Chapter 45 The Inner Court of the Imperial City Panorama of the capital

There are three gates to the south of the imperial city, which are the passage for courtiers and envoys to go to court during major court meetings. Both the main gate Xuande Gate, the left and right are the left door and the right door, the left door is the Ming Hall, the right door is the Tianzhang, Baowen and other pavilions to the west. To the east is the Privy Council, the Zhongshu Province, the Metropolitan Hall, and the Menxia Province.

The side gate of the Daqing Palace, the general attendants, the imperial history platform, etc. dismount at this gate, and there is a side gate to the north, this side gate is the prime minister, the ruling dismount here, and then they are all walking to the Wende Palace. Then enter the second side door, the east is the east side door of the Daqing Palace, the west is the province of the lower province of the Zhongshu Gate, the Xiuguo History Institute, the south is the Wende Hall is the hall of the daily meeting of the hundred officials, behind the Wende Hall is a street in the east-west direction, to the west is the Xihua Gate, to the east is the Donghua Gate, and there are two doors near each other, this is the left Jiasu Gate and the right Jiasu Gate, facing south is the Left Yintai Gate and the Right Yintai Gate.

From the Donghua Gate through the Xuanyou Gate into the Bentai Palace, Xuanyou Gate to the west is the Zichen Palace, the emperor accepts the Khitan envoys is here, the next is the vertical arch hall, the Huangyi Palace, the Jiying Palace, behind is the Chongzheng Palace, the Baohe Palace, the Sui Si Palace, the back door is called the Gongchen Gate. To the north of Xuanyou Gate is Qingning Palace, Medical Bureau, Dianzhong Province, Imperial Kitchen, Liushang Bureau, Hanlin Calligraphy Bureau, Zishan Hall, etc.

Behind the vertical arch hall is the Funing Hall where the emperor rests, there are two opposite doors on both sides, it is the left Zhaoqing Gate and the right Zhaoqing Gate, behind the Funing Hall is the Rouyi Palace, and then it is the Qinming Palace, the Kunning Palace. To the east of the Funing Hall is the Qingshou Hall and the Cuide Hall, and further east is the Yeonhe Hall and the Gyeongbok Hall. The west side of the Funing Hall is the Baoci Palace, the Xiwei Palace, the Baoci Hall is the Xuanhe Palace, the Xuanhe Palace, the Ruisi Palace, etc., and the Baoci Hall is the Chonghe Palace, the Zizheng Palace, the Longtu Pavilion, the Jade Palace, the Tianzhang Pavilion, the Jiade Palace, the Baowen Pavilion, the Yanchang Palace, the Yide Palace, etc.

Of course, there are many internal divisions in the imperial city, such as the imperial secretariat academy, the imperial city division in charge of the palace gate and guards, etc., the quadripartite hall that receives envoys from all directions, the Tongjin division that conveys the seals, and the armory that stores the weapons of the forbidden army, which are divided into four large warehouses, namely the bow and arrow warehouse, the sword and crossbow warehouse, the bow and gun warehouse, the clothing and armor warehouse, the inner treasury of the royal small treasury, the Fengchen warehouse that collects jewelry, gold and jade and other valuables, the inner incense medicine storehouse, and the back garden for making palace living utensils, etc.

