Red Walls, Golden Tiles: Appreciating the Ming-Qing Imperial Palace – 4: The Three Front Halls (Part 2, Revised Edition)
My 2021 series on the Forbidden City, the seventeen-part serial 'Red Walls and Golden Tiles: Appreciating the Ming-Qing Imperial Palace,' has been kindly read by many readers. Some of them offered suggestions, pointed out errors. This revised second edition incorporates their feedback, adds some content, corrects typos, and updates or supplements images. I can’t claim all mistakes are fixed, but most should be. I’ve detailed the supreme ancient Chinese palatial architecture, imperial relics on display, and traces of Qing court life, along with stories and legends of the Ming and Qing palaces. I wouldn’t say it’s to ‘feast’ readers, just to share with you. Thank you.
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The previous part said the Taihe Dian square is enormous—the largest inner-courtyard square in the world, over 30,000 square metres. Around it, on a high platform base, runs a covered corridor or gallery. Taihe Dian itself stands on an even higher three-tiered terrace, nearly level with the eaves of the adjacent gallery buildings. Look down from the front terrace of Taihe Dian into the square: it’s a sunken courtyard. The emperor towered above; tens of thousands below, bent over in a deep pit, kowtowing to him. To keep enthusiastic forehead-banging from gouging craters into the ground, the square is paved with seven layers of bricks. The imperial path is of blue stone, with additional blue-stone strips on both sides. During ceremonies, the imperial guard stood on those side strips, holding banners, canopies, umbrellas, halberds, swords and spears fetched from the Duanmen tower. Civil and military officials lined up in the square, fell to their knees with a thud and kowtowed three times; stood, dusted themselves off, thud—knelt and kowtowed another three times. This happened three times over: the ‘three kneelings and nine kowtows.’
On the eastern gallery of Taihe Dian Square stands a pavilion-like companion building, Tiren Ge, right in the middle.
On the western gallery, exactly opposite, is Hongyi Ge.
Notice that the plaques on these two pavilions bear only Chinese characters—a mark left by Yuan Shikai’s vandalism. Zhu Di’s Tiren Ge was called Wenlou (Civil Tower), and Hongyi Ge was Wulou (Military Tower). In the 41st year of the Jiajing reign (1562), when Fengtian Dian was renamed Huangji Dian, these two towers became Wenzhao Ge and Wucheng Ge, still one civil, one military. Early in the Qing, when Shunzhi changed Huangji Dian to Taihe Dian, the two side towers were renamed Tiren Ge and Hongyi Ge, and so they remain. Like Taihe Dian, they suffered fires; separately, in the 48th year of Qianlong (1783), they spontaneously combusted again and were rebuilt. What we see now is the post-Qianlong restoration, recently recoloured.
The civil and military towers face each other, identical in design. They stand on high blue-stone platforms with white marble balustrades and front steps—also the imperial path. Each is a two-storey hall, nine bays wide and three bays deep. The ground floor has a mid-eave, above which is the second-floor terrace (pingzuo) encircled by a ring of columns supporting the extended eaves. The terrace has a wooden railing—a xunzhang railing similar to the white marble ones below. The roof is a single-eave hip-and-gable (wudian) in yellow glazed tiles, with seven ridge beasts on each descending ridge. If you look closely, behind the yellow-and-green glazed screen wall beneath the terrace railing there is bracket-set (dougong) structure, indicating a hidden mezzanine. So these two towers are actually three-storey buildings.
Both levels are nine bays wide, with a central door in the front bay; the secondary and tertiary bays have low walls and latticed windows. The end bays on the ground floor are bricked up, while on the upper floor they’re wooden panels to reduce weight. The ground-level doors are double-panel; the windows are ‘one wipe, three arrows’ vertical-bar lattice partitions. The upper floor has diagonal lattice partitions. On the beams and lintels of both floors and the mezzanine, gilded double-dragon hexi patterns gleam—truly beautiful.
Since Tiren Ge was originally the Civil Tower, Emperor Kangxi, emulating Tang emperors, gathered scholars here to compose poems and encomiums, and hung portraits of ancestors, making it a kind of poetry and painting society. After Qianlong’s restoration, it turned into a storehouse—the Silk Store—housing embroidered silk and wooden frames, including the one used by Consort Ling, Wei Yingluo. When Qianlong restored Tiren Ge, Consort Ling had been dead less than ten years. The story of Wei Yingluo as an embroidery maid is fiction; Qing palace records say nothing of it. By the way, it’s said that after Sun Dianying looted Qianlong’s Yuling tomb in the Eastern Qing Tombs, those who tidied up found Consort Ling’s body still intact after 140–150 years, a smile on her face—I wonder what potion Qianlong gave her.
