Admiring the Red Walls and Golden Tiles: The Fifteen Imperial Palaces of Ming and Qing – The Hall of Martial Valor on the West Road of the Outer Court (Revised Edition)
My 2021 series of posts on the Forbidden City, the seventeen installments of 'Admiring the Red Walls and Golden Tiles,' received generous readership and feedback. Some readers offered suggestions and pointed out errors. This revised second edition incorporates those comments, enriches the content, corrects slip-ups, and updates and adds more photographs. While I dare not claim to have corrected every mistake, most should now be rectified. It records the top-tier ancient Chinese palace architecture witnessed in the Ming and Qing imperial palaces, some of the royal artifacts displayed in the Forbidden City, and traces of Qing court life; it also recalls stories and legends associated with these palaces. I dare not say 'to feast the readers,' but I simply hope to share with you. Thank you.
——————————————————————————————
Exit through the Gate of Propitious Harmony (Xihe Men), in the middle of the corridor west of the Gate of Supreme Harmony Square, and you arrive at the West Road of the Outer Court. Continue west all the way and you can reach the West Glorious Gate (Xihua Men). To the south of this path sprawls another large compound—the Southern Great Storehouse (Nan Daku).
There were definitely buildings here in the Ming Dynasty, presumably also storehouses, for keeping the imperial pots and pans. In the Ming and Qing imperial palaces, all such household utensils were purpose-made with imperial patterns and quality, and could not be allowed into the common market. So this storehouse had a companion imperial-pot-and-pan graveyard, where the remains of imperial pots and pans were interred. In 2014, an official 'gold-touching' team from the Palace Museum excavated this graveyard in the southwest corner of the Southern Great Storehouse, unearthing a large quantity of imperial-pot-and-pan remains, which caused quite a stir. However, the official team had iron discipline, and to this day no results of that official excavation have appeared in the Panjiayuan antiques market.
During the Qing Dynasty, the Southern Great Storehouse continued to serve as a palace warehouse, storing all sorts of odds and ends. Later it was filled with furniture of all kinds, some discarded, much of it removed from display. In 2017, the Palace Museum sorted out these imperial pieces, renovated the Southern Great Storehouse, and improved storage conditions. Subsequently, the museum restored some furniture and opened the Ming and Qing Imperial Palace Furniture Exhibition in the Southern Great Storehouse, which is the current Furniture Gallery.
The Furniture Gallery is packed with timber, so it has air conditioning to maintain constant temperature and humidity, and a thick cotton-padded door curtain hangs at the entrance all year round. Step inside to see Ming and Qing court furniture of the highest grade.
At the entrance stands a throne set for a main hall.
Without a raised platform, in the center is a red sandalwood throne with jade inlay and a matching red sandalwood long narrow table also with jade inlay. Behind it is a three-panel screen of red sandalwood inlaid with boxwood carvings; the canopy-like top piece is exceptionally gorgeous. Flanking the throne is a pair of tall red sandalwood stands. This throne-and-screen set was produced in the imperial workshops during the Qianlong reign. In fact, Qianlong-era documents contain many phrases like 'sent to the Guangdong Customs to be made' and 'the Guangdong Customs has sent a red sandalwood carving of such-and-such,' indicating that these were made by Cantonese craftsmen and bear distinct Lingnan style. Hanging from the columns on either side is a couplet. Looking closely, you realize it is carved lacquer—simply too luxurious. This whole set shows that Qianlong was exceptionally rich and had very good taste. They say it was removed from the Studio of Quiet Ease (Jingyi Xuan) in the Palace of Established Happiness (Jianfu Gong). But don't forget that the studio was completely burned down in the great fire of the Garden of Established Happiness.
Next, look at a set made of huanghuali wood.
A huanghuali throne with a footrest; on the backrest, against a blue ground lacquer, are ivory carvings and chicken-wing wood landscapes. The screen is part of the same set: in the landscapes there are little houses and tiny figures. There are also tall huanghuali stands on both sides. During the Ming and Qing, red sandalwood inlay was relatively common, but huanghuali inlay of this type is rare; and so exquisite that no one except Old Qian himself would have dared conceive it. They say this is the throne from the Pavilion of Compliance with Expectation (Fuwang Ge) in the Garden of the Palace of Tranquil Longevity (Ningshou Gong). That pavilion is not open to visitors, but here you can see its throne.
Now look at some unmatched pieces.
A nine-panel screen with red sandalwood frame, yellow lacquer inlaid with jade and stone floral patterns; each panel bears a poem by Qianlong. A luohan bed with red sandalwood and jade inlay, huanghuali bed board; and a red sandalwood kang table.
Also hanging in the Furniture Gallery is a copy of the painting 'The Qianlong Emperor as One or Two?'
The original was painted by Ding Guanpeng of the Qing Dynasty. Qianlong liked to have himself portrayed, so quite a few images of him survive. By the Qing period, Chinese painters were already absorbing Western influence, and in this painting you can see signs of Western perspective. The emperor sits on a bed, appreciating the treasures in his collection, while on the landscape painting on the wall behind him there is yet another portrait of Qianlong. To match this concept, Qianlong wrote on the painting: 'One or two? Not detached, not close. A Confucian or a Mohist—what worries, what thoughts?' Hidden in the Qianlong palace was a Song-dynasty ancient painting that depicted Wang Xizhi in this one-person-two-images manner. So Qianlong ordered Ding Guanpeng to paint five versions of 'The Qianlong Emperor as One or Two?' accordingly. The version here is the one from the Hall of Mental Cultivation (Yangxin Dian). Another version, the 'Naluo Grotto' one, was once exhibited at the National Palace Museum in Taipei; the Naluo Grotto is in Mount Lao. In this 'One or Two' painting, all the furniture and furnishings were objects Qianlong had at hand in those days. The Palace Museum has set up a tableau of items from the painting in the Furniture Gallery; some of them look remarkably like the originals.
