The Forbidden City is the imperial palace building of the Ming and Qing dynasties in China, also known as the Forbidden City, it is located in the center of Beijing, has experienced a total of 24 emperors, and witnessed part of the history of China. It is also the most complete wooden ancient building complex in the world.
When was the Forbidden City built? How many disasters have been experienced?
Now the Forbidden City can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty began to set the capital nanjing, and finally Zhu Di launched the Battle of Jingnan to seize power, and in the fourth year of Yongle, Ming Chengzu Zhu Di ignored the opposition of his courtiers and ordered the construction of a palace in Beijing and moved the capital to Beijing.
In order to build this palace castle, the preparation work alone was carried out for eleven years, and the manpower and material resources consumed were countless. And there are many poor people who have their lives on it in order to mine wood and transport stone. "One thousand into the mountain, five hundred out of the mountain" is to describe the situation at that time. It was not until the eighteenth year of Yongle that the palace was completed. But this great building has indeed experienced many twists and turns.
In the nineteenth year of Yongle, a fire broke out in the Forbidden City, and the first three halls were burned out by fire. In the thirty-sixth year of Jiajing, another fire broke out, and this time the fire was even more serious, not only the first three halls, but also the Noon Gate and the Wenwu Building were all burned down, and it took four years to rebuild it.
In the twenty-fifth year of the Wanli Calendar, the Forbidden City caught fire again, and the poor first three halls were burned again, and the last three palaces were added, and this restoration took longer, which took thirty years.
This is only the data of the Ming Dynasty, not including the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, so it seems that this magnificent Forbidden City is really a disaster.
Despite many disasters and difficulties, as a place representing the highest power in ancient China, the Forbidden City has always survived and become a miracle building today.
Why is there no guano on the roof of the Forbidden City?
Whether it is the photos we see on the Internet or the influences broadcast on television, the roof of the Forbidden City is very clean, and the bird droppings that fall on it do not affect the visual effect, and even the birds rarely fall on it.
The more mysterious version holds that the Forbidden City is the place where the emperor lives, the true dragon Tianzi, and the ordinary beasts do not dare to offend, but this is only a joke, and the real reason is the wisdom of the ancient craftsmen.
In ancient times, the emperor was the Son of Heaven, and the people he found to build houses were all craftsmen with great ability and great ability. Therefore, these craftsmen were very meticulous when considering the problem, and they took into account the problem of bird droppings on the roof of the Forbidden City.
When they built it, they not only cut down many trees around the Forbidden City, leaving birds with nowhere to live, but also chose glazed tiles that were not only beautiful and brilliant, but also very smooth when choosing materials.
The smooth surface of this glazed tile makes it difficult for birds to stand on it, and it is inconvenient to stay above, so it will not leave bird droppings on it.
Coupled with the fact that the width and curvature of these tiles and eaves are very cleverly made, the claws and toes of birds cannot grasp the eaves, so they can prevent defecation on the roof.
And everyone knows that the main color of the Forbidden City is red and yellow, red is the color that birds are most afraid of, birds see such a large piece of red buildings, naturally do not want to get closer.
Not only are the walls coated with red dye, but there are also things that can emit a unique smell that birds do not want to approach. It can be seen that the reason why there is no bird droppings on the roof of the Forbidden City is really due to the wisdom and wisdom of the ancient people, not the power of the true dragon.
What does the Forbidden City look like now?
As mentioned above, the Forbidden City was built during the Ming Dynasty, and now we can see many beautiful scenes, which were added and repaired during the Qing Dynasty.
In the first year of the Shunzhi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, Li Zicheng, the king of the Qing Dynasty, burned the Forbidden City, except for a few palaces such as the Wuying Hall, the Yinghua Hall, and the Jianji Hall, which were not burned, and the other remaining were a few corner towers that were still intact.
This time the fire made the Forbidden City basically lose its own style. During the reign of the Shunzhi Emperor, only the buildings near the Forbidden City Road were renovated. It was not until the thirty-fourth year of the Kangxi Dynasty that other parts of the Forbidden City were restored.
During the Yongzheng Emperor, he changed the tradition of living in the Qianqing Palace and made the Yangxin Hall his residence, and subsequent emperors also continued this habit. The place where the emperor lived must be noble and not shabby, so the area of the Yangxin Hall was greatly changed and expanded.
Not only has the palace occupied a larger area, but even the layout has changed. When Cixi was in power, he opened the Changchun Palace with the Taiji Hall, turning it into a quadrangle courtyard. This is what we can see in the Forbidden City today.
Today's Forbidden City is about 960 meters long from north to south and about 750 meters from east to west, and the layout has a symmetrical beauty, and it is built according to Jingshan Mountain, with a natural barrier. Decorated with glazed tiles, it shines brightly, and the decorations on the roof ridge are beautifully shaped and the image is even the carvings on the white jade bridge in the palace are vivid.
In this Forbidden City, there are more than seventy large and small palaces, and the rooms are thousands, such as the Yikun Palace, Jingren Palace, Yangxin Palace, and Cining Palace that we can see in the Palace Fighting Drama. Even if you walk through the Forbidden City in a fancy way, it will take about two hours.
But there is also a downside to such a large place, which is that it is very easy to get lost when sightseeing. Therefore, when enjoying the beauty of the Forbidden City, you must determine your own location!
Nowadays, the Forbidden City that we can enjoy when we travel is enough to make us dizzy and stunned, but this is not all of the Forbidden City, the Forbidden City is still about 30% not open to the public, mainly because some of the areas of the inner court are inconvenient to show people, or after hundreds of years, some places have become dilapidated, there is no ornamental value, and now China's experts are also undergoing restoration, then I hope that in the future we can have the opportunity to see the whole picture of the Forbidden City.