When it comes to the Ming Dynasty Imperial Palace, everyone will think of the Forbidden City in Beijing, which was the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and now it is a world-famous comprehensive museum. In fact, the Ming Dynasty had three imperial palaces, the earliest one was abandoned before it was put into use, and two of them were eventually destroyed in the war, and the building was gone.
The following lay people I will first introduce from the most famous Forbidden City in Beijing:
1. The Forbidden City in Beijing
Beijing (then called Beiping) was originally a fiefdom of Zhu Di, the fourth son of Zhu Yuanzhang and the King of Yan. After Zhu Yuanzhang's grandson, the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunjiao, ascended the throne, he vigorously promoted the policy of cutting the domain because he was jealous of his uncles who held soldiers and horses. Zhu Yunjiao deployed troops around Beiping and inside the city, and in the name of border defense, he transferred Zhu Di's elite guards out of Saiwai to defend, and everyone with a clear eye knew that this was Emperor Jianwen who was ready to attack Zhu Di. Unwilling to sit still and wait, Zhu Di rebelled in the name of "JingNan", which is known in history as the "Battle of Jingnan".
After four years of war, Zhu Di finally occupied Nanjing, and Emperor Jianwen's whereabouts were unknown in the war, and in the same year Zhu Di took the throne with the era name Yongle.
It is likely that from the moment Zhu Di captured Nanjing, he planned to move the capital to Beijing. Because Zhu Di's throne was not justified and he sat unsteadily, and Nanjing was deeply influenced by Emperor Jianwen, it was obvious that for Zhu Di, beijing was still his base camp, which was more suitable as the imperial capital. Moreover, after Zhu Di ascended the throne, in order to prevent other clan kings from rebelling, the clan kings stationed in the frontier were moved to the interior, resulting in the emptiness of north China's defense, and Zhu Di finally decided to move the capital to Beijing, laying the pattern of the Ming generation's "Heavenly Son Guarding the Gate of the Country".
In the fourth year of Yongle (1406), Ming Chengzu issued an edict to build the Beijing Imperial Palace and city walls based on the Nanjing Imperial Palace (Nanjing Imperial Palace), but the public account at this time was to use Beijing as the capital. Preparations for the construction of the Beijing Imperial Palace lasted for eleven years, and by the fourteenth year of Yongle (1416), Ming Chengzu formally discussed the relocation of the capital to Beijing, and the following year, the construction of the Forbidden City in Beijing officially began. In the eighteenth year of Yongle (1420), the Beijing Imperial Palace, later the Forbidden City in Beijing, was completed.
After the completion of the Beijing Imperial Palace, it has been the residence of the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for more than 500 years. Until 1924, Feng Yuxiang launched the "Beijing Coup", expelling the abdicated Xuantong Emperor Puyi from the palace, and at the same time establishing the "Qing Room Aftermath Committee" to take over the imperial palace. On October 10, 1925, the Palace Museum was officially established, and the Forbidden City, which was originally a royal forbidden place, was opened to the broad masses of the people.
2. Nanjing Forbidden City
The second imperial palace of the Ming Dynasty was the Nanjing Forbidden City. Nanjing, along with Xi'an, Luoyang and Beijing, is listed as the four famous ancient capitals of the mainland, and there has been a dynasty that has set the capital here, which can be described as a treasure land of feng shui where dragons and tigers are located.
In the 26th year of the Yuan Dynasty (1366), Zhu Yuanzhang, the King of Wu, built a royal palace in Yingtianfu (now Nanjing), called the "New Palace of King Wu", which was the predecessor of the Nanjing Imperial Palace. Since Zhu Yuanzhang had not yet claimed the throne at that time, the size of the palace was limited, only the outer dynasty and inner court buildings on the middle road, and no palace rooms were built on the east and west sides.
In the first year of Hongwu (1368), Zhu Yuanzhang took the throne as emperor and took Ying Tianfu as Nanjing. In the eighth year of Hongwu (1375), Zhu Yuanzhang concentrated on the construction of the Nanjing Imperial Palace, adding two gates to the left and right of the Noon Gate, and adding the East and West Corner Gates to the left and right of the Fengtian Gate, and adding buildings such as the Wenhua Hall and the Wuying Hall. In the twenty-fifth year of Hongwu of the Ming Dynasty (1392), Zhu Yuanzhang again added the Nanjing Imperial Palace, and built a palace wall outside the imperial city, and the palace wall was the imperial city inside the palace wall, and the original imperial city was renamed the palace city.
