Viewing the Red Walls and Golden Roofs – Appreciating the Ming and Qing Imperial Palace, Part 13: Ningshou Palace Area (Part 1, Revised Edition)
My 2021 series of Forbidden City posts, the seventeen installments of "Viewing the Red Walls and Golden Roofs – Appreciating the Ming and Qing Imperial Palace", have been generously read by many readers. Some of them raised suggestions, comments, and pointed out errors. This revised reissue has adopted those suggestions and comments, enriched some content, corrected writing mistakes, and updated or added images. While I dare not claim all errors are fixed, most should be corrected. This detailed account covers the ancient Chinese top-tier palace architecture seen in the Ming and Qing imperial palace, royal artifacts on display, traces of Qing court life, and also recalls some stories and legends from those dynasties. I don't dare say it's "to entertain readers", I just wish to share with fellow readers. Thank you.
——————————————————————————————
Exiting the Hall of Literary Brilliance (Wenhua Dian) and walking north, which is toward the back, you'll soon see a compound to the right—on the east side. These buildings might look like palace offices, but they are definitely part of the imperial complex: this is the Southern Three Residences (Nan Sansuo). Nansansuo is a large courtyard with its main gate on the south side.
Just inside the gate, a large spirit screen blocks the view of outsiders like me. Behind it are three separate residences, hence the name "Southern Three Residences". Each residence has three courtyards, similar to the "Five Residences East of the Palace of Heavenly Purity" (Qian Dong Wu Suo) behind the Six Eastern Palaces—now also called the Northern Five Residences. In the Ming dynasty, the layout here was different, although there were a few compounds like the Hall of Duanduan, the Hall of Duanben, and the Hall of Xiefang. Despite being called "halls," they were actually courtyards. In the 11th year of the Qianlong reign (1746), the current Southern Three Residences were built, with the official name still Xiefang Hall (读作xié fāng). During Ming and Qing times, this area served as the princes' residences. The Qing crown prince Yunreng lived in the Yuqing Palace, while other princes stayed in the rear palace with their mothers as infants and young children, then moved here when they grew older, and finally moved out of the Forbidden City after marriage. Because it's on the east road, a Ming crown prince living here was sometimes called the "Eastern Palace Crown Prince". In the Qing dynasty, the Yuqing Palace was also on the east side. The "Eastern Palace Crown Prince" was simply the son with the best chance of inheriting the throne.
Since it's the Hall of Xiefang, you can expect some mysterious tales. In the 43rd year of the Wanli reign (1615), during the famous "Case of the Club Attack", Crown Prince Zhu Changluo was living in the Cining Palace here, and Xiefang Hall was its front hall. Emperor Wanli (Zhu Yijun) had his eldest son Zhu Changluo by Consort Wang (Lady Wang), and a third son Zhu Changxun by Noble Consort Zheng. Wanli favoured Noble Consort Zheng and wanted to make her son the crown prince, but was opposed by ministers. After the "Struggle over the State Foundation", he had no choice but to entrust Zhu Changluo as crown prince in the 29th year of his reign. On the afternoon of the 4th day of the 5th month (a festival day) in the 43rd year, a young man appeared in the palace. He carried a wooden club like the one used by Wu Song, called a ting staff. Somehow he made his way to the Cining Palace where the crown prince lived, and with one blow he knocked down the guard eunuch at the gate. Before falling, the guard shrieked "There's an assassin!" — eunuchs have high-pitched voices, "castrated sound," as you know. The young man stepped over the guard and strode into the inner courtyard, swinging his club with a whooshing sound. Just at that critical moment, the crown prince's personal bodyguard on duty in the front hall (Xiefang Hall) rushed out, struck the man in the chest, subdued and tied him up. Under interrogation, the young man claimed that two eunuchs from Noble Consort Zheng's palace had led him to the crown prince's gate and told him to go in and beat Zhu Changluo to death. Emperor Wanli refused to investigate deeply, suspecting that it was Crown Prince Zhu Changluo's plot to frame Noble Consort Zheng. In the end, the young man was beheaded at the Caishikou execution ground, and the two eunuchs from Noble Consort Zheng's palace were strangled in a dark corner of the palace. The case was closed without further consequence. Noble Consort Zheng had originally wanted to urge Wanli to depose Zhu Changluo and make her own son the crown prince, but after this incident she had to give up. This was a notorious mystery case of the Ming dynasty, known as the "Case of the Club Attack". Eventually, Zhu Changluo smoothly ascended the throne as the Taichang Emperor. But just one month later, the Taichang Emperor mysteriously died in the "Case of the Red Pills", another mystery. Zhu Changluo's eldest son Zhu Youxiao lost his mother early and was raised by his father's favourite consort, Lady Li (Li Xuanshi). When Zhu Changluo became Taichang, he moved into the Palace of Heavenly Purity with Zhu Youxiao. Lady Li pestered Taichang to make her empress, but she only got a noble consort title and was dissatisfied. Before Taichang's father died, he designated Zhu Changluo's son Zhu Youxiao as the imperial grandson. So after Taichang's death, this grandson became the Tianqi Emperor. Lady Li, after consulting Wei Zhongxian, refused to leave the Palace of Heavenly Purity, claiming she needed to continue raising the 16-year-old Zhu Youxiao, fearing he wasn't ready to be weaned. Later, pressured by Wei Zhongxian's rivals, she was forced to move to the Yuluan Palace (pronounced yuè luàn), which was rebuilt as Ningshou Palace in the Qing dynasty. This was the Ming "Case of Palace Moving", which is not a mystery. The Tianqi Emperor Zhu Youxiao reigned for seven years, but just like his father, he died after consuming those ill-fated elixirs.
