Cover news reporter Zhang Jie intern Li Haonan
The Italian missionary Matteo Ricci, who came to China during the Ming Dynasty, described in his Notes on China the transport of timber needed for the renovation of the palace buildings in the Forbidden City: the priests saw huge wooden rows of beams and wood tied together and boats laden with timber on the canal, pulled by thousands of people to trek along the shore. Some can only walk five or six miles a day. Such wooden rows come from as far away as Sichuan Province and take two or three years to reach the capital. This is a small story included in the new book "Taihe Temple" published by Century Wenjing a few days ago.
The Taihe Hall, commonly known as the Golden Ruan Hall, was first built in the eighteenth year of Ming Yongle (1420), when it was called the Fengtian Hall. As a symbol of ancient Chinese imperial power, but also the largest and largest building in the Forbidden City, in addition to the magnificent shape, gorgeous decoration to give it a high aesthetic value, from the overall pillar frame, roof, to the local mortise, bucket arch, every link reflects the superb skills and wisdom of ancient Chinese architecture, can be called the "C position" player in the 600-year-old Forbidden City complex.
Dr. Zhou Qian, the author of this book, is a research librarian and ancient construction expert of the Palace Museum, who served in the architecture department of the Palace Museum and participated in the overhaul of the Taihe Temple. From 2004 to 2007, he was responsible for the structural design analysis of the Taihe Hall during the overhaul of the Taihe Hall, and worked in the Taihe Hall every day. Since 2007, the Taihe Temple has been conducting research.
In the book "Taihe Temple", Zhou Qian will lead the reader to understand the ingenuity of the design and construction of the Taihe Hall from the inside to the outside, from top to bottom, from the whole to the part through the form of text and pictures. The 500 color pictures in the book allow readers to visually and intuitively understand the architectural functions, architectural techniques, construction techniques, architectural culture and architectural art of the Taihe Temple.
The "Great Events" Experienced by the Taihe Temple
Yuan Shikai destroyed the architectural style of the Taihe Hall
As a C-bit building in the Forbidden City, the Taihe Hall has also undergone great changes in history. For example, the Taihe Hall witnessed the demise of the Ming Dynasty. In the spring of 1644, Li Zicheng led a million troops from Xi'an to the north and attacked the city of Beijing. The ministers who guarded the city chose to surrender. Chongzhen hanged himself at Jingshan with his confidant Wang Cheng'en. Li Zicheng ascended the throne at the Wuying Hall of the Forbidden City. Soon, a large army led by Wu Sangui arrived on the outskirts of Beijing. Lee withdrew from the city. When leaving the Forbidden City, according to the suggestion of Niu Venus, following the example of the Western Chu Overlord, he set a fire in the Afang Palace, including the Taihe Hall, and 70% of the buildings of the Forbidden City were burned down. Most of the ancient buildings of the Forbidden City we see today were restored in the Qing Dynasty. In the winter of 1908, Puyi, who was only two years old, was carried into the palace from the palace of Prince Shuo on the north bank of the Shichahai Sea in the capital. On December 2, 1908, Puyi's enthronement ceremony was held at the Taihe Temple. The "Guangxuan Xiaoji" written by Jin Liang, a jinshi at the end of the Qing Dynasty, records that Puyi, who was sitting on the throne of the Taihe Temple, was so frightened that he cried.
The Taihe Hall also witnessed the misdeeds of the Eight-Nation Alliance in the Taihe Hall, and Yuan Shikai's destruction of the architectural style of the Taihe Hall. On February 12, 1912, after Yuan Shikai forced the Qing Emperor to abdicate, Puyi moved to the harem area north of the Qianqing Gate, while the former dynasty, including the three halls of the Forbidden City, was occupied by the Republic of China government. Later, Yuan Shikai wanted to become emperor and restore the imperial system. Before ascending the throne, the emperor's special items such as the throne, the dragon robe, and the jade seal were prepared, and the architectural style of the three halls was changed, such as changing the yellow tiles of the three halls to red tiles, changing the Taihe Hall to the Carrier Hall, changing the Zhonghe Hall to the Body Yuan Hall, changing the Bohol Hall to the Jianji Hall, adding red gold to the pillars in the main hall, and decorating them with panlong clouds. He also ordered that the Manchu script on the plaques of all the palaces of the former dynasty be removed and replaced by Chinese.
