According to the ancient Chinese astrological theory, Ziweiyuan (i.e., the North Star) is located in Zhongtian, which is the residence of the Emperor of Heaven, and the corresponding heaven and man, and is also known as the Forbidden City as the residence of the emperor.

After seizing the throne, Zhu Di, the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty, decided to move the capital to Beijing, that is, he began to build this palace, which was completed in the eighteenth year of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty (1420).

In 1911, the Xinhai Revolution overthrew China's last feudal monarchy, the Qing Dynasty, and in 1924 Emperor Puyi was expelled from the palace.

For more than 500 years, a total of 24 emperors lived and ruled the country.

The Forbidden City is surrounded on all sides by a wall 10m high and a moat 52m wide. The city is 961 meters long from north to south and 753 meters wide from east to west, covering an area of 780,000 square meters and 8,700 houses.

There is a city gate on each side of the city wall, among which the noon gate in the south and the Shenwu gate in the north are now exclusively for visitors to visit and enter.

The layout of the palace buildings in the city unfolds along the central axis to the east and west. The red walls and yellow tiles, the carved beams of the paintings, are splendid.

The palace tower, high and low, spectacular and majestic. In the morning and sunset, it is like a fairyland on earth. The southern half of the city is centered on the three major halls of Taihe, Zhonghe and Baohe, and the two sides are supplemented by the two halls of Wenhua and Wuying, which is the place where the emperor holds a court meeting, called

"Front". The northern half is centered on the three palaces of Qianqing, Jiaotai, Kunning and the six palaces of the east and west and the imperial garden, there are Fengxian, Huangji and other halls on the east side of it, and there are Yangxin Palace, Yuhua Pavilion, Cining Palace, etc. on the west side, it is the place where the emperor and the concubines live, hold sacrifices and religious activities and deal with daily government affairs, called

"Back bed". The total area of the palace building is 163,000 square meters. The layout of the whole group of palace buildings is strict and orderly, and every inch of bricks and tiles follows the feudal hierarchical etiquette system, reflecting the supreme authority of the emperor.

In the era of feudal imperialism, ordinary people could not and did not dare to get close to it. The palace where the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties lived was called the Forbidden City.

There are two Forbidden Cities, one in Beijing and one in Nanjing. Why is this Forbidden City called the Forbidden City?

It turns out that according to the ancient Chinese astronomical theory, based on long-term observation of space celestial bodies, it is believed that Ziwei Xingyuan resides in the middle of the heaven, and its position is eternal and unchanged, and it is the residence of the Emperor of Heaven.

Therefore, the heavenly palace where the emperor lives is called the purple palace

"Ziwei is in the middle" said. The feudal emperor claimed to be the son of the Emperor of Heaven and the son of the true dragon; And the palace where they live is likened to the purple palace in the sky.

They hope that they are in the Purple Palace, and they can govern with virtue, naturalize in all directions, and come to the court from all sides, so as to achieve the eternal stability of the country and maintain the purpose of long-term rule.

The emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties, out of order to maintain their own authority and dignity and consider their own safety, built the imperial palace, which was both magnificent and fortified.

This city is not only full of palaces, pavilions, and surrounded by a wall more than 10 meters high and a moat 52 meters wide, but also a forest of sentry posts and a strong guard.

Ordinary people don't need to talk about watching the towers and palaces, even if they get closer, it is absolutely not allowed.

The palace where the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties and their dependents lived, except for the palace maids, eunuchs, and guards who served them, were only allowed to enter by summoned officials and authorized personnel.

This is a step that outsiders can't take beyond the thunder pool [REDACTED WORDS]. Therefore, the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties is not only known as the purple palace, but also a forbidden place, so it was formerly called the Forbidden City.

The Forbidden City in Beijing covers an area of 724,250 square meters, and the moat and the green belt of the city walls are not counted.

The building area of the palace house is 155,000 square meters. The Forbidden City is a rectangular city, 961 meters long from north to south, 753 meters wide from east to west, surrounded by a wall more than 10 meters high, and the circumference of the outer edge of the city wall is 3428 meters (there is a moat with a width of 52 meters outside the city wall, which is an important facility to protect the Forbidden City).

