Viewing Red Walls and Golden Tiles, Appreciating the Ming-Qing Imperial Palace – Part Seven: The Imperial Garden (Revised Edition)

My 2021 set of Forbidden City posts, the 17-part serial 'Viewing Red Walls and Golden Tiles, Appreciating the Ming-Qing Imperial Palace,' has been kindly read by many. Some readers offered suggestions and pointed out mistakes. This revised second edition takes those earlier comments on board, enriches some content, corrects slips of the pen, and updates or adds images. Though I can't claim all errors have been fixed, most have been corrected. The series records in detail the supreme ancient Chinese palace architecture seen in the Ming and Qing imperial palace, some of the imperial collections on display, traces of Qing court life, and also recalls stories and legends associated with the Ming and Qing palace. I wouldn't dare say 'to regale readers,' merely hope to share with you. Thank you.

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The back gate of the Three Rear Palaces is Kunning Gate. It is part of the Three Rear Palaces, so Kunning Gate opens north, and its plaque hangs on the north face. The area south of Kunning Gate is still considered the territory of the Three Rear Palaces—specifically, their third courtyard.

When Yongle Emperor Zhu Di first built a gate at this location, it faced south and was called Guangyun Gate. At that time, the north gate of the imperial garden was called Kunning Gate, and beyond it was the Shenwu Gate square. Zhu Di’s garden was named 'Gonghou Yuan' (Rear Palace Garden), and it was part of the Three Rear Palaces. During the Jiajing reign of the Ming, the covered corridor behind Kunning Palace was rebuilt into the present east and west side rooms, the central Guangyun Gate became the present Kunning Gate, and the original Kunning Gate was renamed Shunzhen Gate. The plaque of Guangyun Gate had hung on the south side; after it was renamed Kunning Gate, the plaque was moved to the north face, and the imperial garden became a garden outside the Three Rear Palaces.

In the Ming dynasty, the imperial garden, then called Gonghou Yuan, was the only garden within the palace. In the Qing dynasty, several smaller gardens were gradually added inside the palace, but those were for the exclusive use of certain individuals.

Entering the Imperial Garden through Kunning Gate, the first thing you see is a joined-branch cypress.

Originally there was no tree here. It was Qianlong who planted this tree—whether he split one sapling in two and planted both halves, or the cypress simply grew into two trunks, no one knows. Later, the abdicated Emperor Puyi and his wife Wanrong took a photo here. By then Puyi was the deposed emperor, but Wanrong was not a deposed empress; she was simply the principal wife of the wealthy young gentleman Puyi. Some call Wanrong the last empress, but that is completely wrong! Her official title was 'Mrs. Pu.' Puyi and Wanrong did not live together into old age—a tragedy linked to Wanrong being coerced into going to Changchun. She tried repeatedly to flee but had no way out, fell into self-abandonment, and ended with no grave for her body. For this reason, all Chinese know this joined-branch cypress is inauspicious; no couple, old, middle-aged, or young, has ever taken a photo beneath it.

Besides the joined-branch cypress, there are two old trees flanking Kunning Gate—these are Chinese catalpa trees.

The Tang poet Han Yu wrote, 'Only five catalpas in the courtyard, growing within a ten-pace space; each has vines entwining them, linking branch to branch above.' The catalpa opposite the path is indeed wrapped in an old vine; the tree has died, but the vine still flourishes.

The catalpas in the Imperial Garden were planted in the Jiajing reign of the Ming, and they still bloom every spring. Catalpa wood is good timber, finer than elm, and water-resistant. Using it for furniture is a bit wasteful; its most common use is for rifle butts. Some WWII-era rifles pulled out of water still have intact catalpa butt stocks.

Flanking the joined-branch cypress are some rockery bonsai. Look at this stone on the west side, sitting on a sea-and-cliff base.

To me it looks like a tiger’s back tooth extracted from the jaw by a dentist, but they say it’s 'Kongming gazing at the Big Dipper.' The white markings on a dark background are supposed to be Kongming, and the dark dots on a white ground the Big Dipper.

On the east side of the joined-branch cypress there is another weird stone.

I think this is the most disgusting stone in the Forbidden City, reflecting that all sorts of nauseating things could happen in the palace. Yet they call it the Sea Cucumber Stone.

Behind the joined-branch cypress stands a bronze incense burner, exquisitely crafted. Look at the carvings on its base—doesn’t it resemble the National Centre for the Performing Arts? The pattern above is the three-jointed six-panel design.

Walking past the joined-branch cypress, you come to a gate in the middle of the garden: Tianyi Gate. Outside the gate are two gilt-bronze qilin.

Actually, those two auspicious beasts are not qilin; they are luduan, single-horned creatures.