The Qing Kangxi Emperor ascended the throne as a child and never lived in this princes' area. Before his marriage and moving out of the palace, the Yongzheng Emperor lived here. As a child, the Qianlong Emperor lived in his father’s Prince Yong Mansion; when his father became the Yongzheng Emperor, he lived in the Yuqing Palace, and after marriage moved to the Five Residences West of the Palace of Heavenly Purity. Later Qing emperors all spent their childhoods in the Southern Three Residences, effectively becoming "Eastern Palace crown princes".
Today, the Southern Three Residences serve as office space for the Palace Museum, and also double as a parking lot. In the above photo you can see parked Audis and Mercedes-Benzes — all official vehicles. Walking along the main road on the west, you'll also spot garages, including fire engine garages, indicating that the Forbidden City’s fire brigade is stationed here ready for action.
Continuing north along the tree-lined avenue, you'll see a large hall ahead.
This is the Archery Pavilion (Jian Ting). It is five bays wide and two bays deep, built with a post-and-beam structure, surrounded by a veranda. The roof is covered with yellow glazed tiles in a single-eave hip-and-gable style, adorned with seven ridge beasts—a rather high specification. All five bays on the front are open, each with four-panel, six-stile lattice doors featuring the intricate triple-cross and six-bowl pattern. The rear has doors in the central and adjacent bays, while the end bays have solid walls. The east and west sides also have solid walls without windows. Under the eaves, the horizontal beams are painted with double-dragon and imperial seal motifs (hexicaihua). Standing under the veranda and looking up, you'll notice something special about the Archery Pavilion's structure.
The outer columns of the veranda have bracket sets (dougong), but the inner columns—those against the wall—have no brackets; they rise directly to the top, which is the ceiling. The roof uses a post-and-beam structure where beams rest directly on column tops, without bracket sets. Among the formal yellow-glazed-tile halls in the Forbidden City, it's rare to see beams set directly on columns like this; the Archery Pavilion may be the only one. Folk architecture often uses this method. For instance, the Yiyu Xuan in the Geyuan Garden and the Xichun Hall in the Heyuan Garden, both in Yangzhou and visited just this past "Flowery March", use this post-and-beam style.
The steps in front of the Archery Pavilion are different from elsewhere—very broad, with a central marble ramp carved with dragons (danbi stone). In front of the pavilion, there are five bronze oxen, symbolizing "Five Blessings Arriving at the Door". These oxen are based on the "Five Oxen" painting by Han Huang (also pronounced Huàng) of the Tang dynasty, which is the earliest surviving painting on paper in China. A reproduction of the "Five Oxen" was displayed in the special stamp exhibition at the Palace of Abstinence (Zhaigong). The paper of the original painting is not Xuan paper but hemp paper, which has allowed it to survive for centuries. It bears inscriptions by many ancient celebrities, including Zhao Mengfu. In the 11th year of the Qianlong reign (1746), the painting entered the Qing palace, and Qianlong himself composed a poem on it. During the invasion of the Eight-Nation Alliance, the "Five Oxen" was taken overseas. In the 1950s, the state bought it back from Hong Kong for 60,000 Hong Kong dollars, and in the 1970s, after restoration, it returned to the Palace Museum. In 2017, the Palace Museum invited Hangzhou bronze sculptor Zhu Bingren to create five bronze statues based on the "Five Oxen" to place in front of the Archery Pavilion. These oxen can be touched, hugged, even ridden—but not taken away to plough a field. During the 2021 Year of the Ox CCTV Spring Festival Gala, the "Five Oxen" was showcased together with the Buddha head from Tianlongshan under the theme "National Treasures Return Home".
In the Ming dynasty, there seems to be no record of what structure stood here. The earliest Archery Pavilion was built during the Shunzhi reign of the Qing dynasty, serving as an imperial sports ground for horse riding and archery, mainly archery. The Qing military examinations also held their palace exams here, where candidates' archery and horsemanship skills were compared; the top scorer could be granted the title of First-Class Imperial Guard. The current building was rebuilt during the Yongzheng reign and has certainly been repainted since.
Qing emperors often organized princes to practice archery here. The main doors would be fully opened, and a row of princes would stand inside, shooting at targets outside. Later, princes also practiced firearms here, and then led a firing squad to Longzong Gate to fend off militia from the Tianli Sect (Eight Trigrams Rebellion). You see the row of stone pillars on the ground behind the Archery Pavilion? Take a closer look.
These stone piers all have holes in the center—the archery targets were mounted in them. You take a look, and think: Hey! That's not far at all!
North of the Archery Pavilion is the Archery Pavilion Square. To the west of the square is Jingyun Gate. Passing through Jingyun Gate brings you to the Qianqing Gate Square, and at the other end is Longzong Gate. In the 18th year of the Jiaqing reign (1813), when Tianli Sect militia attacked Longzong Gate, Prince Minning, who was then living in the Southern Three Residences, took a musket, exited Nansansuo, passed through Jingyun Gate, and arrived at Longzong Gate, where he fired and killed two militiamen. Minning had a very aggressive personality: at age ten, following his grandfather Emperor Qianlong on a hunt in the mountains, he had already shot and killed a deer. Minning later became the Daoguang Emperor, but after that he never again took up arms in battle, metaphorically storing the weapons and letting the horses rest. In the 20th year of the Daoguang reign (1840), the First Opium War broke out, and the Qing dynasty lost.
To the north of the Archery Pavilion Square is the Ming dynasty Fengci Hall, now the Yuqing Palace. East of Yuqing Palace is Fengxian Hall, one of the two premium exhibition halls in the Forbidden City that require an extra ticket—the Clock Gallery.
Entering, you'll find that the original venue for the Clock Gallery, Fengxian Hall, is not open. The Clock Gallery has moved to the row of southern buildings across from Fengxian Hall. The closure of Fengxian Hall is probably not due to the pandemic but because of renovation work. When I asked, I was told that it will later be returned to its original historical display.