There is the back screen, the luohan bed, a round table, round stands, square stands, and a long narrow table. On the right side of the picture, a blue-and-white jar with Sanskrit inscriptions and flange-like knobs, from the Xuande reign of the Ming, is the actual object seen in the painting; so is the three-legged double-handled incense burner on the floor.
Besides large pieces, there are also many delightful smaller ornaments. Look at this one: a carved-lacquer treasure cabinet shaped like a four-cornered pavilion with double eaves. This must have been the storehouse where the emperor kept his small private seals. Even the roof ridges curve up.
Now look at the storage area behind.
Restored furniture worth seeing is displayed under the front row of lights. Observe the details of this red sandalwood square table with colored painting and carved flowers—Lingnan style, the work of exquisite craftsmanship!
Most of the exhibits are Qing furniture, all fancy and ornate. Ming furniture was not nearly so flamboyant; even palace furniture then was simple and clean.
Leaving the Furniture Gallery, walk west along the main road. The palace officials have set up a fixed post at that intersection. A sentry joined with a red ribbon blocked my path. Last time I was here, I was stopped by a female sentry; this time it was a male sentry. Man to man it's easier to talk, so I asked him about what lies over there. He said the Hall of Martial Valor (Wuying Dian) is not open, and even its gate is not to be viewed because it is unsightly at present. I asked if the Hall of Southern Fragrance (Nanxun Dian) and the Precious Collection Building (Baoyun Lou) further on were also not viewable? He said yes, so surely the West Glorious Gate could not be exited either.
Recently, the Hall of Martial Valor reopened, and I returned. The sentry post has shifted westward, so I was able to walk along this main road. Proceeding on this road, just south of it next to the west side of the Southern Great Storehouse is the Hall of Southern Fragrance. The tall building behind is not part of the imperial palace; it was built in 1973 when the East Wing of the Beijing Hotel was erected, to block any line of sight from above the 14th floor over Zhongnanhai. Several tall buildings were put up at this spot.
At the mere sight of the characters 'Nan Xun' (Southern Fragrance), you are reminded of the ancient Song of the South Wind by Emperor Shun: 'The southern wind’s fragrance can relieve our people's distress.' When ancient emperors made an appearance, there was a ceremony of playing Shao music and singing 'Nan Xun,' so this Hall of Southern Fragrance had to be associated with ancient emperors.
Inside the courtyard of the Hall of Southern Fragrance, only the main hall remains intact, original Ming construction, while the side halls have collapsed. The main hall faces south, five bays wide and three bays deep, with a single-eave hip-and-gable roof covered in yellow glazed tiles. The east and west side halls were originally through-halls serving as gateways to the courtyard. They are three bays wide and one bay deep, with a front veranda on the outward side. The layout of the Nanxun Dian differs from other palace courtyards: its gates are not in the south wall but in the east and west walls. The small gate in the photo above was probably rebuilt after the side halls collapsed; it may be a relatively recent construction. Over the small gate and low wall, you can see the restored roof of the Hall of Southern Fragrance, plain gable pediment, with five mythological-creature ornaments on the ridge.
The Hall of Southern Fragrance existed in the early Ming and underwent renovation during the Ming. It has been verified that the main hall is a Ming-era structure. Not all buildings in the palace are from the Ming now; the Hall of Central Harmony (Zhonghe Dian) has traces of the characters 'Zhongji Dian' on its components, and the roof timbers of the Hall of Heavenly and Earthly Intercourse (Jiaotai Dian) in the inner court still bear an inscription from a certain year of the Jiajing reign when it was rebuilt. During the Ming Dynasty, the Hall of Southern Fragrance housed the Grand Secretariat's editorial office for golden investiture booklets, with secretaries equivalent to clerks of the Grand Secretariat writing the texts for the golden booklets here. Ming emperors used golden booklets for the investiture of empresses, the conferral of titles on imperial consorts, and the granting of honorific titles to empress dowagers, as well as golden seals—the personal stamps. Princes of the blood outside the palace also received golden booklets. The next lower grade was silver booklets decorated with gold, followed by paper booklets, and the lowest was 'air booklets.' Some years ago, Ming-dynasty prince golden booklets were excavated in Sichuan (princely level), and a silver booklet decorated with gold belonging to Prince Rong of the Ming was recovered from underwater (also princely level). The Grand Secretariat secretaries would sit solemnly in the main hall of the Nanxun Dian, breathe on the inkstone to prepare ink, sing the Song of the South Wind in their hearts, and set brush to paper to compose one golden-booklet text after another. These texts were carved on gold sheets and presented to the emperor. After the emperor read them at the investiture ceremony, the booklets would be closed and bestowed upon the recipient to take home as heirlooms. In the late Ming, the Chongzhen Emperor ordered portraits to be painted of illustrious emperors from previous dynasties; these were hung in the Hall of Martial Valor and the Hall of Literary Glory.