The protection and repair of the taihe hall building has always been a major event that attracts the attention of thousands of people. From 2006 to 2008, the Palace Museum carried out a two-year overhaul of the Taihe Temple. This was the first large-scale renovation of the Temple of Taihe after it was completed in 1697. The main contents of the overhaul of the Taihe Hall include: removing the tile surface from the roof, replacing the decaying rafters and lookout plates, and then re-laying the tiles; supporting the partially sunken beam frame of the roof and tightening the loose iron hoops; overhauling the bucket arch and filling in the partially missing arch components; repairing the loose wall and re-plastering the partially peeled wall skin; inspecting the columns that intersect the wall and replacing the rotten position of the pillar roots by traditional methods; repairing and restoring the loose and displaced foundation stones to their original positions; and re-painting the eaves. Today we see the Taehwa Hall, which looked like after an overhaul in 2008. The overhaul of the Taihe Hall reflects the ability and level of Chinese ancient building conservators to take timely and effective protection of cultural relics.
The nan wood used in the construction is mainly from Sichuan and Yunnan
The people had ventured into the mountains to collect wood
After five fires, the Taihe Hall was built in the 36th year of the Qing Kangxi Dynasty (1697). Subject to historical reasons, the main material of its construction is wood. In this book, we learn that the wood used in the construction of the Taihe Hall in the early Ming Dynasty was Nan wood. Nan wood has a unique fragrance, is not afraid of insect erosion, is not afraid of decay, is not easy to deform, is an excellent material for creating palace architecture. The nan wood used in the Taihe Hall is large in size, with a maximum diameter of up to 2 meters. The nan wood used in the construction of the Forbidden City mainly comes from the deep mountains and old forests of Sichuan, Yunnan, Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou, Zhejiang, Shanxi and other places.
Due to the large number and diameter of the Pai Cai Nan wood, most of them are located in the deep mountains and old forests, so after cutting, we must first solve the problem of pulling out of the mountain. However, due to the complex and changeable terrain conditions, the weather is cloudy and sunny, the water is dry and the water is not easy to grasp, and some of the wood-producing places are in the land of miasma and poisonous fog, which increases the difficulty of collection and transportation. The people ventured into the mountains to collect wood, many people lost their lives for this, and there is a saying in later generations that "one thousand into the mountain, five hundred out of the mountain", describing the cost of life paid for wood picking.
At that time, the two large wooden storage sites in the east and west of Beijing, the "Shenmu Factory" and the "Big Wooden Warehouse", were full of materials, so there was no stoppage during the construction of the Forbidden City.
The Shenmu Factory was located outside the present-day Chongwen Gate. According to the Ming Shi Chengzu Benji, in the fourth year of Yongle (1406), Shangshu Song Li, who was sent to Sichuan to look for wood, reported to the Yongle Emperor Zhu Di that he had seen a lot of large wood drifting from the canyon to the Yangtze River one night. Zhu Di believed that this was the will of the gods, so he called the mountain where these large trees were mined as Shenmu Mountain, and sent officials into the mountain to sacrifice. After these large logs were transported to Beijing, the place where they were stored was called the Shenmu Factory.
Damucang, now a little north of Xidan in Beijing, is where the large trees were stored for the construction of the palace more than 600 years ago. There are 3600 warehouses in the big wooden warehouse, the preservation conditions are good, and by the second year of the Ming Dynasty (1437), there are still 380,000 pieces of wood in stock.
Zhou Qian tells us in the book that the person in charge of the wooden work of the Taihe Hall when it was built at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty was Ku Xiang. Ku Xiangyuan was a carpenter in Wu County, Suzhou. According to Kangxi's Suzhou Fuzhi and Wuxian Chronicle, Yongle was summoned to Beijing in the fifteenth year (1417) when he was only twenty years old. Later, the Beijing Palace, the Imperial Tomb and the Wenwu Divisions were mostly built by Ku Xiang. Ku Xiang was good at making drawings, and each pattern could satisfy the emperor. It is said that he can draw dragons with both his left and right hands, and the two dragons merge to resemble one dragon. His drawings are very accurate, the surface seems to be careless, in fact, the accuracy of the drawn map is not inferior. When He first entered the palace, he was known as the "Carpenter Foreman", and was later appointed as the Commander of the Camp (官名, 正九品), and later promoted many times, and the official was appointed to the Left Shilang (官名, 正三品) of the Ministry of Works, enjoying the Zheng Er Pin Feng Lu (正二品俸禄) and later enjoying the Congyi Pin Feng Lu( By the time of Emperor Xianzong of Ming (c. 1477), Ku Xiang was already more than eighty years old, but he was still an official in the imperial court and enjoyed a rich fortune. The emperor did not call him by his name, but affectionately called him "Kuluban".
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