Let's step into the southern row and see the court clocks. The earliest chiming clock in the imperial palace was brought to Beijing by the Roman missionary Matteo Ricci in the 28th year of the Wanli reign (1600) as a gift to Emperor Shenzong (Zhu Yijun). Take a look at this one below—an 18th-century British product, gilt-bronze figure indicating hours, quarters, and minutes.
On the second level, there are three dials showing hours, quarters, and minutes. Below is a gilt-bronze clock with enamel and auspicious birds announcing good fortune—also 18th-century British, made by the famous London craftsman Williamson during the Queen Anne period.
This clock is called the "Gilt-bronze Writing Figure Clock". The dial is by Williamson of England, and the base was specially made in Switzerland for the Qianlong Emperor—it was his favorite clock.
The most amazing part is that the European gentleman in the pavilion below can write Chinese characters. Let's see what he writes.
Before starting, it must be wound up, then a sheet of white paper is placed on the small table, and the European figure's right hand—which holds a brush—is dipped in ink. Once set in motion, the gentleman shakes his head and swings his body as he writes on the paper: "All directions come under our civilizing influence, all lands pay homage to the king."
Westerners first entered China primarily as missionaries. In the early days, for a missionary to obtain the emperor's permission to work in China, he had to win the emperor's favor. The easiest tribute to please the emperor was precisely these Western clocks. The Qianlong Emperor received many such clocks, all bearing the stamp of their era. During Qianlong's reign, the Rococo art style was all the rage in France, so the clocks arriving from European countries at that time were all bling-bling in the Rococo style. Any Western beauty depicted on the clocks would be in the sensual Rococo manner of François Boucher. That Boucher was actually a contemporary of Qianlong, about ten years older than the emperor.
Take a look at a product of the Qing palace workshops: the black lacquer painted palace with immortals offering birthday congratulations clock.
Look at the group of immortals on top—they rather look like three society matrons.
The Clock Gallery also has some decorative furnishings. Check out this set of European-style table and chairs, along with the coffee set on the table.
I suspect this was the coffee seating that Wanrong (the last empress) set up in the Hall of Gathered Elegance (Chuxiu Gong) to go with her Western-style dining room.
Suddenly I noticed a painting on the wall next to the coffee table.
This is Monet's "Impression, Sunrise"! In the lower left corner, there's even Monet's signature. I've never heard that Monet painted multiple versions of "Impression, Sunrise" like he did with "Water Lilies". Without a doubt, this is a copy. Who copied it? Giuseppe Castiglione (Lang Shining)? Impossible, he wasn't from the same period as Monet. The Clock Gallery just arranged this European-style scene without providing the provenance of the painting. They also set up a Chinese-style scene.
This scene looks much more fitting inside the Forbidden City. The painting on the wall is a detail from "Ciyun Puhu" (Compassionate Cloud Protecting All), one of the "Forty Scenes of the Old Summer Palace" painted by court artists under the Qianlong Emperor's order. The scene shows the "Jian Ge" (Ravine Pavilion) in the Jiuzhou (Nine Continents) area built by the Kangxi Emperor. The original set of forty paintings with accompanying poems was looted by the Anglo-French forces in 1860 and is now kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. In 1928, a Chinese person took a set of black-and-white photos and brought them back to China. In 1983, a French person gave China a set of color negatives. In 2003, a Beijing company bought the copyright to the original color negatives and domestic distribution rights at a huge cost, and in 2004 produced a limited edition of 2,004 sets of silk-screen color scrolls. The first set of this collector's edition is in the National Museum, and the National Library also has one. Number 1860 is held by the Old Summer Palace Society, number 1997 in Hong Kong, and number 1999 in Macau. Quite a few tycoons own a set, including Li Ka-shing and Zeng Xianzi. I guess the Palace Museum has one as well. I once saw a photographer in a park who, after shooting the most beautiful flower, plucked it and took it away. I think he learned that move from the Anglo-French forces. They destroyed the Old Summer Palace, looted this set of "Forty Scenes," and then sold the pictures to the Chinese at high prices—shameless!
Further east from Fengxian Hall is the Outer East Road of the Inner Court, home to another premium exhibition hall of the Forbidden City—the Treasure Gallery. Between the Clock Gallery in Fengxian Hall and the Treasure Gallery in Ningshou Palace runs the long East Tube Street (Dong Tongzi Changjie). This street has no gates or thresholds to slow you down; it leads straight north to the Tianjie (Sky Street) in front of the Gate of Divine Prowess (Shenwu Men).
The Treasure Gallery is located in Ningshou Palace. During the Ming dynasty, the Ningshou Palace area was where the former emperor's consorts lived out their old age. After the previous emperor passed away and a new one ascended the throne, the rear three palaces and the six eastern and western palaces had to be vacated for the new emperor and his consorts. Behind Ningshou Palace there are other halls and palaces where Ming concubines also lived. The Wan Consort (Wan Guifei) of the Chenghua Emperor successively lived in Anxi Palace and Zhaode Palace, which were probably in this area. The female lead of the earlier-mentioned Ming "Case of Palace Moving", Lady Li, was finally moved from the Palace of Heavenly Purity to the Yuluan Palace here. There's also a Jiefeng Palace, which is said to have once housed Consort Gong (Gongfei) of the Hongwu Emperor (Zhu Yuanzhang). Some claim Consort Gong was the birth mother of Zhu Di (the Yongle Emperor). This is not recorded in official history and remains doubtful. According to historical records, all of Hongwu's consorts were buried alive as sacrifices, so how could Consort Gong have lived in the Beijing imperial palace?