This luduan, seeing me take a photo, for some reason pouted and gave me a sidelong glance. Many people had photographed it before me, and I suspect it gave them the same slanting look.

On either side of Tianyi Gate are glazed screen walls. Look at this screen wall—the use of creamy-yellow glazed cranes is extremely rare.

Early in the Ming, there was no gate here, and naturally no wall. The Ming palace suffered frequent fires; emperors, ministers, and concubines were long tormented by fire. Seeking good fortune, the Jiajing Emperor in the 14th year of his reign (AD 1535) added a courtyard wall and built this gate. He named it 'Tianyi zhi Men' (Gate of Heavenly One), taken from the I Ching phrase 'Heaven one generates water.' Later, the Manchus changed it to 'Tianyi Men.' Although Jiajing eagerly prayed for the palace’s protection from fire, this gate never showed its power; in the 36th year of Jiajing (AD 1557), a lightning fire in the palace was the most devastating in imperial history.

Because it was meant to prevent fire, the gate is built entirely of brick and stone. A foot-and-a-half-high grey stone base, white marble terrace with balustrades, a white marble Sumeru pedestal supporting a grey brick arched gate. Above is a glazed tile imitation of wooden bracket sets, and a single-eave hip-and-gable roof of yellow glazed tiles. The brick archway wall is smooth as a mirror, with joints hardly visible—clearly polished and burnished. In the Forbidden City, brick walls never show cement or mortar in the seams because the bricks are cut with slanting faces so the binder is hidden inside. This type of wall is called a 'milled wall,' colloquially known as 'a single piece of jade.' Although the main structure is brick and stone, there are still red solid-timber doors. It’s these door leaves that destroy the gate’s water-invoking function, and the eighty-one gilt door studs on each leaf cannot counteract the wooden door’s side effects.

There was also a reason why the Jiajing Emperor built a courtyard here: inside this courtyard is the garden’s core building, Qi’an Hall. Most believe this Qi’an Hall was originally built in the 18th year of Yongle (AD 1420) and is the only original building on the central axis that never suffered fire. Others argue that Zhu Di’s Qi’an Hall was a different hall, now lost, and that this one was newly built in the 14th year of Jiajing.

Qi’an Hall faces south, sitting on a five-foot-high white marble Sumeru platform surrounded by a circle of white marble balustrades. The balustrades here are carved: dragon-and-phoenix post heads, and panels with double dragons and flowers.

If you walk to the rear of the hall and look at these panels,

you’ll discover that the central panel on the back shows two dragons playing in water, while all the others show two dragons nibbling grass. See, the wonder lies behind—always understated. The dragon-eating-grass panels are said to be relics from the Yuan dynasty palace.

The terrace of Qi’an Hall is in front, with a central imperial ramp and side steps with handrails. The hall is five bays wide and three deep, with a three-bay front porch added in the Qing dynasty. The original Ming terrace was quite broad; during the Qing, they built the three-bay porch onto this terrace.

Above is a bracket-set beam structure, a double-eave hip roof of yellow glazed tiles, with a gilt-bronze treasure vase and canopy at the ridge top. The beams and lintels are painted with gilt dragon-and-phoenix harmony patterns, and the brackets under the upper eaves are gilded—truly sumptuous. During a major renovation in 2004, over three thousand sutras were discovered inside the ridge ornament, all Tibetan Buddhist scriptures. Tibetan Buddhism had entered the imperial palace since the Yuan; Khubilai Khan honored the Sakya patriarch Phagspa as state preceptor. But Qi’an Hall is a Ming building, and while Ming emperors did honor Tibetan Buddhism, it waxed and waned. Ming palaces had Tibetan temples, but it’s unlikely Tibetan sutras would be hidden in the ridge of a Zhenwu shrine. Everyone agrees this was the doing of a Qing emperor—who exactly remains to be investigated. When the 2005 renovation of Qi’an Hall was completed, most of these sutras were put back to preserve the original state. We visitors cannot see these scriptures, but we are surely blessed by them, so when you reach Qi’an Hall, be sure to recite any sutra—no matter which—facing it, to thank the bodhisattvas for their protection.

If you pay attention, you can see six dragons on the imperial ramp stone. Throughout the Forbidden City, carved dragons on ramp stones are always in odd numbers—three, five, nine—except for the double-dragon with pearl motif. Why an even number six here? There is a reason: according to the Hetu and Luoshu diagrams, the ten numbers of heaven and earth are divided into two groups: one to five, and six to ten. Among their interpretations is 'the numbers of all living things’ generation,' which includes the earlier saying 'Heaven one generates water; earth six completes it.' Hence, with Tianyi Gate in front, the six dragons on the ramp stone correspond to it. This suggests that after Jiajing built Tianyi Gate, he must have altered this ramp stone.

In front of Qi’an Hall are several lacebark pines that look very old.