There is a gate on each side of the city wall, the south is the noon gate, the north is the Shenwu gate, the east is the Donghua gate, and the west is the Xihua gate.

The four corners of the city wall have four intricately designed corner towers. The Forbidden City of Beijing was built in the fifth year of Yongle (1404 ~ 1424 AD) in the Ming Dynasty, and was built in the fifteenth to eighteenth years of Yongle.

The entire construction project was supervised by the Marquis Chen Gui, and the specific responsibility was the planner Wu Zhong. The Forbidden City is located in the middle of the capital, and the central axis passes through the middle of the imperial city, that is, through the three major halls and three palaces in the Forbidden City.

The main gate of the Forbidden City is the noon gate due south, also known as

"Five Phoenix Towers". The noon gate is the highest gate in the palace city, and major ceremonies such as amnesty and sacrifice of prisoners are held at the noon gate.

Its north gate is Shenwu Gate, the east gate is Donghua Gate, and the west gate is Xihua Gate. As the palace city of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Forbidden City is divided into two parts: the outer court and the inner court.

The Outer Dynasty was the place where the emperor worked. All major state events and various ceremonies are held in foreign courts.

The outer court is composed of the central axis of Tiananmen Gate - Duanmen Gate - Wumen Gate - Taihe Hall - Zhonghe Hall - Baohe Hall and the palace pavilion corridor on both sides of the central axis.

The inner court is the place where the emperor's concubines live, including the Qianqing Palace, Jiaotai Palace, Kunning Palace, Imperial Garden and the East and West Six Palaces on both sides of the palace group.

The Forbidden City in Beijing was the palace of the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties. From the fifth year of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty (1407 AD), Ming Chengzu concentrated the craftsmen of the whole country, requisitioned 200,000 or 300,000 migrant workers and military workers, and after 14 years, built this large-scale palace group.

After the Qing Dynasty continued to use, only part of it was rebuilt and rebuilt, and the overall layout basically remained unchanged.

It is the culmination of ancient Chinese architectural art and is the concentrated embodiment of the idea of imperial power in China's authoritarian society for more than 2,000 years.

Like the imperial palaces of previous dynasties in China, the overall planning and architectural form of the Forbidden City fully obeyed and embodied the requirements of the ancient patriarchal ritual system, highlighting the supreme imperial authority.

All palaces are divided

"Outer Dynasty" and

"Inner Court" two parts. The outer dynasty is dominated by the three halls of Taihe, Zhonghe and Baohe, there is Taihe Gate in front, and there are two groups of palaces of Wenhua and Wuying on both sides.

From the perspective of the function of the building, the outer court is the place where the emperor handles government affairs and holds court meetings, which is located in the front of the Forbidden City, while the inner court includes the Qianqing Palace, the Jiaotai Palace, and the Kunning Palace, which is the place where the emperor and queen live, and is located in the back of the Forbidden City.

On both sides of the hall of this group, there are six palaces for residential use, Ningshou Palace, Cining Palace, etc.; and four imperial gardens scattered throughout the inner court.

There are also the duty rooms of the forbidden army and some service buildings in the palace, as well as the low houses where the eunuchs and palace maids live, and between the main gate of the palace gate and Tiananmen Square, there are court houses on both sides of the royal road.

Outside the room, the east is the temple, and the west is the altar of the community. Gyeongsan, in the northern part of Miyagi, is another group of buildings attached to the palace.

Taihe Gate was built in the eighteenth year of Yongle, it is the south gate of the three major halls of the Outer Dynasty, it was called "Fengtian Gate" in the early Ming Dynasty, and it was renamed "Taihe Gate" in the Qing Dynasty.

It is located on a three-meter-high one-story stone Sumeru court, with a width of nine rooms, a depth of four rooms, and a height of 23.

8 meters, is the highest and largest gate in the existing ancient buildings in our country. Its roof is in the form of a heavy eaves and a mountain.

