previous emperors. They lived here in accordance with feudal manners,
as the empeor was not allowed to live with the wives of deceased emperors.
Religion was also a huge part of the life for the imperial court. Inside the Inner
court were multiple shrines dedicated to Shamnist, Taoist and Buddhist religion
where the emperors would pray.
-Palace Museum
The collections of the Palace Museum are based on the Qing imperial collection,
including paintings, ceramics, seals, etc. According to the latest audit, it has
around 1,862,690 pieces of art. In addition, there is a large collection of rare
books and historical documents, including government documents from the Ming and
Qing dynasty. There are a lot of very old pieces that are from before the 12th
century, and even some pieces that are as old as 211 BC. Inside the Museum, there
is also a Jade collection as Jade has a special place in Chinese culture and there
are some pieces here that date over 9000 years. The comprehensive collection
preserved the knowledge of the daily life and ceremonial protocols of the imperial
era.
gǎnxiènín de guānzhù！- thank you for you attention!