In the fifteenth year of Ming Yongle (1417), the 18-year-old Kuǎi Xiang was appointed by Ming Chengzu as the designer of the major project of the Forbidden City of the Beijing Imperial Palace because of his outstanding design skills, and his first task was to be responsible for the design and organization of the Chengtian Gate as the main gate of the palace.
Three years later, the Chengtian Gate was completed, a three-story five-story wooden archway with yellow tile cornices, and the "Gate of Chengtian" plaque hangs in the middle of the archway, which means "Inheriting the Heavenly Fortune and Being Ordained by heaven", in the eighth year of Qing Shunzhi (1651), Qing Shizu rebuilt it on the ruins of the original site on a large scale and renamed it "Tiananmen", which means: "Ordered by Heaven, Anbang Governs the Country".
On October 1, 1949, the leader of the state solemnly declared to the world from the tower of Tiananmen Square: "The Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China has been established!" Twenty years later, in the 1960s (1969), due to the Xingtai earthquake, the Tiananmen Tower was already in jeopardy, the country was rebuilt, and when the workers unveiled the glazed tiles on the roof, they were immediately excited.
It is said that the worker who was responsible for repairing the glazed tiles on the roof of the Tiananmen Square at that time, when unveiling the old tiles, found that there was a piece of glazed tile that was very different from other tiles, so he was confused and wanted to see the tile, so he went forward to uncover the unique tile, and found that there was a wooden box underneath, which was very exquisite, and he knew that it was extraordinary at a glance.
Tiananmen is a very important place in China, what seems to be special is naturally more precious, the workers are very excited, immediately called the leader, and later reported to the cultural relics department, cultural relics experts immediately arrived, found this unique glazed tile under a golden silk Nan wooden box, open the wooden box, impressively see that there are soybeans, sorghum, black beans, etc., as well as a fairly rare ruby and some cinnabar.
Why does such a thing appear on the roof of Tiananmen Square? Historians explained that in the Ming and Qing dynasties, when the emperor sacrificed the heavens, he would offer five grains to the heavens, and the five grains were also called "five colored grains", and in ancient times, the sacrifice activities were still quite common, whether it was "inheriting the fortune of the heavens, being ordained by the heavens", or "being ordained by the heavens, governing the country with peace", all of which had a close relationship with the heavens.
Historically, many emperors have also made their own actions seem reasonable and reasonable to the "will" of heaven, and Ram Gao, the younger brother of Bu Shang, one of the Ten Philosophers of Confucius, recorded in the "Thirty-one Years of the Ram Transmission and the Thirty-first Year of the Duke": "Why is Lujiao indecent? The Son of Heaven sacrifices to heaven, and the princes sacrifice to the earth. ”
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the winter solstice festival was more solemn, and later spread to the people, it also evolved into the custom of the winter solstice ancestor worship, called "winter sacrifice" or "worship winter", praying to the heavens for the next year's wind and rain to be smooth, everything is smooth, is a kind of good wish sustenance.