In front of the door are a pair of tall bronze lions. There are two gates of Zhaode and Zhendu on both sides of Taihe Gate; The east and west sides of the courtyard have Concord, Xi and two gates; There are houses connected between the gates, and there are towers built at the northeast and northwest corners.

The scale and volume of all these gates, buildings and houses are smaller than those of Taihe Gate, which makes Taihe Gate stand out in the whole square.

After entering the Taihe Gate, there is a larger courtyard. The width from east to west is still 200 meters, and the depth from north to south is about 190 meters, which is enough to accommodate a guard of honor of 10,000 people.

In the wide courtyard are the three major halls of the outer courts: the Taihe Palace, the Zhonghe Hall and the Baohe Palace. Taihe Hall is commonly known

"Jinluan Palace" is the tallest building in the Beijing palace city of the Ming and Qing dynasties, including the three-story Sumeru seat with a height of 35.

05 meters, plus the kiss total height 37. 44 meters, each layer is in the form of a Sumeru seat, surrounded by a white jade railing, the railing is expected to have a column head, and there is a spitting water mantle head under it, and each column head is decorated.

Its hall is 11 rooms wide, five rooms deep, with a construction area of 2377 square meters, and it is also the largest wooden structure palace in the existing ancient buildings in our country.

The roof of the main hall is heavy eaves hall type, that is, the "four heavy houses" of the Yin Shang period, which is the "supreme" shape.

The roof of the horned beast and the bucket jumped the most; The carvings on the royal road and railings, the colorful paintings in the hall, and the motifs of the caisson all use the motifs of dragons and phoenixes that represent the imperial power, and the hisaki, gyashi, bronze turtle, and bronze crane on the platform can only be displayed here.

The gold lacquer carved dragon "throne" in the hall is a symbol of autocratic imperial power. The Taihe Hall is the place where the emperor holds the enthronement ceremony, the celebration and the place where the civil and military officials congratulate him, and if there is a general who is ordered to go on the expedition, he must also receive the seal in the Taihe Palace.

In the Ming Dynasty, the palace test and the New Year's Day banquet were also held in the Taidian. The middle hall behind the Taihe Hall is a building with a square plan, three rooms deep and wide, and a corridor around it, with an area of 580 square meters.

The roof is a single-eaves pointed, copper-tired gilded treasure top, it is the place of rest when the emperor goes to the Taihe Palace.

The Baohe Hall behind the Zhonghe Palace was the place where the palace examination was held during the Qing Dynasty. The main gate of the inner court is called Qianqing Palace, and in front of it is a long flat courtyard, commonly known as Hengjie.

The south side of the Hengjie is the Baohe Palace, and the north side of the Houbao Hall goes straight down to the three-story pedestal to reach the Hengjie, so this is the handover part of the outer court and the inner court.

Qianqing Gate is located in the north of Hengjie, facing south in the center, it is a wide five-bay room, single eaves rest mountain roof, there is a white stone pedestal under the palace type gate.

The specifications of the Qianlong Gate are slightly lower than the main gate of the three major halls, Taihe Gate, and there is a glazed decorative shadow wall on both sides of the door, which is divided into a figure-eight shape.

This pair of shadow walls is made of bricks, with glazed eaves on the red wall, glazed Sumeru seats below, and glazed decorations in the center and four corners of the wall.

The Qianqing Palace is the main hall of the Hou Three Palaces, and in the early Ming and Qing dynasties, the Qianqing Palace has been the sleeping palace of the emperor and empress.

The shape of the palace is nine open rooms, the roof of the heavy eaves palace, and there are two small halls of Zhaoren Hall and Hongde Hall on the left and right.

In addition to the emperor's residence, he often summoned court officials here, read the chapters, handled government affairs, and even received foreign envoys in the palace.

Kunning Palace is in the north of Qianqing Palace, and it is also a large hall with nine open rooms and a heavy eaves on the top of the palace. It was the main palace where the empress lived during the Ming and early Qing dynasties.

During the Qing Dynasty, according to the customs and habits of the Manchus, the Kunning Palace was renovated, mainly to divide the palace into two parts.

