The Forbidden City in Beijing, China is the largest and most mysterious palace complex on Earth. For the nearly 600 years of its existence it has housed some of the most powerful men and women in Chinese history. For around 500 of those six-hundred years, the city had been off limits to common citizens and foreigners. Those who broke this rule were punished with death. It is no wonder that a place such as this has captured the imagination of people the world over. Most of this palace complex is open to visitors today, but much of the history of the Forbidden City is still an enigma.
The Forbidden City sits on an impressive 250 acres of land. The palace complex is made up of more than 800 buildings which have a total of nearly 9,000 rooms combined. A man-made mountain called Coal or Prospect Hill sits in the background of the Forbidden City. According to feng-shui belief, having a mountain to the rear of the city helps to balance the chi of the place. Because of the flat landscape of Beijing, it was necessary to construct the mountain so that the imperial palace would have properly flowing chi. Feng-shui was probably one of the main concerns for the design of the Forbidden City.
There is a legend that the design of the Forbidden City came to a monk in a dream. The legend goes on to state that the monk gave his designs to a prince by the name of Yongle, near the end of the 14th century. Yongle (or Yung-lo) had ambitions for the imperial throne of China. He went on to defeat the Imperial Army with his troops and declared himself emperor of China. Soon after, he began planning for the construction of the dream city. It is unclear whether or not a monk is really responsible for the designs of the Forbidden City, but that was the story that Yongle told when he built the palace complex.
Yongle chose the site in Beijing for the Forbidden City and declared it the new capital of China. It was then considered the center of the universe and a place from which the divine emperors could rule more effectively. Construction at the site began around 1406 and took around 15 years to complete. Estimates for the amount of workers needed for the project range from 500,000 to one million. Roughly 100 million bricks, 200 million tiles and an untold amount of lumber and marble were used. The complex was finished in 1421.
The Ming emperor, Yongle died in 1424, while visiting Mongolia. After his death, the Forbidden City remained the home of the twelve emperors of the Ming Dynasty that followed Yongle. The emperors were joined in the city by the members of their court, which consisted mostly of eunuchs and concubines. For them, the palace complex would be their home until they died. The emperors would only allow the members of their court into the city, which naturally made outsiders curious.
Entering the city without permission meant death for the intruder. This death was often slow and painful. A favorite punishment for intruders was called “Death by a Thousand Cuts.” This torturous method involved the executioner taking chunks of tissue out of the “criminal” while avoiding vital organs, so the person would remain awake until death finally overcame them. Despite this, many people wanted to enter the city to see what was happening inside.
Some civilians got their wish in 1644. The emperors of the Ming Dynasty were living the utmost of lavish lifestyles with their servants while they were literally taxing civilians into starvation. A rebellion rose up and stormed the Forbidden City. The last Ming emperor (Sizong) was reportedly in a drunken stupor when the rebels arrived. He decided that he should kill all of the women of his court to keep them from the rebels. He cut off his own daughter’s arm in the process. He then went up Coal Hill and hung himself, thus making way for the Qing Dynasty.
It is sometimes said that a curse was placed on the Qing emperors by the Yeho tribe. The curse was essentially that the house of Qing would fall by the hand of a Yeho woman. Some believe that this curse came to fruition. Nonetheless, in 1644 the Qing Dynasty began and the mysteries of the Forbidden City became even more intriguing. The eunuchs of the palace began to set the stage for their own intrigues and at times there were up to 3,000 of them in the city. They were the palace spies and the overseers of the concubines. There are numerous tales of scandals enacted by the eunuchs, but it is nearly impossible to tell truth from fiction when it comes to some of the history of the Forbidden City.
In 1853, a seventeen-year-old girl named Cixi was brought to the palace to be a concubine of the emperor; she was a member of the Yeho family. Eventually she became the most powerful woman in the history of China and many believe that she brought about not only the destruction of the Qing Dynasty, but the destruction of Imperial China. Cixi went against tradition and became the Empress Dowager, Lonyu. She ruled China for a time before naming her two-year-old nephew, Pu-Yi as her successor. Pu-Yi became the last emperor of China and the last to live in the Forbidden City in Beijing.
Pu-Yi abdicated in 1912, at the age of five. He was allowed to remain in the Forbidden City for a while with his family. In 1923, there was a major fire in the storehouses of the city. Many people believe that the eunuchs set the fire to hide the fact that they had been stealing from the royal treasure for years. However, the cause of the fire has never been determined.
Pu-Yi was forced to vacate the Forbidden City in 1925. He was the twenty-fourth and the last emperor to live in the palace. Twenty-four years later the Forbidden City was opened to the public. Now, people from all walks of life can enter the once sacred walls of the now not so Forbidden City.
Source
The Forbidden City: Dynasty and Destiny, 1996, Ron Nelson, Film Roos Inc. for A&E; Network