Inside Tianyi Gate, on the east and west sides, stand two offering furnaces—used for burning offerings after ceremonies. The east one is glazed ceramic; the west one, gilt bronze.

Next to the west bronze furnace is one of China’s most exquisite pillar-clamping stones, carved of white marble with sea-and-cliff and double-dragon flying-cloud motifs.

On this clamping stone stands a 'Five Dragons Upholding the Sacred' flagpole, which was recorded as having been repainted as late as the 13th year of Jiaqing in the Qing (AD 1808).

Behind the furnaces are two incense pavilions.

Look at these pavilions: red columns, green beams, yellow-glazed single-eave four-cornered pyramidal roofs. They’re called square pavilions but are actually half-open, half-enclosed—a variation that suggests a small hall with an open veranda. This could be called a 'one-and-a-half-bay' structure, two such making 'two bays and one room.' Among the fabled 9,999½ rooms of the Forbidden City, there must be another place like this, where four pillars support a half-light, half-dark space. Why red columns and green beams? Chinese palace architecture follows the custom: paint surfaces exposed to the sun red; those not, green or blue. If you notice, most buildings in the Forbidden City are like this: beams and lintels under the eaves are green or blue, while columns, windows, and doors are red. Of course there are exceptions, created for surprise.

Zhu Yuanzhang passed the throne to his grandson Zhu Yunwen; Zhu Di was never reconciled. Once the Jianwen Emperor began cutting down princedoms, Zhu Di’s fury boiled over. He launched a campaign to purge the court, claiming to come to the capital to protect the emperor, but actually aiming to roast Jianwen. After seizing power, Zhu Di declared, 'Thus I raised a righteous army, quelled the internal trouble, and the gods assisted, with swift and manifest signs.' The god he referred to was Xuanwu, whom he later enfeoffed as the Supreme Emperor of the Dark Northern Heaven, the highest protective deity of the Ming. Once on the dragon throne, Zhu Di built several temples to Zhenwu (Xuanwu). The grandest was rebuilding the Taoist temple on Wudang Mountain, and he also constructed a Zhenwu temple at D’ianmen in Beijing. Zhu Di’s seizure of his nephew’s throne was, after all, usurpation, deeply immoral. By invoking the Dark Warrior, he aimed to claim 'divine right of kings,' giving legitimacy to his southern campaign. Thus, when building the Beijing palace, he included a Zhenwu shrine right in the palace—this very Qi’an Hall, the only temple on the central axis. As the god of the north, Zhenwu corresponds to the Kan position in the Hetu–Luoshu, which is precisely where Qi’an Hall sits in the palace. In Zhu Di’s time, this area was not a garden but open space, with only Qi’an Hall. Here he offered sacrifices to Zhenwu—his palace god. In the sixth year of Jingtai (AD 1455), Zhu Qiyu added a garden here, making it the Rear Palace Garden. Judging from the reasons Zhu Di built Qi’an Hall and its required position, I also tend to think this hall is Zhu Di’s original work.

Qi’an Hall has been closed to the public for a long time, so I’ve never gone in to pay respects to Zhenwu, but inside there is certainly a statue of the god. According to Taoist description, Zhenwu’s image is fearsome: loose hair, bare feet, black robes, golden armor, jade belt, sword in hand, glaring angrily, feet on tortoise and snake, a nimbus above his head. I imagine the statue in Qi’an Hall looks just like that. Because the hall has never suffered fire, its interior arrangement mostly remains the original Ming layout.

The courtyard wall of Qi’an Hall is also in the style of the palace walls: red-washed brick topped with yellow glazed tile capping. But it is much lower than the main palace walls, so from outside you can see the buildings inside. Since the structures within aren’t as imposing as the main halls and living quarters, the wall here is lower, creating a visual sense of a small temple inside a garden.

Past Kunning Gate, besides the central Qi’an Hall, there are pavilions and kiosks on the east and west sides, generally symmetrical. Walking east, under the Kunning Gate wall is a row of shop rooms. Nowadays they sell souvenirs; in the past, they sold food and drink.

By the east wall of the shop area is an old locust tree—a penjing locust, commonly called the dragon-claw locust. This tree was planted in the early Ming and shows clear signs of artificial grafting. Over time, it has grown into the shape of a one-eyed pirate captain’s face.

In front of the shops are rockeries built of stacked stones—the famous Genyue rocks. Look at this glazed flower bed and the rockery.

In the colored flower bed picture above there’s a leafless shrub: a very famous Peking mock-orange. This plant originally grew in the Sichuan basin. During the Song dynasty, a Sichuanese presented it to the emperor, and Emperor Renzong named it ‘Peace Flower,’ planting it in the capital Bianjing. The one in the Imperial Garden blooms every early summer—green leaves, white blossoms, luxuriant with a rare fragrance.