After the Qing arrived, they followed Ming institutions in many respects but no longer composed booklet texts in the Hall of Southern Fragrance. When Qianlong ascended the throne, he had the portraits of past emperors painted during the Ming remounted and enshrined in the Hall of Southern Fragrance. The full-dress portrait of Ming Taizu that I saw in the Hall of Literary Glory should have been stored here. Qianlong also placed a horizontal stone stele in the Nanxun Dian inscribed with 'Imperially Composed Record of Enshrining Portraits in the Hall of Southern Fragrance.' In the Qing, the distinction between jie (horizontal stone tablet) and stele was not great, only that jie lacked a head-piece; I’ll still call it a lying stele. Lying steles are extremely rare, because once they reach a certain size people call them screen walls. In my last article 'Visiting the Yellow Temple in Beijing and Exploring its Three-Hundred-Year Secret,' I mentioned that the Western Returned Students’ Club at the intersection of Nanheyan on East Chang’an Avenue occupies the former Pusheng Temple of the early Qing, which had two lying steles now at the Five Pagoda Temple north of the Beijing Zoo—the only surviving ones in Beijing. The Hall of Southern Fragrance is not open to the public, so the lying stele inside remains unconfirmed. In the Ming, a Temple of Ancient Monarchs was built inside Fuchengmen, and Qing emperors, declaring Manchus part of the Chinese nation, also went there to worship China’s ancestors. The Ming Chongzhen Emperor hung the portraits of ancient monarchs in the palace for daily veneration. Qianlong of the Qing stored these portraits in the Hall of Southern Fragrance but did not display them; rather, they were rolled up and stored in wooden cabinets. Similar to the Temple of Ancient Monarchs, the monarchs began with Taihao, Fuxi, the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, and I reckon they went up to the Ming’s Tianqi Emperor Zhu Youxiao—I don’t know whether Yuan dynasty emperors were included. Worthy ministers and famous generals from past dynasties were also included, such as Boyi, Jiang Shang, the Duke of Zhou, Xiao He, Zhuge Liang, and others. Was Lord Guan grouped with them or placed separately? One difference between the Nanxun Dian and the Temple of Ancient Monarchs is that here there were also portraits of empresses. A while ago, there was news from the Palace Museum that the third phase of the Furniture Gallery project would be set up in the Hall of Southern Fragrance, promising that it may soon be open to the public. However, before opening, the Hall will need some renovation first, and the courtyard will also require restoration.
Continuing westward along the road in front of the Hall of Southern Fragrance leads to the direction of the West Glorious Gate. That area now houses the offices of the Palace Museum, and visitors are forbidden. Looking into the distance, you can see a palace gate: the Gate of Complete Peace (Xian’an Men).
This Gate of Complete Peace is the main gate of the Qing-era Palace of Complete Peace (Xian’an Gong). In the Ming, the Palace of Complete Peace was on the site of the present Palace of Tranquility and Longevity (Shou’an Gong), behind the Palace of Tranquil Happiness (Shoukang Gong). The spot where the Gate of Complete Peace stands was in Ming times the office of the Directorate for Imperial Apparel (Shangyijian). What did the Directorate for Imperial Apparel do? It was the tailor shop for the emperor, including shoemakers and hatmakers. However, the Directorate itself did not actually sew or stitch; it acted as the design institute and the client’s representative. In the Ming, there were twenty-four eunuch bureaus; the Directorate for Imperial Apparel was one of the twelve directorates among the twenty-four, managing all peripheral matters of the imperial household’s daily life, as a sort of General Affairs Office. When the Manchus entered the pass, they initially followed the Ming general affairs setup, but later reformed the organization and established their own general affairs office.
During the Kangxi period of the Qing, the original Palace of Complete Peace once held the deposed crown prince Yinreng under house arrest. After his death in the Yongzheng reign, it was turned into an official school—a school for the sons of the Three Superior Banners. The Eight Banners of the Qing were divided into the Upper Three and the Lower Five. The Bordered Yellow and Plain Yellow banners were personally led by Hong Taiji. The Plain White Banner was originally under Dorgon; after Shunzhi had Dorgon ‘dug up from his grave and his corpse flogged,’ the Plain White Banner was taken into the emperor’s personal control. When Qianlong came to power, he transformed the former Palace of Complete Peace site into the Palace of Tranquility and Longevity to settle retired consorts from previous reigns, and the Palace of Complete Peace school was moved to the location shown in the picture above. In the early Republic of China, in 1914, the Institute for Ancient Objects was established at the Palace of Complete Peace, which can be considered the first national museum. In order to move cultural relics from the Shenyang Palace Museum and the Mountain Resort to the Beijing Forbidden City, the Precious Collection Building was erected inside the Palace of Complete Peace, serving as the first cultural relic warehouse. When the Palace Museum’s collections were evacuated south during the Anti-Japanese War, the treasures from the Precious Collection Building went with them. In recent years, the renovated Precious Collection Building has become an exhibition hall of the history of the Palace Museum.
All that remains of the Palace of Complete Peace now is this gate in the picture above; inside the gate is the Precious Collection Building. In the photo, you can glimpse a corner of the west wing of the Precious Collection Building. You can also see a side room with a flush-gable roof of the gate hall.
East of the Gate of Complete Peace is the Hall of Martial Valor (Wuying Dian).
The Hall of Martial Valor in the early Ming was symmetric with the Hall of Literary Glory (Wenhua Dian) on the East Road of the Outer Court. Their positions, designs, and layouts were symmetrical. One literary, one martial: the East Road featured civil excellence, the West Road martial heroes. In the Ming imperial palace, the east road was dominated by literary themes, the west road by martial ones. Even in the Court of Supreme Harmony, to the east stood the Pavilion of Embodied Benevolence (Tiren Ge), formerly the Wen (Literary) Pavilion, and to the west the Pavilion of Exalted Righteousness (Hongyi Ge), formerly the Wu (Martial) Pavilion. Ancient Chinese emperors wielded both the pen and the sword—pacifying the realm through civil governance and slaying enemies through military might. As I’ve mentioned before, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, I saw statues symbolizing civil and martial virtues, though there they are reversed: on the right (symbolizing civil rule) stands Michelangelo’s David; on the left (symbolizing martial power) stands Bandinelli’s Hercules and Cacus.
Although the pavilions on the east and west of the Hall of Supreme Harmony were converted from 'lou' to 'ge,' the Pavilion of Embodied Benevolence and the Pavilion of Exalted Righteousness are still essentially identical. Over at the Hall of Literary Glory, successive modifications plus Qing-period reconstructions gradually caused it to diverge from the model of the Hall of Martial Valor. The main gate of the Hall of Martial Valor is the Gate of Martial Valor (Wuying Men) in the picture above. In front of the gate flows an Inner Golden Water Stream, with three white stone bridges carrying Han white marble balustrades; the center one is the imperial path. In the early Ming, the front of the Hall of Literary Glory must have looked the same; presumably, when the Wen Yuan Ge (Pavilion of Literary Profundity) was built during the Qianlong reign, the Inner Golden Water Stream was redirected from in front of the Hall of Literary Glory to in front of the Pavilion.
