Chapter 6 Section 5 Design Ideas of the Forbidden City in Beijing

In the long-term feudal society, architecture will inevitably be affected by the political system and ideology of the society.Feudal centralized politics, strict hierarchy, worship of heaven, earth, sun and moon, gods and ancestors, belief in yin and yang, five elements, and various schools of thought will directly or indirectly affect the content and form of buildings.This influence is naturally more obvious in palace buildings, especially in the Forbidden City, where the political system and ideology of some feudal societies have almost become the direct guiding principles of planning and design.Prominent performance in the following aspects.

(1) The highly centralized politics and strict hierarchical concept of the feudal society are the principles that must be reflected in the architecture of the Forbidden City.From the perspective of the overall layout, the main buildings representing feudal imperial power are concentrated on the central axis of the Forbidden City, and the most important Hall of Supreme Harmony is located in the center of the former dynasty.From the perspective of the building itself, the Hall of Supreme Harmony is the largest in the entire Forbidden City, with the highest-grade double-eave hipped roof, the highest-grade golden dragon and seal-style color paintings, and the most exquisite doors and windows with rhombic leaves.In short, this palace representing the feudal imperial power occupies a leading position in terms of position, size, decoration and other aspects, which fully embodies the idea of ​​imperial power as the center and imperial power first.

The Meridian Gate, the gate of the Forbidden City, has three doors on the front of the city wall, and one door on the left and right sides, called the left and right Yemen.Why open five doors, because they each have their own uses.The middle gate is exclusively for the emperor to enter and exit the Forbidden City; except for the emperor, empresses can enter the palace through this gate when they get married; Only allowed to go once, that's all.The east gate on the front is for civil and military officials to enter and exit; the west gate on the front is for the princes and princes of the royal family to enter and exit; the Ye gate on the east and west sides, when the emperor ascends to the palace to meet with the princes and ministers, civil officials enter and exit the East Ye gate, and military officials enter and exit the West Ye gate ; When the palace examination is held, the Jinshi from all over the country who go to the examination are arranged according to their ranks, the odd number goes to the east gate, and the even number goes to the west gate; the gate of an imperial city reflects how strict the hierarchy is in use.

The same goes for the steps that go up and down the base.The steps of important palaces are divided into three parts: left, middle and right. There are step-by-step steps on the left and right, while the central part is specially used for the emperor to go up and down the platform. Therefore, this part is called "Royal Road", and it is often carved with Dragon pattern for decoration.In fact, the emperor didn't really leave. He was carried by a sedan chair and suspended over the steps. This hierarchy is also evident in the decoration of the building.The important gate of the palace complex is a kind of gate, which is made of thick wooden boards and has rows of door nails on it. A kind of decoration on the door, but also attaches a grade difference to this decoration.According to the regulations of the Ming Dynasty, red door and gold nails were used for the gates of imperial palace buildings, and red, green, black, gold, copper, and iron nails were used for the lower royal officials according to their ranks.In addition, we also make a fuss about the number of door nails. The gates of the imperial palace use the most nails, that is, there are 81 door nails in nine rows and nine rows, 49 in seven rows and seven rows, 25 in five rows and five rows, and so on.Therefore, on the doors of the Meridian Gate, Taihe Gate, Shenwu Gate and other gates in the Forbidden City, we can see the highest-level version of the gate with 81 gold nails (Figure 7).

As mentioned earlier, there are a series of glazed animals on the roof of the palace building for decoration.The highest level of this kind of beast decoration is also stipulated to use nine, namely dragon, phoenix, lion, Tianma, seahorse, Xiezhi [xie zhi Xiezhi], bullfighting, suanni [suan ni sour mud], and fish in order from front to back. arrangement.In the first three halls and the last three palaces of the Forbidden City, nine are used on the roofs of the Taihe, Baohe, Qianqing, and Kunning palaces; only seven can be used for the Zhonghe hall and the Jiaotai hall; the status of the Taihe gate The important thing is that seven are used, and only five are used for the Qianqing Gate, which is a little less than it; we saw only three beasts used in some pavilions and pavilions in the imperial garden.This is of course in line with the hierarchy, but there is another problem here, that is, the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Preserving Harmony, and the Palace of Qianqing all use nine beasts, so how to highlight the Hall of Supreme Harmony?Therefore, the craftsman specially added a "hang shi" [hang shihangshi] behind the nine beasts in the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Hang Shi is not a beast but a character. Different from other halls, this can be regarded as an isolated case in ancient architecture.

(2) The role of ideology such as Yin Yang and Five Elements.The theory of Yin-Yang and Five Elements is a philosophical concept in ancient China and a view on the objective world.It is believed that everything in the world is divided into yin and yang; even the positive and negative numbers, odd and even numbers in numbers, up and down, front and back in orientation all belong to yin and yang; yin and yang are both opposite and interdependent .In the Yuan Dynasty, there were yin and yang academic officials in various places, who were in charge of astronomy, star divination, determining the location of houses, seeking good luck and avoiding bad luck, etc.The five elements refer to the five elements that make up matter, namely water, fire, wood, gold, and earth. Later, the directions are divided into east, south, west, north, and middle, and the colors are divided into blue, yellow, red, white, and black. The sound is divided into Gong, Shang, Jiao, Zheng, and Yu pentameters, and a regular combination relationship between the five elements, five directions, five colors, and five scales has also been established.

The design and construction of the Forbidden City complex is also influenced by this yin-yang and five elements. In terms of planning and layout, the outer court is yang, and the inner bedroom is yin;In numbers, odd numbers are yang, and even numbers are yin, so there are three halls in the outer court, while there are only two palaces in the inner chamber (the original Jiaotai hall was not added later).When we entered the Meridian Gate and came to the square in front of Taihemen, we could find a Jinshui River arched in front of Taihemen, with five Jinshui bridges on the river.In fact, this river is not the original natural river but dug artificially.In ancient times, the construction of houses paid attention to the choice of good terrain and environment. Generally speaking, it is more appropriate for the house to be backed by mountains and face water.This optimal environmental position is fixed and becomes a symbol of auspiciousness, so even if there is no such natural condition, it must be artificially created for auspiciousness.The golden water river in front of Taihe Gate was dug out during the construction of the Forbidden City.Starting from the northwest corner of the palace city, the water of the moat is diverted, passing through important buildings such as Wuying Hall, Taihe Gate, Wenyuan Pavilion, Nansan Suo, Donghua Gate and the front of the palace, and then flowing into the moat at the southeast corner, forming several layers of water. The environment facing the water in front of the building.On the north side of the Forbidden City, Jingshan was piled up with the soil dug from the moat, so for the Forbidden City, it is tantamount to having an auspicious pattern with mountains behind and water in front.

Numbers also represent certain meanings in Yin Yang and Five Elements.In ancient times, odd numbers were regarded as yang, even numbers were regarded as yin, and among yang numbers, nine characters were the highest, so nine characters became the auspicious numbers specially used by emperors.So there are nine dragons carved on the steps and royal road; there are nine dragons on the important screen wall, which is called the Nine Dragon Wall; there are nine roads and nine rows of 81 door nails on the gate of the palace; even the small animals on the roof have nine as the highest level.