Now many parks in Beijing have peace flowers too. I once saw them blooming profusely in Tanzhe Temple, their unusual scent truly heady.

Beside the flower bed, Qianlong also placed some dead wood he’d brought from deep mountain forests—wood that refuses to come to life in spring. Actually, it’s a piece of petrified wood, a fossil trunk. Because it is very complete and has attractive grain, when Old Qian was out picking mushrooms in the mountains, he took it home, carved an inscription on it, and stood it here.

Walking to the east end, there’s a gate in the wall leading to the Six Eastern Palaces, called Qiongyuan East Gate.

North of the gate, against the east wall of the Imperial Garden, stands an east-facing building.

This is Jiangxue Verandah, five bays wide and two deep, with a flush-gable roof of yellow glazed tiles. In front is a three-bay open porch with a 'rolling shed' hip roof of yellow glazed tiles. Jiangxue Verandah is one of the few beam-structure buildings in the palace, with nanmu doors and windows, and bamboo-pattern paintings in the porch. If you ignore the roof, it looks like a vernacular building. Its most distinctive feature is the latticework of the partition doors—a ‘wan’ pattern with a ‘shou’ (longevity) border, a design called 'ten-thousand-year life without end.' Originally, several crabapple trees stood in the flower bed in front; when their blossoms fell in spring like snowflakes, the sight was so lovely it gave the hall its name ‘Crimson Snowflake Verandah.’ But when Empress Dowager Cixi came, she changed the mood. She had peace flowers dug up from ancient Bianjing (Kaifeng) and planted them to replace the crabapples.

To the north of Jiangxue Verandah is a pavilion.

This pavilion is very handsome. Below are four columns; above, a yellow-glazed octagonal dome roof with three roof beasts. The beams and lintels bear Suzhou-style floral paintings with heart panels, very old now; parts of the painting on the upper tier have been restored to show what it once looked like. Around the pavilion is a newly added circle of white marble balustrades, and outside that a water channel. In the center is a stone table? Actually, that’s a well cover; beneath is a square well platform. Poke your head inside the pavilion and look up at the dome.

Hey, the dome has a skylight! You can see the bracket-beam structure above; at the four corners, extra inner and outer corner purlins turn it into an octagon. Four columns support eight roof slopes. This is a well pavilion, called the Imperial Garden East Well Pavilion. That skylight isn’t for catching rain—it’s for drawing water from the well. You see, there’s no windlass on the well platform. They drew water by tying a bucket to one end of a long pole and lowering it into the well, so the pole needed vertical wiggle room. That’s what the skylight is for. On the west side of the garden, there’s a matching well pavilion just like this one. The Forbidden City has many well pavilions; earlier, behind the Hall of Preserving Harmony, we saw two. More can be seen later in the Six Eastern and Western Palaces. Most well pavilions in the palace are like those behind the Hall of Preserving Harmony: four columns, square plan, dome roof. Only these two in the Imperial Garden have four columns and an octagonal dome. Not many well pavilions inside the Forbidden City remain well preserved. Oh, and there’s another pair of well pavilions very special—they’re still in good shape, just a bit of peeling paint. What makes them unique is their roof: neither a square dome like those behind Baohe Dian, nor an octagonal dome like these in the garden, but a yellow-glazed rolling-shed overhanging gable roof. To allow the drawing pole to move, there’s a small skylight in the middle of the rolling-shed roof. This pair is in a non-public area; ordinary visitors can’t see them.

To the north of the East Well Pavilion is Wanchun Pavilion (Pavilion of Ten Thousand Springs), built in the 15th year of Jiajing in the Ming (AD 1536).

The well pavilion we just saw had four columns turning into an octagon. This Wanchun Pavilion goes even further: it has four columns, a double-eave hip-and-gable roof merging into a round-pointed dome, and doors on all four sides opening onto small porches. On its base is a circle of white marble balustrades, with steps at each door. The doors and windows have three-jointed six-panel lattice and ruyi-shaped panels. The horizontal beams bear gilt double-dragon harmony paintings, though the gilding has flaked off. The ridge ornament is a colored-glazed treasure vase with gilt-bronze ribbons, topped by a gilt-bronze canopy and a pearl finial—very splendid.

Wanchun Pavilion is brilliantly colored, ingeniously shaped—rare in the world. The square-base round-top form likely symbolizes the round heaven and square earth, and was known in antiquity as a ‘mingtang’ (bright hall), a tradition going back to the Zhou. In the Tang dynasty, Wu Zetian built a grand hall in this form in Luoyang’s Purple Tenuity Palace, calling it the ‘Divine Palace of Myriad Images,’ the largest wooden structure in history up to that time. But when the An Lushan Rebellion began at the end of the Tianbao era (AD 755), the Tang went into decline. Less than ten years later, in the Baoying first year of Tang Daizong (AD 762), Uighur forces sacked Luoyang and burned the Bright Hall. Once this symbol of national destiny fell, the Tang’s golden age was over; despite several brief revivals, the glories of the Kaiyuan era were never restored.