The Gate of Martial Valor is of the same typology as the Gate of Literary Glory: a five-bay gate with three openings, like a princely mansion gate. Let’s go up to the gate platform to have a look.
Entering the Gate of Martial Valor, a marble terrace leads straight to the main hall, the Hall of Martial Valor.
Behind the main hall is the rear hall, the Hall of Respectful Thought (Jingsi Dian). A covered corridor connects the main and rear halls, forming an I-shaped plan similar to the Hall of Literary Glory. According to records, this corridor was built in the early Republic; previously, the front and rear halls stood as two separate buildings on the same platform.
One difference is that outside the Gate of Martial Valor, the platform and the paved path on the inner terrace have Han white marble balustrades, and the I-shaped platform of the front and rear halls also has a circle of balustrades. The main Hall of Martial Valor has matching side halls to the east and west, of the same specifications as those at the Hall of Literary Glory. Look at the west side hall, the Hall of Shining Patterns (Huanzhang Dian).
In the Ming dynasty, the Hall of Martial Valor was also a personal hall for the emperor, somewhat akin to the Jinluan Hall in the Tang dynasty’s Daming Palace at Chang’an. Tang emperors received ministers in the Jinluan Hall to discuss affairs; Ming emperors did the same in the Hall of Martial Valor. Tang rulers also hosted somewhat literary events there, inviting those skilled in poetry to gather. And they established the position of Expectant Official for those adept at poetry in the Hanlin Academy nearby—waiting at all times for the emperor’s summons. Ming rulers set up Expectant Officials in the Hall of Martial Valor, selecting those good at painting to serve. The palace needed people with all sorts of skills: those with great talent entered the Hanlin Academy as officials; those with minor skills waited expectantly in the six palace departments, like the ones who cut the emperor’s hair or cleaned his ears. Incidentally, in some remote villages nowadays, barbers are still called Expectant Officials. Tang emperors would occasionally nap or sojourn in the Jinluan Hall; Ming emperors regularly stayed at the Hall of Martial Valor for short retreats, called fasting retreats. During the Chongzhen reign, the empress even received congratulations here from high-ranking titled ladies on her birthday—I don’t know why they didn’t go to the Palace of Earthly Tranquility (Kunning Gong) that time.
In the 17th year of Chongzhen of the Ming (1644 A.D.), after the rebel leader Li Zicheng drove the Chongzhen Emperor to Coal Hill, he entered the palace. He rummaged everywhere and found quite a bit of treasury silver. But Li did not ascend the throne in the Hall of Supreme Harmony at first; instead, he set up office in the Hall of Martial Valor. Then, on one of the last ten days of April, he could not resist and held a coronation ceremony right in the Hall of Martial Valor. It went awry, and the very next day, Wu Sangui, leading the forces of Dorgon, chased him out of Beijing. He declared it an 'honorable retreat.' Before leaving, he set fire to the palace. That day the northwest wind blew, so the fire did not reach the Hall of Martial Valor but burned down the Hall of Literary Glory instead. In all, Li had hunkered down in the palace for just over forty days.
That scoundrel Dorgon was really cunning. He sent Wu Sangui to chase Li Zicheng to avenge his clan’s destruction, while he himself set up his regency in the Hall of Martial Valor, which survived the flames. While cleaning up the ashes and rebuilding the palace, Dorgon dispatched men to bring young Shunzhi from the homeland to Beijing, and the two of them shared quarters in the Hall of Martial Valor. After the first three ceremonial halls were restored, Shunzhi moved into the Hall of Preserving Harmony (Baohe Dian). Dorgon built himself the Prince Rui Mansion at the Southern Garden outside the East Glorious Gate, where Ming Yingzong Zhu Qizhen had once been held under house arrest, and moved in. After Dorgon was posthumously flogged, that mansion was turned into the Pudu Temple, which still stands today; the surviving main hall was Dorgon’s living quarters. During the Kangxi reign, while the Three Great Halls and the Palace of Heavenly Purity (Qianqing Gong) were undergoing major reconstruction, the emperor lived in the Hall of Martial Valor for a time—the Palace of Heavenly Purity was then unlivable. Though Kangxi stayed at the Hall of Martial Valor, he still went to the Southern Study in the Palace of Heavenly Purity to handle state affairs; it was at this time that he dealt with Oboi.
In the 19th year of Kangxi (1680 A.D.), the rebuilding of the Palace of Heavenly Purity was completed, and the Kangxi Emperor moved back there. Afterward, the Hall of Martial Valor was turned into an imperial press, which began to carve and print books. The forerunner of the imperial press was the Imperial Household’s Workshops at the Hall of Martial Valor. In the 7th year of Yongzheng (1729 A.D.), it was renamed the Office for Book Revision at the Hall of Martial Valor. Although this office belonged to the Imperial Household Department, the editors were all dispatched by the emperor and the Hanlin Academy, while the department only supplied labor. The printing plant at the Hall of Martial Valor was highly advanced, using bronze movable type with elegant fonts. The illustrations were copper-plate engravings, exquisitely fine. For printing, the Qing palace did not use xuan paper (which was for painting and calligraphy), but kaihua paper, a secret formula from Kaihua, Zhejiang—top-grade printing paper. Qianlong was a lover of books; he selected over a hundred unputdownable classics from the Yongle Encyclopedia and had the Hall of Martial Valor press print and bind them into pocket-sized 'collectanea' editions, often tucked them in his sleeves to read wherever he went; these were called 'palace editions.' After the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries (Siku Quanshu) was completed, the original copy was deposited in the Wen Yuan Ge. Those were all handwritten copies, which were too costly to disseminate widely. So Qianlong picked out over a hundred more and printed them with jujube wood movable type as the 'Collectanea of the Hall of Martial Valor,' also palace editions. Only three hundred sets were printed, and there was no second printing. By the Guangxu reign, lead-type printing appeared, but output was already scant.