Due to the limited area of the imperial city, there are many divisions set up outside the imperial city, unified into external divisions, such as the left and right Jinwu Street Division, which is responsible for the emperor's patrol of the Qing Road and the ceremonial guard, the French wine warehouse responsible for the royal winemaking, the cheese courtyard responsible for making cheese for the royal use, the Yiluan Division responsible for the emperor's tour and banquet court accounts, the car courtyard responsible for the royal car, the enshrinement warehouse responsible for storing the tributes of the various states, the repair department responsible for the repair of the palace, the Wensi Yuan responsible for the handicraft workshop, and the Lingjin Yuan and the Wenxiu Yuan for making royal clothes. It is responsible for the Zhiyuan affairs of cattle and donkey carts, the camel workshop responsible for raising camels, the elephant courtyard responsible for raising elephants, the inner and outer warehouses, the oil depots, and the vinegar warehouses, the east kiln and the west kiln affairs responsible for firing the official kilns, the Jingshi guard office used to store the weapons used to defend the city, the saddle warehouse in charge of jade horses and gold and jade saddles, and the Tiansi Prison who is responsible for raising horses, and the South and North Coal Farms established for the implementation of coal monopoly. The Sishu Pharmacy, which is in charge of the processed medicinal materials, the inner firewood carbon depot and the outer chai carbon depot that are in charge of the reserve and supply of the palace's salaries and mats, as well as the shelf camp operated by the Jingshi Hotel and the restaurant, the monopoly of the Jingshi and tea in charge of the tea field of the Rongwu Cargo Administration, and the Dazong Zhengji who manages the royal family personnel, and there are many warehouses such as the Zuozang Warehouse, the Daguan Warehouse, the Yuanfeng Warehouse, and the Xuanhe Warehouse that are divided by year number.

The Jingshi is simply composed of the outer city, the inner city, and the imperial city, and the three cities form three squares, and the royal street (road) is like a "ten" character, which divides the Jingshi into four large regions: northeast, northwest, southwest, and southeast. Nanyu Street starts from the Xuande Gate of the Imperial City to the Suzaku Gate of the Inner City and then to the Nanxun Gate of the Outer City, the North Royal Street starts from the Tushizi outside the Xuande Gate of the Imperial City to the east until the old Fengqiu Gate of the Inner City and then to the new Fengqiu Gate of the Outer City, the East Royal Street starts from the State Bridge in front of the Xuande Gate of the Imperial City to the Old Song Gate of the Inner City and then to the New Song Gate of the Outer City, and the West Royal Street goes from the State Bridge in front of the Xuande Gate of the Imperial City to the Old Zheng Gate of the Inner City and then to the New Zheng Gate of the Outer City. There are royal corridors on both sides of the royal street, and forks are set up outside the royal corridor to cut off pedestrians from entering and exiting, and the forks are divided into vermilion and black, which are both eye-catching and solemn, making the royal street appear spacious and beautiful as a whole. On both sides of the royal street, there are peach trees, pear trees, plum trees, apricot trees and other trees, and all kinds of flowers are staggered and open, and between spring and summer, it looks as beautiful as an embroidered picture from a distance.

To the southeast of the state bridge in front of the Xuande Gate of the Imperial City, there are Zheng Dazai's Mansion (Prime Minister Zheng Juzhong), herring fish market, meat shop, Tokyo Spirit Palace, Tang family gold and silver shop, Wenzhou lacquerware shop, Daxiangguo Temple, thirteen buildings (for merchants to pile goods) and so on. In the southwest of the state bridge, there are Xijing Ling Palace, Bao Ci'en Temple, Dujin Concert Yuan (the office of the local administrative agency in Beijing), Baizhongyuan Pharmacy, Guozixing, Dutingyi (the pavilion post where the Liao envoys were placed), Liangjiapuzi and so on. After crossing the state bridge to the south, there are residential areas on both sides of the street.

From the south gate of the inner city wall to the south gate of the outer city, between the Suzaku Gate and the outer city, there are Chengwu Wang Temple, Degong'an Temple, Zhuangyuan Building, Taixue, Zhang Juma Mansion, Guozijian, Wuyue Temple, Rite Academy, Ordnance Supervisor, Jiaofang, Mingjie Queen's Residence, Wazi and so on.

The east corner tower of the imperial city is distributed to the east with a large goods store, a yarn shop, Xingle restaurant, a street of pharmacy, the outer city is the tile and the brothel, the west corner tower of the imperial city is distributed to the west of the dormitory of the palace front division, the business area, etc., the outer city is the west of the city tile, the residential area, the Cai Taishi residence, the Duting West Station, the Banlou Hotel, the Hongfu Monastery and so on.

To the north of the imperial city, there are official residential areas, gentry residential areas, Genyue, alum towers, etc., and the outer city is the northern tile, residential area, military camp, etc. This is the approximate geographical distribution of Jingshi.