To the north of Wanchun Pavilion is Fubi Pavilion (Floating Azure Pavilion).

Below Fubi Pavilion is a pond with fish but no shrimp. A stone bridge spans the pond north-south, and Fubi Pavilion is built on the bridge. Because the bridge seems much smaller than the pavilion, it’s hard to call it a bridge pavilion, but that doesn’t stop you from calling the pavilion a waterside kiosk. This square three-bay pavilion was built in the 11th year of Wanli in the Ming (AD 1583); the three-bay open porch on the south was added in the 10th year of Yongzheng in the Qing (AD 1732). The pavilion has a green glazed four-cornered pyramidal roof with yellow edge tiles, and a treasure pearl finial on a glazed dew basin. The porch has a green-glazed rolling-shed overhanging gable roof, also with yellow edges. Although the porch is a later addition, it matches the pavilion’s style. Look closely between the beams under the eaves—is there a layer of openwork wood carving? Doesn’t it look like the lower panels of a railing, sometimes called huaban? Here it’s also called huaban, quite unusual.

Take a look at the wooden double-dragon and pearl dome caisson in Fubi Pavilion.

To the north of Fubi Pavilion, backed against the north wall of the Imperial Garden, is Qianzao Hall.

Qianzao Hall is five bays wide and one deep, with a yellow-glazed flush-gable roof and an open veranda in front. This was the palace library. When the emperor strolled in the garden, he could pick up a book here, pace about with it, and display his insatiable love of reading. During the Qianlong reign, a grand cultural project—the compilation of the Siku Quanshu—was completed. Qianlong then selected some choice texts, edifying yet readable at leisure, to form the ‘Siku Quanshu Huiyao’ (Selected Essentials of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries). These pocket-book editions were stored right here in Qianzao Hall. Today the hall is a Forbidden City bookshop—still related to books.

Continuing west past Qianzao Hall, you come to a high point in the garden: Duixiu Hill, and on its summit, Yujing Pavilion.

At a glance, those rocks are Genyue stones—the so-called Taihu Lake rocks. Emperor Huizong of Song built the Long Life Hill garden in Bianliang, sending men south to collect all sorts of Taihu rocks, which they called the ‘Flower and Stone Transport.’ When finished, he named it Genyue, the greatest rockery garden in Chinese history. Later, in the second year of Jingkang (AD 1127), Jin troops seized Bianliang, dismantled Genyue, and moved the Taihu rocks to Yanjing to build gardens—now Beihai Park. Thereafter, Yuan, Ming, and Qing emperors repeatedly took rocks from the Jin garden to build hills. Almost all the royal Taihu rockeries in Beijing today came from Beihai’s Genyue collection. Yujing Pavilion atop Duixiu Hill is a square four-column bracket-beam pavilion with a green glazed four-cornered pyramidal roof with yellow edges, and a gilt pearl finial on a dew basin. Though it has no veranda, there is a circle of white marble balustrades.

This spot was originally the Flower-Viewing Hall built by Zhu Di. Back then, the garden must have been planted with all sorts of flowers for the emperor’s appreciation. By the time Zhu Yijun (the Wanli Emperor) ascended the throne, he felt that according to fengshui, the palace should be backed by a high mountain, but Coal Hill to the north was a bit too far to really lean on. So during the Wanli reign, he had rocks piled here into a hill, stone steps cut, a pavilion built on top, and water channeled to flow down. During the Double Ninth Festival, the emperor would lead his concubines in climbing the height; once up there, he could hold beauties in one arm while gazing over the palace and sigh, ‘How mighty is my palace! How beautiful my heart!’ Of course, after that wastrel Zhu Yijun’s paralysis, he certainly couldn’t climb Duixiu Hill anymore.

Symmetrically across the west path from Qi’an Hall are matching structures.

Along the west wall of Kunning Gate is also a row of shops, and of course there’s a Qiongyuan West Gate leading to the Six Western Palaces. Opposite Jiangxue Verandah on the west path is Yangxing Studio, a two-storey building with twin corner towers, facing west.

Yangxing Studio sits on a five-foot-high grey stone platform surrounded by white marble balustrades, with front steps. In the Ming dynasty, this building was called Lezhi Studio, seven bays wide. In the Qianlong period of the Qing, three-bay corner towers were added to each end, making it now five bays on the ground floor. The central bay on the ground floor has the door; the side and end bays have grey brick sill walls and casement windows. Between the ground and first floors runs a band of glazed hip tiles. The upper floor has six-panel partition doors, and both floors have front verandas—the upper one with a balustrade. The roof is a yellow-glazed single-eave hip roof. Beams and lintels are in floral-heart Suzhou-style painting; even the spandrels bear flower motifs. Both the veranda and wall columns are square. The corner wings simply turn at the ends, matching the front in style.