The Nanjing Imperial Palace has only been an imperial palace for more than fifty years, and after Zhu Di moved the capital to Beijing, the Nanjing Imperial Palace was no longer valued. In the first year of Hong Xi (1425), Zhu Di's eldest son, Emperor Akihito, wanted to move the capital to Nanjing after he ascended the throne, and renovated the Nanjing Imperial Palace, but Zhu Gaozi suddenly fell ill and died, and the matter of moving the capital did not end. In the centuries since, the Nanjing Imperial Palace has rarely been repaired, and after wind and rain, the natural damage has been serious, and by the end of the Ming Dynasty, the most important golden hall of the Nanjing Imperial Palace has disappeared.
When the Ming Dynasty fell, the Qing army captured Nanjing and burned most of the Ming palace buildings. Kangxi twenty-three years (1684) first southern tour of Jiangning, saw the ruins of the Nanjing Forbidden City, sighed: "Out of the Forbidden City, the thorns are full of eyes, the past was the towering of the Phoenix Que, and now it is decadent and broken." In the late Qing Dynasty, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which was the capital of Nanjing, demolished the palace walls of bricks, stones and wooden structures to fill the Tianwangfu Project. After the defeat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Qing army set fire to the city of Nanjing, completely destroying the Ming Forbidden City.
Today, the Nanjing Imperial Palace is only left with the Ming Palace Park, which is a scenic spot, and there are no buildings anymore.
3. Fengyang Zhongdu City
The hometown of Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang was Linhao, which is today's Fengyang County in Anhui Province. After Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne, he always wanted to settle the capital in his hometown. In September of the second year of Hongwu (1369), Zhu Yuanzhang issued an edict to take his hometown of Linhao as the capital of Zhongdu, gathering nearly one million people from all over the country and hundreds of craftsmen, soldiers, civilian husbands, criminals, etc., to build an imperial palace in Linhao, called Zhongdu City.
By the eighth year of Hongwu, a majestic and majestic zhongdu city had begun to take shape. The Zhongdu City is exceptionally gorgeous, the existing noon gate ticket gate and the base around the platform, a total length of more than 500 meters of white jade Stone Sumire seat, inlaid with a variety of rare animals, famous flowers and sagebrush, compared to Nanjing, Beijing, the two Forbidden City noon gate at the base of the coupon cave only a small number of flower ornaments. The stone foundations on the site of the Zhongdu City Hall are each 2.7 meters square in diameter, and the base surface is half-embossed with a circle of dragons, and the outer perimeter is carved with Xiang phoenix, while the stone foundation of the Beijing Taihe Hall is only 1.6 meters square in diameter and is plain. This is enough to prove the luxury and magnificence of the Midtown.
However, Fengyang never became the capital of the Ming Dynasty. It turned out that on April 28, 1988, Zhu Yuanzhang stopped the Zhongdu project that "will be completed" on the grounds of "labor expenses". In the eleventh year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang officially made Nanjing the capital of the empire, and Fengyang Zhongdu was demoted to the capital of the escort. After hundreds of years of wind and rain and war, Zhongdu City was severely damaged, and a majestic and intact Forbidden City wall was demolished three-quarters, the bridge was demolished, the Jinshui River was filled in, and only a section of the city wall remained for people to hang.
Zhu Yuanzhang used the excuse of "labor fee" to strike the capital city, which seems to be a bright reason, but careful analysis shows that there are many doubts. At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang painstakingly operated for six years, and the Zhongdu City, which cost huge manpower and material resources, was close to completion, if Zhu Yuanzhang thought that it would be too laborious to continue to build the Zhongdu City, then after the construction of the Zhongdu City, wouldn't it be more laborious to rebuild the Nanjing Imperial Palace? It can be seen that "labor fee" is only An excuse for Zhu Yuanzhang, and the real reason is unknown to anyone.
Some people speculate that since Zhu Yuanzhang's meritorious clique is mostly from Huaixi, perhaps Zhu Yuanzhang is worried that once the capital is moved to Fengyang, the Huaixi Xungui clique will definitely use clan and township relations to expand its power, forming a trend of tail power, and even threatening the stability of imperial power.
Some people also speculate that the craftsmen who built the Zhongdu City in those years were very hard, and perhaps in order to retaliate, when building the palace building, they secretly performed the magic of the town, and when building the top of the palace, they hid the utensils and cursed the Zhu family dynasty for not being peaceful. After this incident, Zhu Yuanzhang naturally did not dare to use the central capital as an imperial palace.
However, the above statements are only speculations of later generations, and the real reasons may be forever lost in the long river of history.