preface
"Sitting north facing south" is often considered ideal when buying a property, and south-facing homes tend to be more expensive. This choice is not only related to good lighting, but also because the south-facing houses have many advantages both scientifically and culturally.
Scientifically, south-facing houses can get more sunlight, which is not only good for human health, but also improves the quality of life. Especially in winter, the sun warms the room and provides a more comfortable environment for the occupants.
From a cultural point of view, the southern part of ancient China was regarded as a noble place, and the emperor would often sit in the south and face the north when summoning hundreds of officials, which reflected the revered status of the south. Therefore, "sitting north facing south" also represents the honorable status of the emperor. With this in mind, royal palaces throughout the ages have usually adopted a design that sits north facing south.
However, under this tradition and scientific principles, the Forbidden City, built during the Ming and Qing dynasties, shows some subtleties. Expert research has found that the orientation of the Forbidden City actually deviates from the central axis, at an angle of about two degrees. This raises the question: Could it be that the arrangement of the emperors in the Forbidden City has gone awry?
1. Kublai Khan fixed Yanjing
In 1271 AD, the Mongol Great Khan Kublai Khan officially declared the founding of the Great Yuan, ending the title of "Great Khan" that had lasted for more than 20 years and changing it to "Emperor". This marked the official replacement of the Mongol Khanate by the Yuan Dynasty and the embarkation on the path of the Central Plains Dynasty.
Kublai Khan was originally the grandson of Genghis Khan, but he was the first to abandon the nomadic life and embrace Han culture. He was proficient in political means and scheming, and was regarded as the true founder and founder of the Yuan Dynasty.
The following year, Kublai Khan vigorously announced that he would move the capital of the Yuan Dynasty to Yanjing and officially change its name to "Dadu". This move immediately caused an uproar throughout the government and the public.
Yanjing is located in the Mobei Plain, with four distinct seasons and pleasant climate, known as "the first state in the world under the refreshing air of Kyushu". But at the time, it was still a remote place, and the move of the capital undoubtedly stimulated the nerves of the old school to a large extent.
The "Great Khan" Kublai Khan was unmoved, and he shrewdly saw that Yanjing was at the edge of the Central Plains, with the Yangtze River and the Huai River in the south, the grassland controlled in the north, and the mountains on both sides in the east and west, which was of extremely high strategic value.
Moreover, Kublai Khan still harbored a little, unknown secret - Yanjing had some kind of strange bond with his hometown.
Kublai Khan was born in the eighth year of Emperor Taizong of Yuan (1236), the fourth son of Yingzong's Huerduo, and his biological mother was Chabi, the great-granddaughter of Genghis Khan. He was named the "Emperor's Summary" at birth, which shows that he has a distinguished background.
However, due to infighting in the court, Kublai Khan's father, Yingzong Erduo, was soon poisoned. In order to escape the brutal court battles, Kublai Khan Jr. had to return with his mother to his hometown of Zhuozhou (present-day Zhuozhou, Hebei Province).
Located more than a hundred miles west of Yanjing, Zhuozhou was an important area of Qifu during the Jin Dynasty and was known for its prosperity. Here, Kublai Khan spent his teenage years and developed a deep relationship with his grandfather Genghis Khan's younger brother, Su Butai.
Su Butai took a fancy to this intelligent and elegant grandson and gave Kublai Khan a lot of Han cultural education, which played a key role in Kublai Khan's future ascension to the position of great treasure.
In 1260, with the support of Su Butai and others, Kublai Khan officially ascended the throne as a great khan in Kaiping (present-day Xilin Gol League in Inner Mongolia) at the age of 24. He chose Kaiping very carefully, aiming to show the Mongol nobility that he would restore the majesty of the Genghis Khanate.
Four years later, Kublai Khan, claiming the title of Emperor Jianyuan, led his army to conquer the Mongolian mainland and unify the divided Mongolian steppe. Since then, he has no worries and begins to embark on the great cause of the Central Plains.
In 1267, Kublai Khan mobilized heavy troops south, destroyed the Tang Dynasty Western Xia in only one year, and then besieged Xiangyang in the Song Dynasty. After four years of bloody offensive and defensive warfare between the two sides, the Song army was finally defeated, and in 127 Beijing 2, Kublai Khan's army approached Lin'an (present-day Hangzhou), and the Southern Song Dynasty was destroyed.
After unifying the blood-bathed rivers and mountains, Kublai Khan targeted his roots, the Mongolian plateau, and thus completed the overall rule of the Yuan Dynasty.
Soon after the end of this war, Kublai Khan eagerly announced the move of the capital to Yanjing. Although ostensibly out of strategic considerations, moving the capital after only 4 years may also have his selfish intentions.
Kublai Khan was born in Zhuozhou and started his army in Kaiping, which can be described as "returning east" twice in his life, and has a love for this land. Now that he had finally completed his conquest of the South, he was impatient to return to his homeland to build a new home.
Yanjing is exactly connected to Zhuozhou and Kaiping, which can not only rely on the power of the homeland, but also dominate the whole country. It is precisely knowing oneself and knowing the other, so Kublai Khan's move to the capital did not hesitate.
2. Planning the Forbidden City
In the winter of 1272, Kublai Khan officially moved the capital to Yanjing, and personally named the new city "Khan Balalu", which means "the city of Khan". It was soon renamed "Dadu" to highlight the majesty of the city.