Since the Qing palace printed books at the Hall of Martial Valor, there must have been reams of paper, both printed and blank—tinder for the fire god. In the 15th year of Guangxu (1889 A.D.), to combat the fire god, the palace established a fire-pump brigade—a semi-automatic water-spraying fire brigade—in a duty room south of the Hall of Martial Valor with a black-glazed-tile roof; black represents water among the five elements.
This was China’s first modern-style fire brigade. The Guangxu Fire-Pump Office evolved from the Fire Squad established in the 26th year of Kangxi (1687 A.D.). Nowadays, the Palace Museum holds fire drills every year; fire prevention is the number one priority.
The last rebuilding of the Hall of Martial Valor took place after a great fire in the 8th year of Tongzhi of the Qing (1869 A.D.). That fire burned through the entire hall, so the Tongzhi Emperor had to decree reconstruction by the imperial workshops. Since then, the Hall underwent repairs during the Guangxu period and held up until 2005. In 2005, the Palace Museum organized a major renovation. Before that it had never been open; after the renovation it opened in 2008 as the Gallery of Calligraphy and Painting, causing a sensation. During the pandemic it closed again, supposedly for re-curation. Over a year later, when it reopened on Labor Day 2021, it had been transformed into the Ceramics Gallery.
Inside the covered corridor between the front and rear halls.
Inside the rear hall, the Hall of Respectful Thought.
The Palace Museum holds a vast number of ceramic treasures—reportedly 350,000 items, of which over 20,000 have been collected since the founding of the People’s Republic. The oldest are reconstructions assembled from 5,000-year-old pottery shards. Here is a 2,500-year-old pottery jar.
It has two ears on the side, so a grass rope could be threaded through to make a satchel. But judging by the ear positions, this satchel would tip over easily. Pottery like this disappeared long ago in China; by the Zhou dynasty, bronze and other materials had emerged. Yet in Turkey, I’ve seen similar pottery still in use in village kitchen restaurants; their clay-pot beef stew is cooked in such ancient earthen jars.
Next is a celadon-glazed burial jar with applied decorations from the late Eastern Han. Having glaze over pottery still makes it pottery, showing glaze appeared before porcelain.
Tang Sancai (three-color) pottery is a must—here’s a figurine of a court lady. Still pottery, painted pottery.
And a Sogdian merchant from the Silk Road.
By the Tang dynasty, fairly proper porcelain began to appear. The most mysterious was the supremely rare 'secret color' (mi se) ware from the Yue kilns, reserved exclusively for the imperial family. The exact shade of 'secret color' had long been debated; no one could describe it, and some even doubted its existence. It wasn’t until 1987, when a trove of Tang-dynasty articles was unearthed from the underground palace of Famen Temple in Shaanxi, that the truth was revealed. Among the Buddhist offerings were Yue ware 'secret color' ceramics, with related documentation. That excavation also yielded a four-ring twelve-section ringed staff of silver with gilt flowers—the highest-grade and only such staff of its kind in the world. Now look at a 'secret color' Yue ware holy-water vase from the Palace Museum.
Here are some Song ceramics: Longquan crackled ware.
With the opening of the new Ceramics Gallery, the Palace Museum has put out its star treasure: this Song-dynasty Ding ware child-shaped pillow, one of China’s Nine Treasures that Guard the Nation.
Among those nine treasures, the Palace Museum holds four: the Chencang Stone Drums seen at the Palace of Tranquil Longevity; the Jin-dynasty calligraphy 'Letter of Recovery' (Pingfu Tie) by Lu Ji, displayed in the Hall of Martial Valor before the pandemic; the 'Five Oxen' painting by Han Huang, also previously displayed there; and the Ding ware child pillow in the photo above. The ones still in Beijing include the Western Zhou Li Gui bronze vessel at the National Museum and the Dushan Jade Ocean urn at the Round Terrace in Beihai Park.
Northern Song Ru ware is the pinnacle of Song ceramics, with a saying: 'Wealth of ten thousand strings of cash cannot match one shard of Ru.' It features agate glazing, sky-blue color, and cicada-wing crackles. Fewer than one hundred pieces of Ru ware survive in the world; the Palace Museum houses over a dozen. Look at this Ru ware light sky-blue tripod incense burner with ribbed design—only two exist in the world, and this is one of them.
The Northern Song emperors adored the arts, and high-grade ceramics abounded. Another old saying goes: 'Gold has a price, Jun (ware) is priceless,' referring to Northern Song Jun ceramics. Jun ware colors are dazzling; secret additives in the glaze remain invisible before firing. When the kiln is opened, the final effect is mostly a matter of chance. So each piece of Jun ware is unique, its process unrepeatable. Here is a Jun ware three-footed flowerpot stand in rose-purple glaze, with a pearlescence like shell.
Jingdezhen porcelain was already an official kiln in the Song dynasty, one of the Five Great Kilns. Take a look at this carved prunus vase in bluish-white glaze.
Look at this: Yuan-dynasty Jingdezhen blue-and-white porcelain, a top-tier example of Yuan blue-and-white.
From the same period and kiln, underglaze red. Yuan blue-and-white with underglaze red is even finer and more precious than plain blue-and-white.
Check out this blue-and-white underglaze-red jar with openwork carving—Yuan blue-and-white, plus underglaze red, plus openwork; truly a masterpiece. Is this the earliest openwork porcelain in China?
By the Ming dynasty, blue-and-white had reached its summit. Look at this piece: Xuande blue-and-white jar once exhibited in the Furniture Gallery and viewable only from a distance. It appears in that earlier painting 'The Qianlong Emperor as One or Two?'—the Ming Xuande Sanskrit-lettered jar with flanges.