In the Ming, these two were called ‘lou’ (towers); in the Qing, ‘ge’ (pavilions). The change matters. In Chinese architecture, lou means ‘stacked rooms’—storeys piled up. Ge, from the outside, has a mid-eave and a terrace (pingzuo), which form a concealed mezzanine inside, like a mezzanine floor. That eave and terrace are what distinguish a ge from a lou. These two buildings flanking Taihe Dian may have undergone structural changes when rebuilt after the Jiajing-era fire during the Ming—I wonder if anyone’s researched that.
North of Tiren Ge, on the eastern gallery, there’s a gate: the Left Wing Gate (Zuoyi Men).
By symmetry, north of Hongyi Ge on the western gallery, there must be a Right Wing Gate (Youyi Men).
Outside the Left Wing Gate is the Wenhua Dian (Hall of Literary Glory); outside the Right Wing Gate, the Wuying Dian (Hall of Martial Valour). These two gates were built in the third year of Shunzhi (1646); they weren’t there in Zhu Di’s time. They’re called wing gates, but they feel squeezed in, like standing in an armpit.
Taihe Dian Square has galleries east and west, and Taihe Men (Gate of Supreme Harmony) to the south. On either side of Taihe Men, the palace walls have side gates opening into the square—the earlier-mentioned Zhaode Men (left) and Zhendu Men (right), also called Front-Left and Front-Right Gates.
Similarly, the palace walls east and west of Taihe Dian have the Middle-Left and Middle-Right Gates, aligned with the front gates. Have a look at the Middle-Right Gate.
And the Middle-Left Gate.
Walking behind Taihe Dian from its terrace, you’ll find two small wall-embedded gates on each side. In front of them stand famous gilded bronze vats—their gilding was scraped off by bayonets when the Eight-Nation Alliance came in 1900.
Each of these two vats weighs 1.7 tonnes of bronze, plated with 100 taels of gold, cast during the Qianlong reign.
The Taihe Dian terrace connects directly to the later halls—Zhonghe Dian and Baohe Dian; the platforms of all three Front Halls are linked. Looking south, this platform forms the character ‘土’ (earth). You could say it’s a ‘工’ (work) shape, but then you’d be ignoring the huge front terrace of Taihe Dian. Why insist on ‘土’? Because it makes a good story. In ancient times, ‘土’ represented ‘she,’ as in ‘sheji’ (gods of soil and grain, the state). Land was fundamental to the Chinese people, always venerated. When Prince Chong’er wandered in exile, he once went so hungry in the fields of Wulu that an old farmer offered him a clod of earth as food. Chong’er was furious, but his follower Hu Yan advised: that’s the farmer giving you the state—a great omen. Chong’er rejoiced, ‘ate’ the earth, and felt full. Nowadays, ‘eating dirt’ means you’re a future king like Chong’er. An imperial hall standing on ‘earth’ means just what the Book of Songs says: ‘Under the vast heaven, all is the king’s land.’
Passing through the wall gate west of Taihe Dian, Ming and Qing emperors saw different views. Ming emperors saw only palace walls and roofs. Qing emperors could also see the White Dagoba in Beihai Park and the towering Yuhua Ge (Rain Flower Pavilion) in the western section of the palace.
That White Dagoba was built by the Living Buddha Jinba Gacuo at Yong’an Temple on Qionghua Island in Beihai after Shunzhi entered Beijing. It’s the first Tibetan-style white dagoba in Beijing; previously, in the Yuan dynasty, a Nepalese-style dagoba stood at Miaoying Temple inside Fuchengmen. Both are Indian-style stupas, but the styles differ, most clearly in the ‘xiang lun’ (stacked rings) above the inverted bowl: the Qing version’s thirteen-ring spire is slender, the Yuan’s is stout. Yuhua Ge was built after the dagoba, in the Qianlong period, as a Buddhist chapel.
Turn around, and you’ll see Zhonghe Dian (Hall of Central Harmony) dead ahead.