After being burned during the rebellion of Li Zicheng (the Dashing King), in the early Qing dynasty, this area was quite desolate—an overgrown patch where whatever you planted turned to weeds. By the Kangxi reign, his birth mother, Empress Dowager Tong (Tong Jia Shi), had died early—in the second year of Kangxi (1662). Living in the Palace of Compassion and Tranquility (Cining Gong) were Kangxi's grandmother, Grand Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang, and his legal mother, Empress Dowager Renxian (the Shunzhi Emperor's second empress, Xiaohuizhang). After his birth mother's death, Kangxi became even closer to his legal mother. In the 22nd year of Kangxi, on the site of the former Ming No. 1 Hall (一号殿), reconstruction began for the Ningshou Palace where Empress Dowager Renxian would live. In the 26th year, Grand Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang passed away at age 74. Then, 340 years ago from now, in the 28th year of Kangxi, Ningshou Palace was completed, and Empress Dowager Renxian moved in. The front main hall was Ningshou Palace, with the rear residence being Jingfu Palace. The empress dowager lived in Jingfu Palace until her hair turned grey and teeth shook, well into her seventies. By then, Kangxi himself was nearly sixty, with a dizzy head and swollen feet. In the 52nd year of Kangxi, the empress dowager also passed away at 77. During the Yongzheng reign, Kangxi's noble consorts lived here, including He Guifei of the Gūwalgiya clan, until she died at 86 in the 33rd year of Qianlong (1768). After that, Ningshou Palace stood idle.
In the 36th year of Qianlong, an imperial decree ordered the reconstruction of the entire Ningshou Palace complex, occupying a very large area. He planned to live there after his retirement, to become the Retired Emperor at that certain time. Qianlong had declared he could not occupy the throne longer than his grandfather Kangxi's sixty years, but how did he know he would live that long?
In the 41st year of Qianlong, the renovation was completed. The Ningshou Palace area was transformed into a miniature palace, with its main gate being the Huangji Gate (Gate of Imperial Supremacy).
Huangji Gate is quite understated—just three arched glazed gates set into the high palace wall, flush with the wall. But on either side, there are also the Left Huangji Gate and the Right Huangji Gate for those who are not the emperor himself to use.
The area in front of Huangji Gate is naturally called Huangji Gate Square. It is not square, but rectangular, long from east to west and short from north to south. There are gates at both ends: Lianxi Gate to the east and Xiqing Gate to the west. The eastern Lianxi Gate is closed, while the western Xiqing Gate now serves as the entrance to the Treasure Gallery. On the southern wall opposite Huangji Gate is a glazed spirit screen. This wall also forms the back wall of the storehouses behind the Southern Three Residences. Having a screen wall in front of a main gate is a layout commonly used in Chinese temples; later, princely mansions also adopted this feature. Screen walls are very common and come in various types, usually with a decorative center, often in brick carving or glazed tile. The glazed spirit screen in front of Huangji Gate features nine dragons and is called the Nine-Dragon Screen. It was built in the 37th year of the Qianlong reign (1772).
In ancient times, the dragon symbolized imperial power, and nine dragons represented the highest rank. The Nine-Dragon Screen is the highest grade of glazed screen wall, certainly not for ordinary families. China now has four Nine-Dragon Screens. Besides this one, there's another in Beijing's Beihai Park—a double-sided one, also built during the Qianlong period. Beihai Park was once an imperial garden, so a Nine-Dragon Screen there is no surprise. In Datong, Shanxi, there is the oldest surviving Nine-Dragon Screen in China, which served as the screen wall in front of the residence of Prince Dai, Zhu Gui (the thirteenth son of Zhu Yuanzhang). In Pingyao, Shanxi, there's also a Nine-Dragon Screen, rather unique; although it was also built in the early Ming dynasty, it has no imperial background. Across from the Pingyao Nine-Dragon Screen is the former Taizi Temple (Temple of the Prince), which enshrined not a Ming crown prince, nor the Buddha, but the image of Prince Siddhartha of Kapilavastu before his enlightenment. Among these four screens, only the one in Beihai Park is double-sided; the others are single-sided. The Nine-Dragon Screen at Huangji Gate features nine dragons in different colors soaring over ocean waves. The gold dragon, of course, is in the center and faces forward—this is called the "proper dragon". Look at the head of the gold dragon.
To either side of it, the dragons are symmetrically colored, with rising and descending dragons alternating. Among the nine dragons on the screen, the two white ones have the most pitiful stories. The lower half of the abdomen of the eastern white dragon, originally made of glazed tile, was broken during installation in the Qianlong period. To avoid delaying the construction, the workers didn't fire a new glazed piece; instead, they carved a piece of wood, painted it with white lacquer, and fitted it in place—the trick of "painting white over old yellow," if you will. This went unnoticed during the inspection. Over time, the white paint peeled off, revealing the wood and thus the secret; it remains in that condition today. It is said that when this was discovered, the abdicated Emperor Puyi was living in Tianjin. Upon hearing of it, he reportedly said, "Those craftsmen should be killed." You see, even after abdication, Puyi still thought about casually having people executed. Today, every visitor who comes to this Nine-Dragon Screen—call them Visitor A and Visitor B—wants to see that piece of wood. If you don't know where it is, there will always be a Visitor C to point it out to you.
The western white dragon, meanwhile, has simply lost a section of its belly.
Passing through Huangji Gate, you'll see a proper palace gate ahead: that is Ningshou Gate. The space between Huangji Gate and Ningshou Gate is called Ningshou Gate Square. It is very large. Just three days after Qianlong abdicated, he held the "Banquet of a Thousand Seniors" in the Huangji Hall of Ningshou Palace. The hall couldn't seat all the guests, so older men of fifth rank and below were seated right here in Ningshou Gate Square.
Ningshou Gate is basically the same architectural form as Qianqing Gate: a five-bay, three-opening building-type gate, with a yellow-glazed-tile single-eave hip-and-gable roof. It also has three flights of steps with a central marble ramp (danbi), and flanking "splayed" glazed screen walls. In front are a pair of gilded bronze lions.