Observe Ming underglaze red, called bright-red glaze, incredibly gorgeous. An early Ming Hongwu official-ware stem cup with cloud-and-dragon design. It was Ming’s Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang who first established the imperial kiln at Jingdezhen, dedicated exclusively to making porcelain for the court—China’s earliest formal official kiln. From then on, official wares bore the reign mark on the base, so the earliest reign mark you see on porcelain bottoms is 'Hongwu Nian Zhi' (Made in the Hongwu years).
Blue-and-white porcelain began in the Tang and reached its zenith in the Ming. Quite a number of Ming-dynasty pieces have been handed down, especially from the Chenghua period. Ming Chenghua porcelain can be verified by the characters on the bowl’s base.
Besides the official versions above, there are folk-style maiden versions of Chenghua porcelain.
This time they’ve also displayed a group of Ming blue-and-white ceramics excavated from the Dingling Tomb—originals from the Chenghua era belonging to the Wanli Emperor Zhu Yijun.
A polychrome fish-and-pond jar, from the Jiajing period of the Ming.
Qing-dynasty porcelain is a riot of colors, dazzlingly elaborate and at its absolute peak. Look at this famille rose peach-blossom long-necked vase.
Look at this piece: an iron-red ground polychrome bowl with infant-play design and gold tracing—absolutely gorgeous.
It is in the Qing that enamel colors appeared.
In the Kangxi period, besides enamel colors, the 'Lang kiln red' was famous—a very special ruby-red color.
Speaking of ceramics, aside from ancient pottery, you naturally can’t miss Yixing ware. Yixing is famous for purple clay (zisha); most common is the zisha teapot, but there are also pieces like this: a Yixing purple-clay melon-shaped teapot with green ground famille rose and gold tracing.
The great integrated-color vase, Qing Qianlong Jingdezhen ware—an unprecedented and unrepeatable masterpiece of Chinese porcelain, known as the 'Mother of Porcelains.'
During the Yongzheng reign of the Qing, the court appointed a ceramic expert to serve as the co-director at the Jingdezhen imperial kiln. This expert was the famous Tang Ying, a master of Qing arts and crafts. Every piece from Tang Ying’s hand in the Qing palace is supreme; he excelled in both archaizing and innovation, and was simply unparalleled. Look at some of his works below.
A warm pavilion has been built inside the Gate of Martial Valor.
Inside are several large revolving-vase vessels with openwork from the Qianlong period, each exquisitely beautiful. A revolving vase (zhuanxin ping) has an inner core that can turn, with pictures upon it. The outer body of the vase has openwork 'windows' through which you can glimpse the revolving inner pictures.
Below is a yellow-ground famille rose revolving vase with openwork Heavenly-Stem-and-Earthly-Branch characters and elephant handles, made by Tang Ying in the 8th year of Qianlong. The two rings around the neck, bearing the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, can both rotate; when aligned they form a perpetual calendar.
In the Qianlong period there was also a large vase type consisting of two layers of openwork nested together, upper and lower. Though the two sections were fitted one inside another, they could not be taken apart. I didn’t see one in this exhibition.
Qianlong not only sent Tang Ying to fire ceramics, but also 'like a latrine flooding—bravely rushed forward' himself into creation. On this revolving-neck vase with pink and enameled landscape panels, there is a poem inscribed by the Qianlong Emperor: 'The wind wrinkles the grain of the valley, swirling back distant rapids; the rosy clouds heap up the peaks, reflecting bright rivers.' It is stamped with the two seals 'Qianlong Chen Han' (The Imperial Brush of Qianlong) and 'Wei Jing Wei Yi' (Only Refinement, Only Singleness)—a pair of seals reserved exclusively for Qianlong’s own poems and calligraphy.
Exiting the main Hall of Martial Valor, walk to its west side.
At the side of the rear hall, on the platform, stands a small building, the Hall of Bathing Virtue (Yude Tang).
The Hall of Bathing Virtue is not large, three bays wide and one bay deep, with a bracket-set raised-beam roof structure and a yellow-glazed-tile hip-and-gable arched ceiling. Let’s go in and have a look.
The interior has an exposed roof structure without a ceiling. Today this is also an exhibition room of the Ceramics Gallery, displaying export porcelain, commonly called 'guest wares.'
Look at this pink famille rose plate with coat-of-arms decoration in the center, inscribed in the script of Country X: 'May your dear mother be healthy, forever healthy.'
China has exported ceramics in huge quantities, beginning in the Sui-Tang period. The passion of ancient European courts and high society for Chinese silk and porcelain is unimaginable to us now—far surpassing any worship of foreign things by some Chinese today. The demand for these luxury goods drained Europe’s silver reserves. The great maritime explorations and geographical discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries opened up the Americas, and Europeans discovered huge silver mines in South America, replenishing their purses. Then they established sea routes from South America to Guangzhou, shipping American silver to China—the famous Silver Route. In Guangzhou they offloaded the silver and exchanged it with Chinese merchants for silk, porcelain, and tea, taking these luxuries back to Europe for huge profits. Later, when American silver mines were exhausted, the British tried to trade using black sludge (opium). When that trade failed, the First Opium War erupted. The Qing Empire lost the war and had to pay the silver it had earned from silk and porcelain back to those imperialists as indemnities. I’ll stop there; just thinking about it fills my eyes with tears.
Behind this small room of the Hall of Bathing Virtue is a dark chamber, built of brick and stone. Below it is square, above is a domed ceiling with a skylight. This dome reminds you of the Pantheon in Rome, only on a smaller scale. That dark chamber is too tiny to let tourists enter, lest crowding cause a stampede. Inside the Hall of Bathing Virtue hangs a photo of the chamber; from outside, part of the dome can be faintly seen.