When Zhu Di first built it, this was called Huagai Dian (Hall of the Canopy); after the Jiajing 41st-year fire, it was rebuilt as Zhongji Dian (Hall of the Central Pole); Shunzhi renamed it Zhonghe Dian, which it remains. ‘Zhong’ means the root of all under heaven, ‘he’ means the way; following the golden mean to achieve universal harmony. Zhonghe Dian is a square hall, three bays wide and three deep, with a colonnade all round. Three flights of steps lead up the front, the central one the imperial path, with a carved stone slab showing cloud and dragon patterns (‘danbi stone’). Look at its doors.
These are six-stile lattice doors with ‘three intersections, six bows’ latticework and ruyi-pattern panels; the frames have lead-faced fittings. The transom above the doorframe also has the same lattice pattern. On the east and west sides, the lower part is a blue-brick sill wall, topped by lattice windows matching the doors.
In Zhu Yuanzhang’s Nanjing palace, this hall was already called Huagai Dian; Zhu Di copied the layout, proportions and names. Zhonghe Dian has a bracket-set and beam structure, a yellow-glazed single-eave, four-cornered pyramid roof—it has a canopy-like feel. Each of the four diagonal ridges carries seven mythic beasts. It’s the only front-court building with a ridge finial (jisha), and a very ornate one at that.
Atop is a yellow-glazed dew basin with floral patterns; above that a gilded bronze inverted bowl, with eight flying dragons; then a dragon pillar with four dragon heads; finally, on a dew basin, a precious pearl—all gilded bronze.
Stand beneath the descending ridge and look at the eaves: the beams show gilded double-dragon hexi paintings. They say some hidden timbers in Zhonghe Dian still bear the words ‘Zhongji Dian,’ proving the hall is still the one rebuilt in the 41st year of Jiajing (1562). That suggests that when Li Zicheng set fire to the palace, although the front Huangji Dian burned, the fire didn’t spread to the Zhongji Dian behind or the Jianji Dian behind that. The worn, dull paint we see now was likely applied under Qianlong; the shiny bits are recent restorations.
Inside Zhonghe Dian, the ceiling is a flat, panelled ceiling with coiling dragons, but no caisson. On the floor in the centre sits the imperial throne, with a plaque above it, handwritten by Qianlong, reading ‘Yun Zhi Jue Zhong.’
‘Yun Zhi Jue Zhong’—yun: sincere; zhi: hold; jue: its; zhong: the middle. To hold sincerely to the middle way: moderate conduct, impartial. It comes from the Book of Documents: ‘The human mind is precarious, the mind of the Way is subtle; be refined and single-minded, sincerely hold to the middle.’ Qianlong’s plaque quotes a classic while echoing his ancestors’ intent in naming the hall ‘Zhonghe’—a nod to his forebears.
Earlier I said Taihe Dian is the great ceremonial hall, and even the emperor might feel a flutter of nerves before such rites. Although carried in a sedan chair from the inner palace all the way to the platform of the Three Great Halls, his bones were still jarred, his tendons loose, his head spinning. So he’d center himself here in Zhonghe Dian, change clothes, relieve himself—a chamber pot could be placed behind the throne. If you look, you’ll notice two small sedan chairs against the walls on either side of the throne, called ‘shoulder litters’ (jianyu): one main, one spare, in case one went wobbly and the emperor couldn’t mount the hall. He’d step behind the throne to put on the long underpants a eunuch had been carrying all the way, then emerge and ascend the throne—that’s ‘ascending the imperial seat.’ At that point, a ‘whip master’ outside would crack a whip three times, signalling the emperor was safely seated. The ceremony officials then filed into Zhonghe Dian, knelt in a row, and made their reports: ‘The ceremonial canopies are raised,’ ‘palace gates open, guards at their posts,’ ‘incense smoke spiralling,’ ‘all ministers and representatives of the people are present.’ While they reported, the emperor caught his breath, then said ‘Set forth.’ He rose from the throne and moved forward; near the front of Taihe Dian, another whip cracked three times. Entering Taihe Dian from Zhonghe Dian, the emperor never took the wall-side gates like I do to get to the main entrance. He walked straight along the imperial path from the front of Zhonghe Dian into the back door of Taihe Dian, stepped slowly around the great screen behind the throne. Why slowly? Because two palace maids followed, holding long-handled fans of peacock feathers crossed behind his head; more eunuchs queued with teapots, teacups, the imperial brush and seals. If the emperor walked too fast, the maids and eunuchs would lose step—hard to manage. During his progress, the Taihe Dian court orchestra played ‘Zhonghe Shaoyue,’ a slow, melodious tune.