A special feature of Ningshou Gate is the well pavilions located outside the gate. Normally, well pavilions should be inside the courtyard, but here, there is one in each corner on the east and west sides outside Ningshou Gate.
Entering Ningshou Gate, like at Qianqing Gate, there is a marble terrace leading directly to the rear main hall. The main hall is the Huangji Hall. The "Ningshou Palace" plaque was moved to the rear residence. The "Huangji Hall" plaque with imperial dragons looks too new; it seems a bit mismatched with the grand hall.
The architectural form of Huangji Hall is also basically identical to Qianqing Palace: a five-chi-high single-level platform, a double-eave hip roof with yellow glazed tiles, and nine ridge beasts. Both are nine bays wide and five bays deep. However, in Qianqing Palace, the eastern and western end bays are open, more like verandas, whereas Huangji Hall has a proper nine-bay width. Qianqing Palace has three doors in the central bay and adjacent ones; Huangji Hall has five doors in the central and adjacent bays. The cloud-and-dragon spandrels (queti) under the front eaves of Huangji Hall are very special, unlike any other great hall in the Forbidden City. In the Three Great Halls and the Three Rear Palaces, the spandrels are painted wood carved with flowers and scrolling grasses. Here at Huangji Hall, they are wood carvings with gilded cloud dragons; weathered and aged, they look like cast bronze. The outer walls below the windows in the end and corner bays are faced with yellow-green glazed turtle-pattern tiles, just like in the Hall of Supreme Harmony. On the platform (yuetai) of Huangji Hall, there are a sundial and a Jialiang Pavilion on the east and west sides, but the Jialiang Pavilion is empty. On the platform, flanking the central ramp, are two pedestals for "Longevity Lanterns". Missing from the platform are the original bronze tortoise, bronze crane, and incense burners. At the foot of the platform on the east and west sides are two more pedestals—these are not for Longevity Lanterns but are called "Sky Lantern" pedestals.
Inside the hall, the center features six large gold-lacquered columns with a pattern called "the rivers and mountains for ten thousand generations amid cloud dragons", exactly like in the Hall of Supreme Harmony. In the middle is a dais with the emperor's throne upon it, behind which stands a screen modeled after the one in the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Behind the dais, between the two central rear gold columns, hangs a gilded plaque with two dragons; in the same position in Qianqing Palace, there is a five-dragon plaque. Above the golden plaque, in front of the horizontal beam, hangs a paper plaque inscribed "Ren De Da Long" (Profound Benevolence and Virtue).
On the sides are displayed incense burners, white elephants, and luduan mythical beasts. The white elephant carrying a treasure vase symbolizes "peace and prosperity" (taiping youxiang), a very auspicious motif.
Look up at the ceiling: a copy of the Hall of Supreme Harmony’s douba (eight-sided) coffer with a coiling dragon in pure gold, from which hangs a one-chi-tall Xuanyuan mirror. You can see two squares rotated 45 degrees and superimposed—this is the so-called "douba" pattern.
The "Ren De Da Long" plaque above is a recent replica; the original is currently hung under the front eave outside the Huangji Hall.
On the original plaque are impressed three large seals. The central one reads: "Treasure of the Imperial Brush of Empress Dowager Cixi". The left one: "A few dots of plum blossom capture the heart of heaven and earth". The right one: "Peace and benevolence in harmony with heaven and earth". These three giant sandalwood seals were specially used as a set on large-character plaques either calligraphed by Cixi herself or ghostwritten for her; they are the largest seals in the imperial palace. There is another "Ren De Da Long" plaque in the Cining Palace, also inscribed by Cixi (date unknown), and that plaque was restored to its original condition. On this Huangji Hall plaque, the characters for "plum blossom" (梅花) do not match those on the Cining Palace plaque, suggesting this one is likely a forgery, leaving a clue for later generations to debate.
Seeing the "Huangji Hall" plaque under the eaves, you can't help recalling that the Hall of Supreme Harmony was also called "Huangji Hall" at the end of the Ming dynasty. In other words, although this Huangji Hall in Ningshou Palace was built following the architectural form of Qianqing Palace, in Old Qianlong's mind it was meant to be at the same level as the Hall of Supreme Harmony, second only to it.
In the 44th year of Qianlong (1779), Huangji Hall was completed. According to Qianlong's own plan, after retiring he would live in the Ningshou Palace. The front hall would serve as his audience hall, similar to the Hall of Supreme Harmony, where he would receive homage; the rear residential hall would be the Ningshou Palace. Moreover, Qianlong decreed that after his death, this area was not to be altered, remaining as a retirement residence for retired emperors. He set the sixty-year reign of his grandfather Kangxi as the maximum for future Qing emperors, forbidding anyone to exceed it. He even issued an edict: "If our Great Qing lasts for untold generations, and my descendants, favored by Heaven, also enjoy long reigns reaching a full century, then the Ningshou Palace shall remain the dwelling of the Retired Emperor." This edict became the ancestral rule. In fact, Old Qian personally appeared here only twice. The first time was in the 44th year, for the completion inspection, where he treated princes and ministers to imperial tea. The second time was the "Banquet of a Thousand Seniors" in the first year of Jiaqing, when he was Retired Emperor. After retirement, as the Retired Emperor, he came only for that one banquet. On ordinary days he sat in the Hall of Mental Cultivation (Yangxin Dian), and on New Year's and festivals, he would still go to the Hall of Supreme Harmony to receive homage, which was a bit unreasonable. The ostensible reason Old Qian refused to move out of the Yangxin Dian was to continue "supervising governance" (xunzheng). Privately, there were two other reasons. One was that he couldn't easily let go of the imperial seal—"As long as life goes on, the seal must be held." The other: the two women Qianlong loved most in his life were, first, Empress Fucha, who lived in the Palace of Eternal Spring (Changchun Gong) but would spend the night in the east side room of Yangxin Dian. After Empress Fucha died, Qianlong's favorite, Consort Ling (Ling Fei), stayed in the same east side room when she became seriously ill before her death. Qianlong kept the arrangements in Changchun Gong for Empress Fucha until his abdication, and the east side room of Yangxin Dian retained Consort Ling's arrangement. Old Qian intended to live out his days beside the room of Consort Ling.