According to Palace Museum experts, the Hall of Bathing Virtue is a remnant of the Yuan-dynasty palace. I said the dark chamber looks like a Mongolian yurt, and sure enough, it was built by Mongols. What did the Mongols use it for? It is said to have been a Turkish bath, complete with a boiler room and plumbing. According to these findings, this site in the Yuan dynasty was the headquarters of the Commissioner for the Dadu Garrison—the Capital Defense Command. It makes sense to have a yurt-style bath for the commander. Ancient Han Chinese frowned upon Turkish bathing; during the Ming, before major ritual sacrifices, the emperor had to perform purification fasting and ablutions, called zhai fu. Legend has it that Ming emperors bathed here before proceeding to the Palace of Abstinence for purification. Actually, that’s incorrect; the Palace of Abstinence was built under Yongzheng of the Qing, not in the Ming. Ming emperors did their fasting in the Hall of Martial Valor, perhaps because of the bathhouse here? The name 'Hall of Bathing Virtue' certainly wasn’t chosen by the Yuan emperor’s Borjigin clan; it must date from the Ming. 'Bathing Virtue' takes its meaning from the 'Book of Rites – Conduct of the Scholar' by Dai Sheng of the Western Han: 'The scholar bathes his body and bathes his virtue; he sets forth his words and lies prostrate; he silently rectifies himself—the ruler may not even notice.' The idea is self-cultivation. By the Qing, the Hall of Martial Valor had become a publishing and printing house, and it is said this dark chamber was used to steam paper. There’s a popular legend about a Fragrant Consort of the Qianlong emperor, loaded with myth and miracles. Qianlong had only one Muslim consort: Imperial Consort Rong, of the Heshuo clan. Her brother cooperated with the Qing court during the pacification of the Muslim tribes in the 23rd year of Qianlong (1758 A.D.) and was later granted an official post and moved to Beijing. The Rong family settled in the capital thereafter. In Qianlong 25, the 27-year-old Consort Rong entered the palace, initially as Worthy Lady He. She was gradually promoted, and in Qianlong 33 was invested as Imperial Consort Rong. Before her investiture, Worthy Lady Rong always wore Muslim dress and ate Muslim food, with her own halal kitchen. There were occasional Han consorts in the Qing, specially granted permission to wear Han costume in the palace. After the death of the Imperial Noble Consort Ling, Consort Rong’s status rose to second in the harem. In the 53rd year of Qianlong (1788 A.D.), Consort Rong passed away at age 55 and was buried in the Consort Garden of the Eastern Qing Tombs. In 1979, when her long-looted tomb was examined, bones of Consort Rong were found, and the coffin boards bore Arabic inscriptions from the Quran. Legend says the Fragrant Consort emanated a natural fragrance, and the Turkish bath in the Hall of Bathing Virtue was built for her. Since the Yongzheng reign, the Hall of Bathing Virtue was converted to steam paper for the printing office; the Qianlong Emperor would never have switched it back to a bathhouse—how grimy! Besides, Qianlong would never have allowed an imperial consort to leave the inner palace to bathe in a side hall in the outer court, and the Imperial Household records contain no such reference. These tales are baseless, fabricated by someone during the Republican period, and remain only in the realm of legend.
The plumbing of the Turkish bath in the Hall of Bathing Virtue connects to a well pavilion. Naturally, the water from the well was for bathing in the Hall. The architectural layout of the east and west routes of the Ming palace was symmetrical, and the form of this well pavilion is identical to that of the Great Kitchen Well in the Hall of Transmitting the Mind (Chuanxin Dian) on the east side of the Hall of Literary Glory—yellow-glazed tiles, arched ceiling, with skylight. These are a special pair of well pavilions in the Forbidden City. When the Duke of Zhou established the rites, the Zhou Rites (or Zhou institutions) formed the foundation of Chinese ritual culture. Within the Zhou system was the rule of 'left kitchen, right bathroom' (zuo pao you bi). When I spoke of the annual sacrifices to the Well God at the Great Kitchen Well, I mentioned that among the five folk deities of the house (gate, door, well, stove, land), there is no Bath God, so the Ming and Qing court did not hold offerings at the Hall of Bathing Virtue.
Having finished seeing the ceramics exhibition in the Hall of Martial Valor, stand in the courtyard and take another look at the big tree.
Leaving the Hall of Martial Valor, follow the main road as it turns north. A short distance ahead stands a small stone bridge, a single-arch bridge. Research suggests it is a remnant of the Yuan imperial palace.
The watercourse beneath this small bridge is the Inner Golden Water Stream, flowing here from in front of the Gate of Martial Valor, on its way to the Gate of Supreme Harmony Square inside the Meridian Gate. This is the Broken Rainbow Bridge (Duanhong Qiao). The white stone of the bridge deck and the Han white marble balustrades on either side speak of great age. The balustrade panels are carved with two dragons feeding on grass. At the ends of the balusters sit crouching dragon sculptures.
Look closely at this Yuan-dynasty crouching dragon. Recall that the crouching dragons in front of the Palace of Great Brilliance (Jingren Gong) in the east six palaces, and the Palace of Eternal Longevity (Yongshou Gong) in the west six palaces, are identical—all with long flowing hair. Since the eight crouching dragons at the four corners of those two marble screen walls in the rear palaces match the four on this bridge, they mutually confirm each other as remains of the Yuan imperial palace.
On the baluster posts are lions seated on lotus thrones, all carved in Han white marble.
At the center of each side of the bridge arch, where the curve meets the horizontal, there is a dragon’s head—this is called 'flood dragon gazing at water.' Here’s a Yuan-dynasty flood dragon gazing at water, also known as a water-sucking beast.
For comparison, take a look at a Sui-dynasty 'flood dragon gazing at water' unearthed from the Hongji Bridge outside the ancient city of Guangfu in Handan, Hebei.