What did Ming emperors do in Lezhi Studio? The word ‘le’ here means music, so ‘lezhi’ means delighting the heart. How to delight the heart? Miao dances, Qiang flutes? Probably this was the Ming emperor’s audio-visual room—watching opera, singing karaoke. The Qing emperors renamed it Yangxing Studio, which means much the same, though here they enjoyed calligraphy and painting. After his abdication, under the Articles of Favorable Treatment, Puyi still lived in the rear palace. When he was around high-school age (14–19), he engaged an English tutor, the Briton Reginald Johnston. Johnston lived in this very Yangxing Studio, extremely convenient for Puyi to cycle from the Hall of Mental Cultivation along the First West Long Lane for lessons. Johnston deeply influenced Puyi—it was he who coaxed Puyi into cutting off his queue.

North of Yangxing Studio, in the palace wall, is a gate. Outside it stands a coloured glaze screen wall.

Through this gate, to the north is the Shufang Studio, and further on you can reach the Hundred Children Gate on the Second West Long Lane and the lane in front of Chonghua Palace. Actually, on the east side of the garden, north of Jiangxue Verandah, there is a similar gate leading to the lane in front of the Fifth North Warehouse—though it’s no longer open.

In front of Yangxing Studio is another rockery, with caves inside where the emperor could play hide-and-seek with maids and concubines in his spare time.

On the small path east of the rockery there are pebble pictures. One depicts a train—engine, carriages, wheels—a favorite of children. Parents often bring their kids to the Imperial Garden and let them look for the little train they themselves sought in childhood.

North of Yangxing Studio is the West Well Pavilion, counterpart to the East Well Pavilion. Then comes the Qianqiu Pavilion (Pavilion of a Thousand Autumns), matching Wanchun. See, even the names are paired—Thousand Autumns and Ten Thousand Springs—and both were built in the same year, the 15th of Jiajing.

Qianqiu and Wanchun look identical from outside. In the Ming, this type of pointed dome was called a ‘one umbrella’ style—very apt, isn’t it? Let’s go inside.

It’s quite dark inside; only slivers of sunlight coming through the openwork windows illuminate the bracket sets.

Once your eyes adjust to the darkness, you discover a very beautiful coiled dragon caisson on the circular ceiling. I steadied my camera, opened the aperture, and slowly took a shot.

The interior ceiling is a flat checkerboard with gilt crane roundels, and in the center, a carved gilt wood dragon caisson—exquisite. Wanchun and Qianqiu Pavilions are delicate and unique, their forms rich with meaning. They are absolute architectural gems of the palace.

To the east of Qianqiu Pavilion stands a building that has no counterpart on the east side of the garden: the Four Deities Shrine.

This is an octagonal pavilion facing south, with a yellow-glazed octagonal dome roof, a treasure pearl finial on a yellow-glazed ‘stupa’ base, and an open veranda around. In front is a porch with a yellow-glazed rolling-shed hip roof. Between the veranda columns are benches where visitors can rest—the proper term for these is ‘meizi’ (lintel seats). Vernacular verandas often have such benches below, called ‘seat meizi,’ and above, ‘hanging meizi’ under the lintels, with spandrels below. Here, being the Imperial Garden, the column tops use horizontal beams and spandrels, and there are decorative panels, but no hanging meizi.

Since it’s called the Four Deities Shrine, it must house four gods. Which four? No doubt, the four directional emperors: Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise. This shrine was also built in the 15th year of Jiajing.

East of Qianqiu is the Four Deities Shrine; to its north, balancing Fubi Pavilion, is Chengrui Pavilion.

Chengrui and Fubi Pavilions are identical. Both pavilions were built in the 11th year of Wanli (AD 1583); both flanking porches were added in the 10th year of Yongzheng (AD 1732). Emperor Taizong of Song (Zhao Guangyi) once wrote a poem ‘Yuan Shi’ containing the lines, ‘Gazing far, I look to the cloud tops; azure sea waves calm, auspicious sun floats.’ The names ‘Fubi’ (Floating Azure) and ‘Chengrui’ (Pure Auspiciousness) are probably borrowed from these lines.

North of Chengrui Pavilion, matching Qianzao Hall on the east side, is Weiyu Studio, identical in form.