After Qianlong, the Jiaqing Emperor visited Huangji Hall only once: on New Year's Eve of the 13th year of Jiaqing (1808) for a banquet for ministers. This banquet should have been held in the Hall of Preserving Harmony (Baohe Dian), but that year a section of its ceiling had collapsed and could not be repaired in winter, so Huangji Hall was borrowed. Afterwards, not only Huangji Hall but the entire Ningshou Palace complex remained unused. Until the 20th year of Guangxu (1894), when Empress Dowager Cixi’s 60th birthday celebration was held here. For this occasion, Huangji Hall was repainted. All Qianlong-era plaques and couplets inside were replaced. Originally, behind the throne hung Qianlong's plaque "Jian Ji Kang Ning" (Establishing the utmost peace and health), with couplets also by Qianlong. For Cixi’s 60th birthday, the plaque was changed to the one now seen, her own calligraphy "Ren De Da Long", and the couplets were replaced with calligraphy by Emperor Guangxu. After that, Cixi, as a woman who could not appear in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, often used this Huangji Hall—second only to the Hall of Supreme Harmony in rank—to receive festive homage, including during the Spring Festival, Winter Solstice, and her birthday, and to meet foreign envoys. The 60th birthday celebrations were originally planned for the Hall of Dispelling Clouds (Paiyun Dian) in the Summer Palace, but news arrived of defeat in the Sino-Japanese War (First Sino-Japanese War), so the grand ceremony in the Summer Palace was canceled and moved to Huangji Hall. In the 34th year of Guangxu, after Cixi's death, her coffin was not placed in the Cining Palace but here in Huangji Hall, until her burial in the Dingdong Mausoleum a year later. Empress Dowager Cixi and Empress Dowager Ci'an were not buried together with the Xianfeng Emperor but each had her own tomb. The Xianfeng Dingdong Mausoleum complex contains one imperial tomb and two empress tombs—unique among Qing tombs.
Cixi's lying in state at Huangji Hall set a bad precedent; later, Empress Longyu, the consort of the Guangxu Emperor, also lay in state here after her death.
In 2012, the Palace Museum rearranged Huangji Hall based on its Qianlong-era original state and opened it to the public. I suspect the Qianlong plaque and couplets above the throne were certainly lost, with no copies or images preserved. Left with no choice, they had to remake and display Cixi's and Guangxu's plaque and couplets.
The terrace in front of Huangji Hall is relatively small, so you can't walk around its sides to the rear hall. However, in the palace walls flanking the terrace, there are "flower-hanging" gates (chuihuamen) that lead to the rear hall.
The rear hall of Huangji Hall is the Ningshou Palace.
The "Ningshou Palace" plaque that used to hang on the front hall now hangs on this rear hall. Both Ningshou Palace and the front Huangji Hall were originally built in the 28th year of Kangxi. When Huangji Hall was rebuilt in the 41st year of Qianlong, this Ningshou Palace was also rebuilt. The platform under Ningshou Palace and Huangji Hall is one continuous structure. The emperor moved between them through the back door of Huangji Hall, just like in the Three Great Halls and the Three Rear Palaces. Ningshou Palace is seven bays wide and three bays deep, with a single-eave hip-and-gable roof covered in yellow glazed tiles. This differs from the Hall of Preserving Harmony and the Palace of Earthly Tranquility, which have double eaves. The spandrels under the veranda beams are identical to those in the front hall Huangji Hall. A distinctive feature under the eaves of Ningshou Palace is an extra tier between the upper and lower beams, decorated with a row of openwork carved wood clouds and dragons, known as taohuan huaban (interlocking decorative panels). Like the spandrels, these are gold-painted wood carvings. The spandrels may be original, or at least refurbished for Cixi’s 60th birthday. The cloud-dragon interlocking panels have clearly been renovated in recent years, as the gilding looks very fresh. Now we can see the original effect of these gilded wood carvings. The gold leaf used here is not pure gold but "hun jin" (mixed gold). Today we call pure gold "kaijin" and mixed gold "rose gold", which is quite low in purity. The front of Ningshou Palace, like the Palace of Earthly Tranquility, has its door at the eastern secondary bay. The other bays have vertical-bar lattice windows, and above the doors and windows runs a horizontal panel with double-cross and four-bowl latticework.
Ningshou Palace can be entered. The interior layout is much like that of the Palace of Earthly Tranquility, as it was intended by Qianlong for shamanic rituals after his retirement. Once you enter through the eastern secondary bay, there is a half-bay warm chamber, which must have been where water was boiled and meat cooked.
The two bays on the east side are enclosed as a warm chamber that could serve as a bedroom, similar to the imperial bridal chamber in the eastern warm chamber of the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. The western side is an open space, and under the wall in the far western bay you can see a large kang (heated brick platform). The ceiling inside the hall is decorated with painted coffered panels in the dragon-and-phoenix imperial motif.
Before the Manchu entered the Great Wall, their imperial palace was in Shengjing (present-day Shenyang). The main hall there was the Hall of Great Government (Dazheng Dian), and behind it was the Qingning Palace, the ancestral place of worship where shamanic ceremonies were held. After entering the pass, the Qing court transformed the Palace of Earthly Tranquility into the place for their shamanic rituals, after which princes and ministers were invited in to eat meat. In his "Supplement to the Ningshou Palace Inscription," Qianlong stated that he planned after retirement to move the sacred tablets from the Palace of Earthly Tranquility here, to conduct shamanic rites in this Ningshou Palace. But if the tablets were moved, where would his descendants on the throne perform their rituals?
