The Forbidden City, the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties, is currently the world's largest and most complete preserved wooden structure ancient building complex, based on the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Palace Museum is also the largest comprehensive museum in China, is one of the three major palaces in the world. Construction of the Forbidden City in Beijing began in the fourth year of Ming Chengzu Yongle (1406), modeled on the Nanjing Forbidden City, and was completed in the eighteenth year of Yongle (1420). The Forbidden City in Beijing is centered on three major halls (Taihe Hall, Zhonghe Hall and Bohol Hall), covering an area of 720,000 square meters, with a construction area of about 150,000 square meters, with more than 70 large and small palaces and more than 9,000 houses. This year marks the 600th anniversary of the forbidden city, which has brought together many rare treasures in the past 600 years. At present, the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing has reached more than 1.8 million pieces (sets), mainly including the collection of cultural relics, ancient buildings and books of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
In the past six hundred years, the Forbidden City has experienced glory and suffering, and witnessed the changes in China in the past six hundred years. Especially since the Opium War, the Forbidden City has been occupied by outsiders several times, and a large number of precious cultural relics have been destroyed. The first time was when Li Zicheng broke into the Forbidden City at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the Chongzhen Emperor hanged Coal Mountain. In the Second Opium War in 1860, the Anglo-French army invaded the city of Beijing, and the owner of the Forbidden City, the Xianfeng Emperor, fled the summer resort. In 1900, the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded the city of Beijing, and the owners of the Forbidden City, Cixi and Guangxu, fled west to Xi'an. Before the two hasty escapes, the people in the Forbidden City threw a large number of cultural relics into the wells in the palace, and the changes in the Forbidden City in the past five hundred years made a large number of treasures accumulate in the wells in the palace. In this regard, some people have questions: at present, we are in a period of peace, and at this time we have the ability to salvage and protect these treasures, why has no one fished out the treasures in the ancient wells until today? There are 72 wells in the Forbidden City, and the well water of these wells is used to extinguish or wash the water, not for drinking (the palace drinks the water of Yuquan Mountain).
As for why no one salvaged the contents of the well, this has to be said in many ways. First of all, the ancient well of the Forbidden City, like the floor tiles of the Forbidden City, is also a part of the Forbidden City, and it is also a cultural relic, and the destruction of the ancient well destroys the integrity of the Forbidden City. The structure of the ancient well is not like the well we usually see. The ancient wellhead of the Forbidden City is particularly thin, and the space below can only accommodate a bucket. If the cultural relics in the well are salvaged, it is bound to destroy the structure of the ancient well. There is a remnant well in the western part of the Forbidden City, which was cleaned up by experts in 1995, and although a Ming Dynasty white-glazed iron and red-colored official kiln was found in it, it also destroyed the structure of the ancient well, causing irreversible damage. Well Chinese mostly gold and silver treasures cast by people when they fled, the cultural relics value of these things is actually very low, their value is not as high as the ancient well itself, in order to pick up sesame seeds and lose watermelon, it is not worth it.
Secondly, although there are cultural relics in the well, compared with the huge cultural relics resources of the Forbidden City, it still belongs to a dime. In the absence of thorough research on existing cultural relics, we should not pay too much attention to the cultural relics that have long been buried in the well. Finally, these artifacts have been put into the well, in the water that does not see the light of day for hundreds of years, experts do not salvage, no one can salvage away, put in the well is safer than outside. As for some people who say that experts do not salvage because there are not only treasures in the well but also dead people, this is a bit speculative, archaeology is still afraid of dead people?