This row of rooms was first called Duiyu Verandah, renamed Yufang Verandah in the Jiajing period, and Weiyu Studio in the Qing. During Yongzheng’s reign, this was used as a Buddhist chapel, so the Imperial Garden contained both a chapel and Qi’an Hall—a dual Buddhist-Taoist cultivation.

Against the west wall of Chengrui Pavilion is a pavilion that looks like the open porch in front of Jiangxue Verandah. In fact, this should be called a gate pavilion. Inside, there’s a gate in the wall leading to Shufang Studio in Chonghua Palace. Look at this gate pavilion: seat meizi below the columns, hanging meizi above—the standard meizi configuration.

In a nook outside the west wall of Weiyu Studio stands a tiny pavilion. Four columns, square plan, four-cornered pointed roof, glazed pearl finial. It also has proper seat and hanging meizi. This is Yucui Pavilion, with a recently remade plaque. Yucui Pavilion was built in the 15th year of Jiajing, originally called Yucui Pavilion (with an archaic character). When renovated in the Wanli era, its name changed—still pronounced yu, but now meaning ‘jade green’ rather than ‘nurturing green,’ less scholarly perhaps.

In front of Yucui Pavilion is an old apricot tree that still blossoms in spring. Beyond the east wall of Qianzao Hall on the east side, there’s another square pavilion exactly like Yucui, with a similar history. That pavilion was first called Jinxiang (Golden Fragrance) but is now named Ningxiang (Congealed Fragrance). The old name was rather plain; the new one is elegantly poetic.

In the space east of Weiyu Studio, corresponding to Duixiu Hill on the east side, stands a building: Yanhui Pavilion.

Yanhui Pavilion is three bays wide and two deep, bracket-beam structure, with a yellow-glazed single-eave hip roof. It looks like a two-storey building from outside; the upper floor has a veranda all around with a railing. Look at the wooden railing—the baluster shape is completely different from stone ones.

Look closely: between the two floors there is a waist eave, above that a hip band, and on top of that, bracket sets. This reveals that it’s a real ‘ge’ (pavilion) with a hidden floor. The front central bay has six-panel partition doors; the side bays have grey brick sill walls below and partition windows above. The central doors are not of the highest rank—just three panels. Both upper and lower partition doors and windows use lantern-frame lattice. Look at the gilt ruyi panel on the partition door of Yanhui Pavilion.

In the Ming and Qing, the palace needed many women for work or pleasure. No matter their purpose, they had to be chosen—the famous ‘elegant lady selection.’ In the early Ming, selection was carried out in the Jiangnan region, where officials would hear of or see a pretty girl, take a peek, and those they fancied were sent to the capital for the emperor. Not just any girl was eligible: they were checked against certain criteria—daughters of the ‘three religions and nine schools’ were absolutely out, among other rules.

After the Shunzhi Emperor entered the pass in the Qing, Dorgon arranged a marriage for him to a relative. Though the empress was beautiful, her temper was bad and she often angered the emperor; eventually she was divorced and demoted to a consort. Shunzhi told his mother the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang that this time he would choose his own wife, and again picked a relative. After that, Shunzhi, following the Ming example, established the grand selection show, held every three years. Qing emperors’ selections were also restricted: only girls from Manchu and Mongol Eight Banner officials’ families were eligible. Before the event, each family sent their daughter to Beijing, staying in designated quarantine hostels, with travel expenses covered by the court. On the appointed day, the palace sent a horse-drawn minibus to bring these candidate beauties to Shenwu Gate. Eunuchs led the yet-unchosen girls through the side gate of Shenwu Gate into the palace, where they stood in formation on the square inside. Then other eunuchs led groups of six or seven into Shunzhen Gate, up to the front of Yanhui Pavilion. Why at the front? Because the gate was closed—they couldn’t go in. Selection was tiered: here at Yanhui Pavilion’s front was the ‘mass audition,’ where eunuch judges pre-screened based on whatever they considered pleasing. Those who were selected went to register at Weiyu Studio; those rejected were dismissed. After the mass audition, only about one-third remained and moved to the second round. The second round was again at Yanhui Pavilion, this time inside the main hall, with girls still in groups of six. The eunuchs had them walk a circle to observe posture, and recite poetry to check literacy and the pleasantness of their voice. Again, the suitable registered, the unsuitable left. After this, only a third of that group remained. Next came the secret inspection, not at Yanhui Pavilion but in a private chamber—places like Jingyi Verandah or Tiyuan Hall, not far from the garden. The examiners were mature women called old nurses; this inspection resembled the surgical part of our physicals—indescribable. After that, another third remained: the selectees registered to stay in the palace, the rejected were released. After the secret inspection came a trial period: partly to train in court etiquette, partly to get used to palace solitude. At the end, only the fully ripened—another third—remained as the true chosen girls of that triennial selection, just one out of every 81 originally sent. These maidens then entered the emperor’s own selection, from which he could pick consorts. Those he kept were usually titled ‘Elegant Responder’ or ‘Chaste Lady,’ with rare exceptions. Emperor Kangxi once selected a maiden as a consort directly—the future Empress Dowager Wuyashi, mother of Yongzheng. The emperor could also choose spouses for his adult sons from among them. Still Kangxi: besides picking a virtuous consort for himself, in the 30th year of his reign (AD 1691) he chose Lady Ulanara as formal wife for his son Yinzhen—the future primary wife.