In the 8th year of Yongzheng, the primary consort of Prince Bao (the future Qianlong, then named Hongli), Lady Fucha, gave birth to a son. This was Hongli's first son by his principal wife, and the Yongzheng Emperor granted him the name Yonglian. Yonglian was raised by an imperial dowager consort (taifei) then residing in Ningshou Palace; actually, she lived in what was then the rear hall of Ningshou Palace, i.e., the present Ningshou Palace. At that time, those living in the Ningshou Palace included the Kangxi Emperor's Consort He and Consort Tong; Hongli himself had been jointly cared for by these two consorts when he was little. Now that Hongli had a legitimate eldest son, the boy was also sent to live in Ningshou Palace to be raised by Consort He and Consort Tong. However, by then Consort Tong was already almost seventy and probably just helped out a bit. Before the Qianlong Emperor, no Qing emperor had come to the throne as the son of an empress. Thus, after Hongli ascended as the Qianlong Emperor, he had extremely high hopes for this legitimate eldest son, Yonglian. He secretly designated Yonglian as crown prince, even placing a box with Yonglian's name written on paper into a locked box behind the "Upright and Prominent" plaque in the Qianqing Palace. Unexpectedly, in the snowy winter of the 3rd year of Qianlong, nine-year-old Yonglian "caught a sudden cold and could not recover, and passed away." In ancient times, with underdeveloped medicine, children were not easily raised to adulthood even in the imperial family; a random smallpox or typhoid could take them. That's why the emperor had to marry many wives and have many children, hoping a few sons would survive to inherit. Later Qing emperors were not so lucky; two of them had to adopt sons from other branches to inherit the throne, and in the end, the dynasty itself was lost.
Outside Ningshou Palace hangs a sign for the "Stone Drum Gallery". Inside are displayed the ten stone drums I mentioned above—the famous "Stone Drums of Chencang". According to records, in the early Tang dynasty, during the Zhenguan era (627 AD), in the region of Qishan near Fengxiang, there was a place called Chencang. This was the same Chencang where Han Xin famously executed the strategy of "mending the plank roads openly while secretly crossing at Chencang" during the Chu-Han conflict; later, Zhuge Liang also marched through here from Shu to attack Wei, but was repelled by Sima Yi. Back to the Tang story: one day, a shepherd from Chencang went up the mountain to tend his sheep. While the sheep grazed, the shepherd sat on a rock and sang folk songs. As he sang, he suddenly noticed several large stones nearby that looked just like the one he was sitting on—quite similar in shape. He counted: ten in all. The shepherd thought these stones were strange and must be harboring spirits. The next day he returned; the ten stones were still there, they hadn't wandered off. He scraped away the dirt covering them and saw ancient carved drawings on the stone. Hurriedly, he cleaned them all and went home to tell his neighbors about the strange stones on the mountain. All agreed these were heaven-sent stones, and that something momentous must be about to happen. Everyone climbed the mountain to pay homage to the stones—as the poem says, "Women and girls carrying baskets of food, children bearing jars of drink, they went together to offer to the stones, while strong men stood on the southern hills." This attracted countless scholars to try to decipher the marks on the stones, and they realized these were not pictures but characters—seal script. Because these large stones resembled drums, the scholars called them "stone drums". They recognized the seal characters and found that each drum bore a four-character-per-line poem similar to those in the Book of Songs, describing ten scenes of a Qin duke hunting and frolicking with attendants in the mountains and by rivers. Thus, they were named "Hunting Stelae," or "Ten Stelae of Chencang"—"stela" meaning a round-topped stone tablet. During the Tang dynasty, the Chencang Stone Drums were lost amid war. When they reappeared in the reign of Emperor Renzong of the Northern Song, one drum—the "Zuoyuan drum"—was missing, and a fake was made to complete the set. Years later, the original Zuoyuan drum was found in the kitchen of a farmhouse, but it was severely damaged. During the Jingkang Incident, the drums were transported by the Jin army to Yanjing (Beijing) and later abandoned. After the Yuan army captured Yanjing, the drums were recovered and placed in the Imperial Academy (Guozijian). The Chencang Stone Drums were once part of the Palace Museum artifacts evacuated to the south; they were nearly shipped to Taiwan but remained in the Forbidden City. These ten Chencang Stone Drums are the oldest surviving stone-carved poems in China and one of the "National Treasures". Legend says there are nine such national treasures: the Shang-Zhou divine bird gold ornament at the Jinsha Site Museum in Chengdu; the Western Zhou Li Gui vessel in the National Museum; the bamboo slips of Sun Tzu's Art of War in the Shandong Museum; the Song dynasty Pearl Stupa in the Suzhou Museum; the Yuan dynasty Dashan Great Jade Sea in the Beihai Round City in Beijing; and in the Palace Museum collection: the pre-Qin Chencang Stone Drums, the Jin dynasty Lu Ji's "Pingfu Tie" (A Consoling Letter), the Tang dynasty Han Huang's "Five Oxen", and the Song dynasty Ding ware pillow in the shape of a child. The Chencang Stone Drums are called the "ancestor of seal script"; in Longxing Temple in Zhengding, Hebei, there is a stele known as the "ancestor of regular script". For over a thousand years, experts worldwide have studied the drums but cannot agree on who made them or when. Currently, the most accepted view is that they were made during the late Warring States period under King Huiwen of Qin (who killed Shang Yang), around the 3rd century BCE—over 2,300 years ago. I wonder if there's any connection to King Huiwen's concubine, Queen Dowager Xuan, known as Mi Bazi? The exhibition of the ten drums arranged in two rows also features, in the center of the west side, a stele inscribed with "Explanations and Pronunciations of the Stone Drum Inscriptions" by Pan Di, the Erudite of the Imperial Academy (Guozi Siye) of the Yuan dynasty. (Guozi Siye was the vice-head of the academy, the head being the libationer.) Here is a look at the "Tian Che" (Field Chariot) Drum from the Chencang set.
