History of The Forbidden City - Construction and Ming Dynasty

Construction and Ming Dynasty

The site of the Forbidden City was situated on the Imperial city during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. After the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty, the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming Dynasty moved the capital from Beijing in the north to Nanjing in the south, and in 1369 ordered that the Yuan palaces be razed. His son Zhu Di was created Prince of Yan with his seat in Beijing. In 1402, Zhu Di usurped the throne and became the Yongle Emperor. He made Beijing a secondary capital of the Ming empire, and construction began in 1406 of what would become the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City's plan was designed by many architects and designers, and then it was examined by the Emperor's Ministry of Work. The Chief Architects were Cai Xin and Nguyen An, a Vietnamese eunuch, and the Chief Engineers were Kuai Xiang and Lu Xiang.

Construction lasted 15 years and employed the work of 100,000 skilled artisans and up to a million laborers. The pillars of the most important halls were made of whole logs of precious Phoebe zhennan wood (Chinese: 楠木; pinyin: nánmù) found in the jungles of south-western China. Such a feat was not to be repeated in subsequent years — the great pillars seen today were rebuilt using multiple pieces of pinewood in the Qing Dynasty. The grand terraces and large stone carvings were made of stone from quarries near Beijing. The larger pieces could not be transported conventionally. Instead, wells were dug along the way, and water from the wells was poured on the road in deep winter, forming a layer of ice. The stones were dragged along the ice.

The floors of major halls were paved with "golden bricks" (Chinese: 金砖; pinyin: jīnzhuān), baked with clay from seven counties of Suzhou and Songjiang prefectures. Each batch took months to bake, resulting in smooth bricks that ring with a metallic sound. Much of the interior pavings seen today are six-century-old originals.

Soil excavated during construction of the moat was piled up to the north of the palace to create an artificial hill, the Jingshan hill.

Even before the palace was completed, Zhu Di moved to Beijing under the guise of "touring and hunting" (巡狩): the administrative centre of the empire gradually shifted from Nanjing to Beijing. When the palace was completed in 1420, Zhu Di moved there and Beijing officially became the primary capital of the empire. However, scarcely nine months after their construction, the three main halls including the throne room burnt down, and it would be 23 years before they were rebuilt.

From 1420 to 1644, the Forbidden City was the seat of the Ming Dynasty. In April 1644, rebel forces led by Li Zicheng captured it, and Chongzhen, the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, hanged himself on Jingshan Hill. Li Zicheng proclaimed himself emperor of the Shun Dynasty at the Hall of Military Eminence. However, he soon fled before the combined armies of former Ming general Wu Sangui and Manchu forces, setting fire to parts of the Forbidden City in the process.