Besides these pre-ceremony rituals, the emperor also reviewed and amended the proclamations to be issued during the ceremony—the ‘By the Mandate of Heaven, the Emperor decrees….’ Some were read out in Taihe Dian, others sent to Wumen (Meridian Gate) for public announcement, so no mistakes were allowed. If the emperor officiated at a grand sacrifice, the prayer text also needed his approval. All were called ‘imperial review,’ drafted by Hanlin academicians then ‘respectfully presented at Zhonghe Dian for imperial review.’
So you see, Zhonghe Dian was where the emperor took a breather, changed clothes, relieved himself, and occasionally edited documents. But its deeper meaning was that before a major event, the emperor could sit here in silence, meditate and self-reflect: review his rule as lord, as subject, as father, as son, his own merits and faults; retrace the emotional twists and turns of his heart’s journey—sometimes smug, sometimes weeping in secret. Sigh that the Yellow River rushes to the sea never to return; mourn that black hair turns white between dawn and dusk. At last, gritting his teeth and stamping a foot, he might exclaim: ‘Cook a sheep, slaughter a cow, let’s be merry! Drink up, cup after cup! Sages of old all turn to dust, bells, drums and jade dainties are nothing. Enjoy life while you may, don’t let the golden goblet face the moon empty.’
Behind Zhonghe Dian is the larger Baohe Dian (Hall of Preserving Harmony). In Zhu Di’s time it was called Jinshen Dian (Hall of Vigilant Conduct), again reproducing the Nanjing Ming palace. After being burned several times, it was rebuilt in the 41st year of Jiajing and renamed Jianji Dian—the hall we see today is that very rebuilding. Shunzhi renamed it Baohe Dian when he entered Beijing. Initially Shunzhi lived in Baohe Dian, calling it Weiyu Gong (Palace of Nurture). Kangxi lived here for eight years after ascending the throne, calling it Qingning Gong (Palace of Pure Tranquillity). In the Shenyang Imperial Palace, the central palace of Hong Taiji and Empress Zhe Zhe was also called Qingning Gong; to its left was Consort Chen Hailanzhu’s Guanju Gong, and to its right, Consort Zhuang’s Yongfu Gong. Consort Zhuang was Shunzhi’s mother, later Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang.
The ‘Qian’ hexagram in the Book of Changes says: ‘Preserving harmony in great harmony leads to favourable outcomes.’ ‘Taihe’ implies universal peace, hence Shunzhi’s naming of Taihe Dian and Baohe Dian.
Baohe Dian fronts a broad terrace that links all three halls. It’s nine bays wide and five deep, with a front colonnade. The bays are slightly smaller than Taihe Dian’s, so the whole hall seems a bit smaller. Its roof is double-eaved hip-and-gable in yellow glazed tiles, with nine ridge beasts on the diagonal ridges—one rank lower than Taihe Dian. Architecturally, Taihe Dian is highest, Baohe next, Zhonghe last. Baohe Dian also uses a bracket-set beam structure, and its beam paintings are gilded double-dragon hexi, seemingly left from the Qing dynasty.
Inside Baohe Dian, six central pillars were omitted, leaving a very spacious area before the throne—a pillar-reduction technique formalised since the Song dynasty. The floor is still laid with ‘gold bricks.’ Facing south, a red-lacquered gilded dais holds the throne. As in Taihe Dian, the end bays were turned into warm rooms. The ceiling is a flat panelled ceiling with coiling dragons, no caisson. The timber frame still dates from the Jiajing 41st-year reconstruction.
For grand ceremonies or banquets in both Taihe Dian and Baohe Dian, the floor would be covered with bright yellow long-pile carpets; the largest, in front of the throne, had a blue dragon design. During rites, ministers could drop to their knees with a muffled plop without injuring them; kowtowing clang-clang wouldn’t raise bumps on their foreheads. At banquets, low tables were placed on the carpets flanking the throne, one per person. Guests sat cross-legged behind them, feasting on meat and drinking from large bowls—exactly the scene when Liu Bang attended Xiang Yu’s feast at Hongmen. These carpets are still stored in the Palace Museum warehouse; on sunny days they’re taken out to air, rolled back at dusk—and never missing camphor balls. In the early Republic, fraudsters forged a number of bright yellow carpets, labelled ‘For the exclusive use of Baohe Dian,’ and sold them at high prices on the black market. Some are now in the hands of smug overseas collectors. A few years ago some were flaunted, only to be scoffed at by Palace Museum experts.