The labor and personnel systems for Ming and Qing palace maids were quite different. In the Ming, it was a lifelong service; when old or sick, they were sent to the Western Inner Peace Hall near Di’anmen to die. In the Qing, there was a retirement system: if a maid was not favored by the emperor, she could retire and leave the palace in her twenties. If she had an incurable illness, she could even take medical retirement without waiting until twenty.

Behind Qi’an Hall, between Yanhui Pavilion and Duixiu Hill, is a small courtyard enclosed by low walls, with gates on all four sides.

Standing on the back platform of Qi’an Hall and looking north, you see a chain of gates.

In the picture above, the nearest is Chengguang Gate, then Shunzhen Gate, and behind that, the arched gateway of Shenwu Gate. Through the arch of Shenwu Gate, you can see the hill gate of Jingshan Park and Qi wang Lou (Prospect Pavilion). This sequence of gates is part of Beijing’s central axis.

Behind Chengguang Gate, on either side, sits a gilt-bronze kneeling elephant. Look closely at this elephant: its front legs are prostrate, while its hind legs are kneeling. The elephant itself sounds like 'xiang' (auspicious), and this posture of kneeling elephant is called 'fortune ahead, nobility behind'—even more auspicious.

This courtyard is the north entrance of the Imperial Garden, so its front faces north. Turn around and look: Chengguang Gate.

On the east, below Duixiu Hill, is Yanhe Gate.

On the west, below Yanhui Pavilion, is Jifu Gate.

In Zhu Di’s time, Shunzhen Gate was Kunning Gate. During the Jiajing reign, when the back corridor of Kunning Palace was turned into a palace wall, the central Guangyun Gate was renamed Kunning Gate, and this gate was renamed Shunzhen Gate. ‘Shunzhen’ means obedience and loyalty—a motto for palace ladies. The courtyard behind Shunzhen Gate is naturally its entrance court; when packed with people, you could call it a 'bustling courtyard.'

These gates are all wall-mounted gates; the side gates are identical, Chengguang Gate slightly larger. Flanking all three are small glazed screen walls. When Chengguang Gate is closed, it becomes a large screen wall for the Shunzhen Gate area. Shunzhen Gate is also a wall gate, with three archways, quite formal.

Shunzhen Gate was the passage from the inner court to the back gates of the Forbidden City, normally kept closed. When was it opened? Certainly during Taoist ceremonies at Qi’an Hall, when high priests would register, show their green codes, and enter Qi’an Hall. The empress exited the palace here on trips to Beihai or the Old Summer Palace. If palace women received an imperial order to meet relatives, only Shunzhen Gate was opened; relatives could enter through Shenwu Gate and meet them in this very courtyard. In the Ming, if a palace person died, the coffin left through the west arch of Shunzhen Gate. In the Qing, during the beauty selections, girls entered through the west arch of Shunzhen Gate and then went through Jifu Gate to Yanhui Pavilion.

Some palace vehicles had to enter and exit via Shenwu Gate, but none could go through Shunzhen Gate; they had to use the side lanes—the East and West Long Streets and East Second Long Street. These vehicles included water and rice carts coming in, night-soil carts going out, as well as coal carts in and ash carts out.

In the past, besides walking straight north from the Meridian Gate, you could also enter the Imperial Garden from Shenwu Gate, going south through Shunzhen Gate. Now Shenwu Gate is exit only, so everyone visits the garden from south to north. After touring the Imperial Garden, you exit Shunzhen Gate to the Shenwu Gate square, also called the North Horizontal Street.

At this point, we’ve completed the central axis route of the Forbidden City from south to north. We’ve passed through the main palace gate Tiananmen, the Imperial Treasury Duanmen, the gate towers of Wumen, the court gate Taihe Men, and the inner living gate Qianqing Men. We’ve seen the Ming court held at Taihe Gate, the grand audience hall Taihe Dian, the Qing morning audience at Qianqing Gate, and the private audience at Qianqing Palace. These are known as the Five Gates and Three Courts. We’ve toured the three courtyards of the Outer Three Front Halls, the three courtyards of the Inner Three Rear Palaces, and also the Imperial Garden. Now we’ve seen the entire central route of the Ming and Qing imperial palace. Next, we should walk the eastern and western side routes.

(To be continued)