In the western part, a large circular kang was added along the wall, and a cauldron was placed indoors. In the east part of Kunning Palace, it is built as the cave room where the emperor gets married, the entrance is changed to the east side, there is the palace lamp of double happiness in the palace, the shadow wall of double happiness on the red background, there is the dragon and phoenix happy bed against the north wall, and the colorful veil embroidered with the picture of a hundred children is hung in front of the bed.

After the reconstruction, the Kunning Palace also changed the original rhombic fan to a hanging window with a straight pane. In the eastern and northern half of the Forbidden City, there is a complete group of palace complexes, which is the Ningshou Palace complex.

In the Ming Dynasty, there was also a group of buildings here, but not on a large scale; During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Ningshou Palace was built here, which is a very complete group of buildings, it is divided into two parts: the palace in front and the dormitory in the back.

In the latter part, it can be divided into three districts, the middle road is the residential area, the east road is the entertainment area, and the west road is the garden area.

The entire complex is surrounded by high walls, making it a fairly enclosed and independent area. The front entrance of the Ningshou Palace complex is the Huangji Gate, there is a horizontal courtyard in front of the door, the left and right sides are the Qinxi Gate and the Jinqing Gate, and the south cloth is a shadow wall facing the Huangji Gate, forming the wide area in front of the door.

Huangji Gate is made of glazed glass outside the wall into three doors of the seventh floor and the three doors of the weeping lotus pillar, there are glazed tiles out of the eaves on the three door openings, there are buckets and beams under the eaves, there are swirl paintings made of glazed pasted on the beams, there are stone Sumeru seats on the door, four water tanks are placed in front of the door, and the whole gate is gorgeous and solemn.

There is a glazed wall on the south side of the Huangji Gate, and there are nine dragons on the wall, commonly known as the Nine Dragons Wall.

Entering the Huangji Gate, you will come to the courtyard in front of the Ningshou Gate, the courtyard is very wide, and there are pine trees planted around it to indicate that it is used by the Emperor Taishang.

Ningqing Gate is located in the center of the north of the courtyard, the five bays are wide, the single eaves rest the mountain roof, below is a layer of white pedestal, there are three steps in front of the pedestal, the history of the middle is the royal road, there are shadow walls on the east and west sides of the gate to swing in the shape of eight, there are two gilded bronze lions in front of the door, the whole gate is very similar to the Qianqing Gate of the back three palaces from the shape to the scale.

Located in the heart of Beijing, the Forbidden City is now known as the Forbidden City, which means the imperial palace of the past. It is the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and it is also the largest, most majestic and most well-preserved ancient palace and ancient building complex in the world today.

Among them, the Taihe Hall is the most tall and brilliant, and the grand ceremony of the emperor's enthronement, wedding, canonization, general, and expedition are all held here.

The most famous of the inner court is the Palace of Raising the Heart, where the Empress Dowager Cixi listened to the government for more than 40 years. Beijing is an international metropolis and China's transportation hub, with the world's major airlines flying between Beijing and other international cities and major cities in China.

In addition, in Hue, the ancient capital of Vietnam, there is also a Forbidden City, which is the Royal Palace of Hue.

The Forbidden City of Hue was the royal palace of the Nguyen Dynasty, the last dynasty of Vietnam, and served as the royal residence for 143 years, from its construction in 1802 to its fall in 1945.

The Forbidden City of Hue was built to the specifications of the Forbidden City in Beijing, with a moat outside the palace. The main gate noon gate, like the noon gate of the Forbidden City, has double rams, but it is very short.

Among the four gates of the palace, only the noon gate has a city tower. The important palaces, pavilions and towers of the Wumen Gate in the palace are all decorated with glazed tiles.

Many of the palaces were destroyed during the war, but have been rebuilt. In the imperial palace, there are the emperor's diligent administration hall to deal with government affairs, the emperor's bedroom - Qiancheng Palace, the queen's Kuntai Palace, the prince's residence of the Guangming Palace and the concubine's Shunhui Courtyard.

The gardens and rivers of the palace are evenly distributed throughout the palace.