When did Baohe Dian have grand ceremonies? In the Ming, whenever an auspicious phoenix descended on Taihe Dian, the emperor came first to Baohe Dian to dress, wear his hat, and rouge his cheeks. When he invested an empress or crown prince, besides the Taihe Dian rites, he also received congratulations here. Thus, in the Ming, Baohe Dian was used as a companion to Taihe Dian.
In the early Qing, the Shunzhi emperor briefly stayed here. After Kangxi moved to Qianqing Gong, Baohe Dian resumed its ceremonial role. As Qianlong grew older, he found the walk to Taihe Dian and Wenhua Dian too far, so at age 78 he moved every triennial palace examination to here. From then on, the Qing held all their palace exams in Baohe Dian. When exam time came, the candidates—called gongshi—were led by officials from the Court of State Ceremonies before dawn to line up nervously along the open platforms (danchi) on either side of the hall. At sunrise, a whip master cracked three times, and the emperor, amid shaoyue music, slowly ascended the throne in Baohe Dian. The gongshi kowtowed three sets of three, trembling a hundred times. The emperor accepted the obeisance, said something like ‘hum hum,’ and amid three whips and harmony music, returned to his inner quarters. Food was sent during the exam: for breakfast, four mantou each (leftovers for lunch); for supper, four flatbreads, no meat or vegetable dishes, but cold water to drink. By sunset, the examinees had to hand in their papers. The papers were first assessed by an expert committee; the top ten were sent to the emperor for final decision, and he designated the first three. Four days later, results were announced at Taihe Dian—this was the ‘transmission of the call.’ The top three (zhuangyuan, bangyan, tanhua) received official posts on the spot; the others, having earned jinshi status, went to the Ministry of Personnel to await appointments. China’s first palace exam was in the fourth year of Xianqing (659) under Emperor Gaozong of the Tang; the last was in the 30th year of Guangxu (1904), the Jiachen year, when Liu Chunlin won the zhuangyuan title. That year was a special ‘enke’ (grace examination). In 1905, the Qing abolished the imperial examinations and switched to modern schooling, ending over a millennium of examination-based selection.
Behind the Baohe Dian throne, as usual, stands a screen, and above hangs a horizontal plaque, flanked by a couplet—both written by Qianlong.
Upper line: ‘The ancestral precepts shine down; may our descendants, still able, reverently inherit them for eternity.’ Lower line: ‘Heaven’s heart looks down to examine; may the myriad subjects and officials ever remember to protect without limit.’ Shang: still; ke: able; qin cheng: reverently inherit. The upper line urges himself to seriously inherit the ancestral teachings and be a good emperor. The most important Qing precept was: ‘Revere Heaven and follow the ancestors, be diligent in governance and draw close to worthy officials.’ Tianxin jiang jian: Heaven’s heart looks down to inspect your actions; jiang: boundary. The lower line is a self-warning: Heaven’s eyes are watching whether you strive to bring peace to the land and grace to the people. The horizontal plaque reads ‘Huang Jian You Ji,’ from the Book of Documents: ‘The sovereign establishes the supreme norm.’ Ji: the main beam of a house—the pillar. It means the emperor must establish a sound rule.
Taihe Dian, Zhonghe Dian and Baohe Dian stand on one continuous platform. On the east and west sides of the Zhonghe and Baohe terraces, white marble steps with balustrades lead up and down.
There are no walls around Zhonghe Dian; past the wall gate of Taihe Dian, you can see parts of all three halls.
Baohe Dian is flanked by walls; through the wall gates at the back, standing on the platform you can glimpse the roofs of the rear palaces and Jingshan (Coal Hill) outside the palace—many visitors linger here to peer around.
Staff are always ready to help up a fallen tourist or pin down an unruly troublemaker.
At the rear of Baohe Dian, three flights of steps with balustrades descend from the three-tiered marble platform; the central one is the imperial path with a carved slab.