There is no written record of this Broken Rainbow Bridge in the Ming and Qing palace archives, so it’s unclear whether it is an early Ming construction or a Yuan palace remnant. The name 'Broken Rainbow Bridge' was given by later generations. After expert analysis, many believe the Broken Rainbow Bridge is a Yuan relic. This spot should lie on the central axis of the Yuan dynasty’s imperial city, i.e., the central axis of Dadu, the Yuan capital. The Broken Rainbow Bridge corresponds to today’s Inner Golden Water Bridges, and back then this bridge was called Zhou Bridge. It was originally three parallel stone bridges, similar to the five Inner Golden Water Bridges now. The present Broken Rainbow Bridge is one of the three rainbows; the other two are gone, hence the name 'Broken Rainbow.' The current bridge was the middle one of the three, part of the imperial pathway. The balustrade panels all bear dragon reliefs. These dragons are not soaring among auspicious clouds but meandering through flowers. So it seems Mongol dragons kept company with blossoms. The stone carvings of frolicking dragons we see on the platform balustrades of the Hall of Imperial Peace (Qin’an Dian) in the Imperial Garden are the same as these; those panels were also taken from Yuan palace buildings. Let me tell you, every dynasty in China has torn down previous dynasties’ structures to build their own. Not just Chinese, but foreigners too—taking stones from earlier castles to erect their own palaces. The outer walls of the famous Flavian Amphitheater (Colosseum) in Rome were all pilfered. The Broken Rainbow Bridge originally had a flying-dragon relief on the central stone slab of its deck, similar to the present-day dragon-imperial-path stones. In the early Ming, that flying-dragon carving was chiseled away. A bridge so heavily adorned with carved stone dragons and small lions, like the Broken Rainbow Bridge, is unique in the Forbidden City; all others have cloud-dragon or lotus baluster-cap posts. It is widely regarded as the most beautiful bridge in the palace. Together with the Turkish bath we just saw at the Hall of Martial Valor, these are probably the only two surviving Yuan-dynasty structures within the Ming-Qing imperial palace. Extrapolating from this bridge’s components, all the Forbidden City’s long-haired crouching dragons should be Yuan remains—for instance, the marble screen walls inside Jingren Gong and Yongshou Gong. Likewise, all balustrade panels with dragons feeding on grass are Yuan relics, like the circle of balustrades around the Hall of Imperial Peace.
To the north of the Broken Rainbow Bridge is a grove of ancient trees called the Eighteen Locusts.
In the Yuan dynasty, a large stand of willows grew here. A Yuan poet wrote: 'Forbidden willows green, white jade bridge; for no reason spring colors ascend the palace robes,' describing this very grove of tall willows by the Broken Rainbow Bridge. When Zhu Di built his imperial palace, these tall willows had already died, so he ordered these locust trees planted on their old soil. These ancient locusts are now six hundred years old. Even if they do not touch the sky, their trunks are a meter thick. According to national standards, with a diameter at breast height over 100 cm and age over three hundred years, they are all first-class ancient trees. The ancients had a good sense about planting locusts and willows in the palace. Palace willows need no elaboration. Tang poet Bai Juyi, visiting a friend in the imperial city, wrote: 'The moon over Tianjin Bridge sinks deep into the night; the wind and dew are chilly, the forbidden precincts deep. City willows and palace locusts carelessly shed their leaves, yet sadness never reaches the hearts of the noble.'
After seeing the Eighteen Locusts, continue north. Between the Hall of Martial Valor and the Garden of the Palace of Compassion and Tranquility (Cining Gong Huayuan) lies another courtyard.
This courtyard existed in the Ming dynasty, though its function is unknown. In the Qing, it housed the office of the Imperial Household Department’s Storehouse Directorate (Guangchu Si). The Storehouse Directorate was equivalent to a finance department and general warehouse, in charge of money and goods, overseeing silver vaults, silk vaults, fur vaults, tea vaults, and the like. Now it’s the office compound of a Palace Museum internal unit, with a sign on the gate. In the early Qing, there was also a Hall of Fulfilled Wishes (Ruyi Guan) here, where court painters worked. In the late Qing, Empress Dowager Cixi moved the Hall of Fulfilled Wishes to the Five Northern Offices behind the eastern six palaces.
By the way, just outside the north wall of this courtyard is another warehouse under its jurisdiction: the Icehouse. Today it is one of the Palace Museum restaurant branches. The only thing still related to the icehouse there is that you can buy ice pops—definitely not Qing-dynasty ice pops, so you can safely eat them.
Every year just before the freeze, the moat outside the Forbidden City would be drained and cleaned, then refilled with fresh water from the clear springs at the foot of Jade Spring Mountain west of Beijing, unpolluted. In ancient times, pollution was a very scarce strategic resource, hardly seen anywhere. After the winter solstice, the moat would freeze three feet thick after many days of cold. Then the palace’s overworked eunuchs would come here to warm themselves up. They would cut the ice into slabs one and a half Chinese feet square and haul them up into this icehouse. They worked with fiery zeal, sweating like rain, so hot they could barely stand it. This icehouse had four cellars, able to store over five thousand ice slabs. The next summer, the emperor would have ice fetched from here to cool the palace’s iceboxes, big and small, by adding 'snow essence.' Back then, palace iceboxes were not front-opening like ours today; they were top-opening, some were cloisonné enamel, and extremely luxurious. Although the palace had iceboxes, it had no air-conditioning machines, only manual fans; the emperor couldn’t enjoy the cool breeze of air conditioning as we common folk do today. Did ordinary households in those days have iceboxes? They did, but only in princely mansions or grand hotels. Where did the ice come from? Certainly not from the palace moat; generally it came from city moats and other waters around the Beijing city wall, around today’s Second Ring Road. Outside Xinjiekou breach there was an icehouse for storing civilian ice; the place name 'Bingjiaokou' (Icehouse Entrance) still exists. In fact, that icehouse served largely imperial purposes; most of the ice went to the palace because the icehouses inside the palace were too small to serve the royal family through the entire summer heat. After the Xinjiekou icehouse was abandoned, the ice storage pit was turned into today’s Youth Lake. Other places in Beijing also had such icehouses.
Further north is the Palace of Compassion and Tranquility; we’ll continue later.
(To be continued)