The Chencang Stone Drums are invaluable, and so are their rubbings. The Tang-dynasty rubbing is lost; a Song-dynasty rubbing remains in Japan. Let's see a Japanese reproduction of the Song rubbing of the Tian Che drum.
The palace area of Ningshou Palace consists of these three successive courtyards: the yard between Huangji Gate and Ningshou Gate; the square between Ningshou Gate and Huangji Hall; and finally the courtyard between Huangji Hall and Ningshou Palace. Each courtyard has colonnaded corridors on the east and west, lined with small rooms, which can also be called wudian (side halls). The Palace Museum's Treasure Gallery is housed in these small rooms, so while visiting the Treasure Gallery, you can incidentally see the entire Retired Emperor's retirement compound—the whole Ningshou Palace area. Or you could say it the other way around. Either way, one ticket gets you into both, which works out nicely.
Now let's admire the treasures in the gallery. A Ming Wanli-era phoenix crown, known as the "Gold Dragon and Phoenix Crown with Kingfisher Feather Inlay and Pearl-and-Gem Embellishment". This was unearthed from the tomb of the Wanli Emperor (Zhu Yijun), where his two empresses, Xiaoduan and Xiaojing, are buried. The crown belonged to Empress Xiaojing. This Empress Xiaojing, née Wang, was the tragic Consort Wang we mentioned earlier. Originally a palace maid serving the Empress Dowager Li, she was secretly favored by Zhu Yijun during a visit to his mother and gave birth to Prince Zhu Changluo. Consort Wang was never favored by Wanli and was confined in Jingyang Palace, the most remote palace in the eastern six, enduring thirty years of cold neglect. After her death, she was buried by Wanli with only consort-rank rites. Her son, Zhu Changluo, upon becoming the Taichang Emperor, had no chance to grant her posthumous honors before he himself died in the Red Pills case. It was not until her grandson, Zhu Youxiao, became the Tianqi Emperor that his grandmother Consort Wang was posthumously honored as Empress Xiaojing and interred in the main chamber of the Dingling Mausoleum. At that time, empress-level burial objects were added, and this phoenix crown was likely among them, so it could even date from the Tianqi period—after all, Empress Xiaojing had never worn a phoenix crown before. After the pillaging by the Qing court, most of the Ming imperial valuables inside the palace were lost. The tomb of the Wanli Emperor is the only Ming imperial tomb that has been opened; some of the durable royal valuables were unearthed there. Besides this phoenix crown, the Palace Museum also holds other artifacts from the Dingling excavation.
A Qing dynasty women’s headdress, far more elegant than the protective caps hospitals give to patients with head injuries, is called the "Five-Phoenix Headdress with Kingfisher Feather Inlay and Gemstones". Oh, so these headdresses are called "diàn".
This tea bowl is extremely beautiful: a "Gold-bodied Filigree Enamel Stem Bowl with Gemstone Inlay and Cover"—a patented Qianlong product.
Imperial gold-inlaid jade: a "Gold Ruyi Scepter with Engraved Flowers".
An imperial wine ewer painted with court ladies in a garden: a "Gold-bodied Filigree Enamel Ewer with Painted Enamel Insets"—also a Qianlong proprietary product.
An agate item: a "Gold Stand and Lid for an Agate Bowl with Engraved Flowers", made during the Qianlong period, not patented.
Gold vessels used on Buddhist altars, called "Gold Seven Jewels (Saptaratna) Inlaid with Pearls". In the exhibition hall, they are not arranged in the prescribed Buddhist order, to prevent any devout worshippers from prostrating themselves and blocking the flow of visitors.
In addition to the Seven Jewels, there are also the Eight Treasures (Ashtamangala), called "Gold Eight Treasures Inlaid with Gems". They are also not displayed in the canonical order for the same reason.
A Buddhist pagoda is a must: a Gold Pagoda Inlaid with Pearls and Gems.
Besides gold and jade, another treasure in Chinese art is red coral. Look at this: a Gilt-bronze Crabapple-shaped Planter with Enamel Inlay, containing a miniature red coral landscape.
Among the imperial gems, there surely must be Tianhuang stone carvings, prized as "one tael of Tianhuang equals one tael of gold". Here is a Tianhuang carving of a 'Luohan Subduing the Tiger', with the signature of Yuxuan.
Yuxuan, or Yang Yuxuan, was a master carver of Shoushan stone in the Qing dynasty, specializing in figures and animals.
Similar to the displays in the Clock Gallery, the Treasure Gallery also arranges treasured items with paintings for context. Look at this pairing.
In the foreground is a gilt-bronze planter with engraved "longevity" characters and a red gemstone plum blossom miniature, and in the background is the Yuan-dynasty painter Wang Mian's "Ink Plum Blossoms" from the Palace Museum collection, with Wang Mian's own poem and a poem by the Qianlong Emperor. Though there are no fragrant plum blossoms, the pairing enhances each other.
Next, a jadeite carving of "Cranes and Deer amid Spring"—a scenic mountain (shānzi), with a painting behind that everyone recognizes. It is a detail from the famous Northern Song masterpiece "A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains" by Wang Ximeng, created for Emperor Huizong (Zhao Ji), a pinnacle of blue-green landscape painting. Think of its contemporary, Zhang Zeduan's "Along the River During the Qingming Festival". Though the jade carving and the painting are not of the same subject, both are in blue-green landscape style, sharing a harmonious mood.
The treasures in the Treasure Gallery are countless; if you're really into them, you'd need three full days and nights to take it all in.
(To be continued, stay tuned)