That imperial path is in three sections; the bottom slab of the lowest section is the famous ‘Great Stone Carving of the Forbidden City.’
Without definitive proof, it’s thought this carving dates from Zhu Di’s initial building of the Forbidden City. Everyone knows the stone came from the Dashiwo quarry in Fangshan outside Beijing, and that when cut from the mountain it weighed 300 tonnes. In winter, water was poured to form ice, and the stone was dragged to the city on an ice road. It’s not white marble but the same blue stone as the imperial path. When it arrived, the Three Great Halls were probably not yet built; by the time it reached the back of Baohe Dian, spring had thawed the ice. With no ice, it couldn’t be hauled further to Taihe Dian, so it was used behind Baohe Dian. The lowest danbi stone at the front of Taihe Dian is the same size, but it’s pieced together from three separate stones. Thus, this Great Stone Carving is the largest single piece of stone carving in the Forbidden City. Zhu Di, given to grandiosity, loved big rocks. After ascending the throne, he wanted to erect a giant stele at his father’s Ming Xiaoling mausoleum. He had a huge boulder cut in the hills outside Nanjing—far larger than this one, as big as the entire Taihe Dian hall. Such a stone, of course, could never be moved by any number of oxen or horses, so it was abandoned in the mountains.
In the 18th year of Yongle (1420), the danbi stone behind Baohe Dian was set in place. Then, 340 years later, in the 25th year of Qianlong (1760), something happened here, and Qianlong ordered it reworked. What happened? The Qing archives don’t say. That year Qianlong was 39, in his prime. I suspect he tried to stride across the carving to show off his youthful legs, but after 340 years the sculpted surface had weathered, he slipped and tumbled. The archives record that ‘servants respectfully obey’ the order to remodel it, calling the stone ‘the raised imperial path stone at the lower rear cave of Baohe Dian.’ Qianlong told them to chip off the old upper design and recarve. Those servants were ruthless—they hacked off a full chi and two cun. In metric, one Qing chi equals about 32 cm, so 1.2 chi is roughly 38 cm thick stone removed. The archives say: ‘re-carve in relief a standing dragon, interwoven vines, and waves with rockery.’ See, same pattern as the front Taihe Dian danbi. The interwoven vines are now called ‘twining lotus.’ This overhaul also recut the two upper danbi slabs. What we now see on all three back danbi stones is the 1760 re-carving. Luckily, the servants didn’t waste the removed stone: it was ‘reused to make twenty-eight side steps.’ Look at the side steps—some patterns are different, old and new, right? The new ones were replaced then; the old ones are still from Zhu Di’s time.
Have a look at Baohe Dian in the setting sun.
On the walls on either side of Baohe Dian, there’s a side gate. The gates flanking Taihe Men—Zhendu Men and Zhaode Men—are called Front-Right Gate and Front-Left Gate. Those by Taihe Dian are Middle-Right and Middle-Left Gates. So the ones beside Baohe Dian should be Back-Right Gate and Back-Left Gate. Here’s the Back-Right Gate.
All six gates share the same architectural form. Their walls and the high-level flanking galleries east and west divide the front court of the imperial palace into three successive courtyards. Between Wumen (Meridian Gate) and Taihe Men is the first, known as Taihe Men Square. Between Taihe Men and Taihe Dian is the second, Taihe Dian Square. And from Taihe Dian to Baohe Dian is the third, the compound of the Three Great Halls.
Beyond Baohe Dian lies what’s called Qianqing Men Square (Gate of Heavenly Purity Square). This square is the transitional zone between the outer court and the inner palace: the offices at the front, the living quarters at the back. The square extends about 200 metres east-west, along the line of the outer-court galleries. North-south, it’s just 50 metres from Baohe Dian to Qianqing Men. Much narrower than the outer-court squares, it’s also called ‘Cross Street’ (Hengjie).
There’s only one pair of structures on this cross street attached to the Three Front Halls: the well pavilions at the northeast and northwest corners of Baohe Dian.
Earlier I mentioned that before laying carpets for ceremonies, the floors had to be cleaned. Hence water was drawn from these wells to wash the floors for the emperor. The emperor didn’t drink from this well; he drank spring water brought from Jade Spring Hill. Unlike other water that dips in the cup, Jade Spring water bulges upward at the surface because it’s loaded with minerals.
There are other buildings on Cross Street; more in the next installment.
(To be continued)