The Great Song Dynasty canceled the curfew of the previous dynasty, so that all industries developed rapidly, in terms of the industry alone, there are more than 160 industries, such as the pearl and the silk of Panlou South Street, the incense medicine shop, the gold and silver color silk exchange of the Jieshen Lane, the bamboo pole market, the north of the Mahang Street, the medicine shop, etc., the trading is the day market, the night market, the morning market, the seasonal market, the regular market, such as the Datong Temple set Buddhism, business, sightseeing in one, open five times a month, crowded with tourists. There are some shops in the streets and alleys of Dongjiaolou, the houses are majestic, the façade is open, and every transaction is often tens of millions of taels of silver, which is appalling. There are as many as hundreds of hotels in height, many of which are chain operations, such as Gaoyang Zhengdian, Zhongshan Zhengdian, Yuxian Zhengdian, Panlou Restaurant, Xingle Restaurant, etc., according to incomplete statistics, there are more than 13,000 merchants in Beijing at present, in short, the current Beijing business is very developed, and it has also created a vast financial tax.

Due to the smooth passage of the Bianhe River, a large amount of grain and grass transported from the southeast, a large royal grain and grass warehouse was set up in Hongqiao in the east of the city, mainly storing rice from the southern waterway and wheat from the north, respectively, there are more than 50 large-scale grain warehouses such as Yuanfeng warehouse, Shuncheng warehouse, Guangji warehouse, Lihe compromise warehouse, Waihe compromise warehouse, Fuguo warehouse, Guangying warehouse, Wanying warehouse, Yongfeng warehouse, Jiyuan warehouse, etc., the purpose of which is to ensure people's livelihood and emergency food distribution in disaster years. In addition, there are more than 20 large forage warehouses outside the city of Jingshi, which are military rations and grass prepared for various military camps. After all, there are several horse farms near Kyoshi. These are all materials of great strategic value, and they must be stored and placed in advance.

So many internal divisions, external divisions, grain reserve warehouses, etc., can maintain the normal operation of the imperial city and the entire Jingshi activities, especially the supply of materials and security is particularly important, especially in the case of disaster years, the importance of reserves is very prominent, for a large city like Beijing with a population of more than one million, to maintain the operation of this huge city, these so-called divisions and granaries are small blood vessels, indispensable.

After a comprehensive understanding of the overall layout and function of the Beijing Division, I sighed deeply to the greatness of the ancients, in fact, in the Great Song Dynasty began to have a standardized urban management system, especially for the layout of the city, has its very unique side, the integration of commercial blocks and residential areas, there have been signs of modern commerce, which is completely broken since the Tang Dynasty commercial area residential area division of the model, that is, as long as it is a shop along the street, you can open at any time to sell products or handicrafts, This has greatly stimulated the prosperity and development of commerce and trade. It has also increased the employment rate of the city to a greater extent and reduced the negative factors of social unrest.

In terms of population management, permanent residents and floating residents are issued household registration cards, which are now household registration books, and every household is often hung at the door of the household registration card, which is checked by the duty inspectors at the grassroots level every month, and detailed registration and filing are made for the exodus and the increase in the population, so that there is a perfect urban population management system.

There are hundreds of large and small tiles in the castle, that is, a large entertainment venue, which is equivalent to the modern BCD entertainment center, which has a variety of entertainment items such as singing and dancing performances, cross talk, singing, etc., as well as football and sumo wrestling, which are especially popular with the residents of the Great Song Dynasty, and the sumo wrestling of the Great Song Dynasty is the originator of small Japan. With the development of commerce and trade, the curfew system since the Tang Dynasty was completely broken, and many night markets and devil streets were born, that is, commercial streets that were open until the early hours of the morning. This greatly enriched the spiritual entertainment of the residents of Jingshi.

Especially for the complete opening of commerce, there are large commercial markets along the street and along the river, and the special products from all over the country transported through the Bianhe River and the imported goods through Guangzhou and other places are everything, as in any dynasty, as long as there is money to live in Kaifeng, the capital of the Great Song Dynasty, it is definitely a fairy-like life.