After coming to Yanjing, Kublai Khan was very fascinated by this ancient city that had been one after another since the Spring and Autumn Warring States. He decided to build an extraordinarily magnificent capital city here to show his great power and status.
To this end, Kublai Khan mobilized hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from all over the country to work day and night to build the city.
Kublai himself was the commander-in-chief and architect of this "architectural battle". He personally rode the imperial car and led the craftsmen to conduct a detailed survey of the layout and planning of the city, and almost all the details had to be seen.
When planning the center of the city, Kublai Khan was excited to find that there was a straight line in the center of Yanjing, which almost coincided with the north and south meridians!
This is undoubtedly God's favor and guidance. Kublai Khan immediately decided to use this central axis as the basis for planning the city. All important buildings are arranged symmetrically along this line to signify the unity of heaven and man.
In order to prevent future chaos, Kublai Khan personally climbed the high platform and used beacons and flags to mark the direction of this central axis to the craftsmen. This line is like the backbone of the city, carrying the overall layout of most of the capital.
In this way, the palace city, the imperial city, and the outer city of the Yuan capital were basically completed within a few years. The scale is grand and imposing, and it is unprecedented.
There is Zhengyang Gate in the south of Dadu Castle and Tengjiao Gate in the north, and between the two gates are palace pavilions arranged along the central axis. This line runs from north to south, unifying the entire city with ingenuity.
However, just as it was being completed, Kublai Khan mysteriously instructed the craftsmen: "Make a slight shift on the central axis, two degrees to the east."
The craftsmen could not understand this, and they asked the emperor for his intentions. Seeing the situation, Kublai Khan had to be vague: "I had a hunch that the second shift to the rear was auspicious." You just have to do it. ”
Until Kublai Khan's death, the mystery of this central axis, which was deliberately shifted by two degrees, remained unsolvable. It was not until hundreds of years later, when some historians carefully studied the planning of the Yuan Capital, that they suddenly realized -
It turned out that the extension of this central axis pointed exactly to Kublai Khan's hometown of Zhuozhou and Kaiping Province, where he founded his state!
Kublai Khan's move not only showed his attachment to his homeland, but also pinned on his good wishes for the long-term peace and stability of the Dayuan Empire. As long as the central axis always points to the starting point, most of them are the foundation of immortality.
Third, the Ming Jian Forbidden Reappears the Old Dream
In 1368, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty captured the capital, and the Yuan Dynasty fell. The following year, he made his capital in Nanjing, but soon realized that to truly control this multi-ethnic empire, the vast northern part was indispensable.
Thirteen years later, his grandson Zhu Di took advantage of the invasion of the Northern Empire to launch the Jing Rebellion and seize the imperial throne. He then decisively announced the move of the capital to Beijing, which not only consolidated the rule of the Ming Dynasty, but also restored Beijing to its prosperity.
The Siku Quanshu includes the Yanjing Miscellaneous Treasures: Volume One, which chronicles anecdotes about Beijing in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, including the groundbreaking ceremony of the Forbidden City.
In the winter of 1406, Zhu Di, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, personally visited the city base and set up a small attic. In front of the attic stands a huge stone with eight large characters reading "Laying the Foundation for the Forbidden City", and the ink is thick and powerful.
Zhu Di also personally held a jun bottle, offered soup and wine to the base, and then knelt down to pray to express his lofty expectations for the imperial city.
According to historical records, the groundbreaking ceremony was held in the middle of winter, and the weather was freezing cold. However, Zhu Di did not complain and prayed sincerely for two hours, resulting in purple-red blood marks freezing on his knees, which shows that his ambition is high.
The Forbidden City chose to rely on the ruins of the Yuan capital, which greatly alleviated the difficulties of site selection and planning. Akito only needs to renovate and expand the existing layout to successfully complete the world's largest palace complex.
However, when the craftsmen strictly followed the orientation of the central axis of the Yuandadu capital, they found that the main entrance of the Forbidden City was offset by two degrees from the south!
This can make Akito completely confused. They repeatedly tested and were still unable to find out the cause of the deviation. Finally, some people speculate that this may be the fallacy of the meta-people, and for the sake of safety, it is better to follow this deviant central axis.
Therefore, Ming Chengzu had no choice but to continue planning and building on this "crooked central axis" left over from the Yuan capital. As a result - this emperor also "sat crooked"!
However, it is gratifying that although this deviation is small, it does not affect the magnificent layout of the Forbidden City. It became a minor mystery in the history of ancient architecture, which was not discovered and solved until later generations.
Perhaps, this is implicit in the mysterious power of history. What a wonderful encounter it was that the capital city of the heyday of the Yuan and Ming dynasties was connected by a secret heart-to-heart line
epilogue
The north-facing south-facing layout of the Forbidden City with a symmetrical central axis is a masterpiece in the history of architecture, and the 2-degree deviation adds a humanistic charm.
Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty, deliberately set up a "partial axis", which not only showed his attachment to his homeland, but also expressed his good wishes for the long-term peace and stability of the Great Yuan Empire.
The Ming people inherited and followed this central axis, so that the imperial cities of the two dynasties were connected in the air, and the spirit and rhinoceros were connected.
Although future generations have to "sit crookedly" on this line, the red dust of history has been unswerving, and the power of culture has forged the "immortal" spiritual homeland of the Chinese nation.