Demystifying the Forbidden City's Taihe Hall: Where Did Nanmu Come From? What is the meaning of decoration?

Nowadays, many people walking into the Palace Museum will still be shocked by the beautiful and atmospheric ancient buildings of the Forbidden City, which embody the countless painstaking efforts of craftsmen brick by brick.

As a building in the Forbidden City, which is unparalleled in size and rank, the Taihe Hall has also been attracting much attention. In the recent hit book "Taihe Temple", Zhou Qian, a research librarian at the Palace Museum, told the history and story of the Taihe Temple, interpreting the superb skills of ancient Chinese architecture from the details.

Why did the fifth rehabilitation change the number of houses? Why are there ten little beasts on the roof ridge? In his narration, the magnificent Taihe Hall also has small "secrets" that are not known.

The history of the Temple of Taiwa and the fifth restoration

The ancient buildings of the Forbidden City belong to the Ming and Qing Dynasty official-style wooden ancient buildings, and the main features are that the building contains bucket arches and the roof is mostly glazed tiles. Historically, the fate of the Taihe Hall was very vicissitudes. It has suffered many fires and has been restored many times.

Zhou Qian said that the Taihe Hall we see today was completed in the thirty-sixth year of the Qing Kangxi Dynasty (1697), which belonged to the fifth restoration of the architectural system, and the person in charge of construction was Liang Jiu.

Liang Jiu was a native of Shuntianfu (present-day Beijing) and an apprentice of the famous craftsman Feng Qiao. In the eighteenth year of the Qing Kangxi Dynasty (1679), on the third day of the first month of the twelfth lunar month, six burning eunuchs accidentally used fire in the imperial dining room of the Forbidden City, which caused a fire and led to the destruction of the Taihe Hall.

Later, the Kangxi Emperor decided to restore the Taihe Hall and appointed Liang Jiu as the chief engineer of the project. At that time, Liang Jiu was more than 70 years old.

Since the Temple of Taihe was in ruins for eighteen years after the Fifth Fire, many of the craftsmen involved in the restoration of the Temple did not even know what shape the Hall of Taihe was, let alone the detailed dimensions of the building. Liang Jiu was very clever, and with his strong memory, he made a model of the Taihe Temple for the craftsmen to refer to when constructing.

Combined with the situation of wood, with the approval of the Kangxi Emperor, Liang Jiu increased the number of rooms in the wide direction of the Taihe Hall building from nine to eleven, the number of rooms in the direction of depth remained unchanged, and the total size of the building remained unchanged. In this way, small sizes of nan wood are used.

Fully considering the need for fire prevention, Liang Jiu removed the wooden corridors at both ends when rebuilding the Taihe Hall and replaced them with brick walls. He believes that every time the Taihe Hall suffered a fire, the source of the fire was along the corridor into the Taihe Hall.

"The card walls at both ends of the Taihe Hall that we see today were built by order of Liang Jiu, which can be said to be a typical example of the ancient Chinese firewall." Zhou Qian said that in addition, Liang Jiu, with the permission of the Kangxi Emperor, also ordered that the six golden pillars of the Dragon Dragon in the Taihe Hall be put together in pine wood, and the fundamental reason was that there was no large size nan wood.

Zhou Qian said that the six golden golden pillars of the dragon next to the throne of the Taihe Hall that we see today are actually made of two pine woods and covered with a layer of copper skin.

"Renovation" of ancient buildings

When the main body of the house and building is completed, there is another energy-consuming link next, that is, "decoration". The "decoration" of ancient buildings mainly refers to wooden structures with decorative functions such as doors and windows, furnishings, and ceilings.

In Zhou Qian's eyes, the "decoration" of the Taihe Hall is a combination of luxury and luxury, which is not only the highest level form of ancient palace architectural decoration, but also represents the essence of ancient architectural art.

For example, the partition doors and sills of the Taihe Hall use the three-cross and six-lined diamond pattern, which belongs to the highest level of door and window decoration in ancient buildings. The characteristics of this ornamentation are that the straight ridge in the middle and the diagonal ridges on both sides intersect at one point, dividing the façade into six equal parts, and the boundaries of each equal part are made into diamond patterns, which are generally like six bowls, and the whole presents the beauty of rhythm.

For another example, the throne of the Taihe Hall is made of gold lacquer cloud dragon pattern, and the production material is Nan wood, which is the most exquisite workmanship, the most luxurious decoration, the highest grade, and the most exquisite carving in the Forbidden City.

"Gold lacquer is the top process of painting in ancient China, generally gold glue is applied to the base of the wood, pasted three times with gold leaf, pressed evenly, and then covered with a layer of varnish (transparent paint), its paint surface is exquisite, and there will be no broken lines like ordinary lacquerware." He explained.

The exquisite and gorgeous "decoration" of the Taihe Hall is reflected in many details. Zhou Qian said that there was an algae well above the throne in the Taihe Hall, and the full name was the Dragon Phoenix Horn Cicada Cloud Dragon with the petal fang octagonal golden dragon algae well.

The Taehwaden algae well consists of three layers: the lowest layer is a square well, the middle is an octagonal well, and the upper one is a round well. This form combines decoration and symbolism, and its complicated architectural shapes are transformed into a beautiful artistic beauty, coupled with the color of gold, which sets off the magnificence and magnificence of the royal palace.

Why are there ten beasts on the roof of the palace?

Interestingly, people often hear a word in life, "five ridges and six beasts", which is generally used to describe a person who has nothing to do and is uneasy. When it is used in the field of ancient architecture, it refers to the roof ridge and small animals of ancient buildings.

Roof ridge refers to the intersection of two slope roofs, the hard mountain roof of ancient buildings generally has five ridges, and the number of roof ridges of other types of roofs is different, of which the roof ridge of the mountain roof can reach nine.

"There is no direct proportional relationship between the rank of the ancient buildings in the Forbidden City and the number of roof ridges. In addition, at the end of the roof ridge of ancient buildings, there are generally a number of small beasts with varying numbers, generally singular, and no more than nine. Zhou Qian explained.

Generally speaking, the names and sequences of small beasts are: dragon, phoenix, lion, pegasus, seahorse, fox, oshi fish, badger, bullf, and the order of pegasus and seahorse, fox and oshi fish is interchangeable.

However, he said, the number of small beasts on the roof of the Forbidden City's Taihe Hall was double dozens, and the Forbidden City was the only case. The tenth small beast on the roof of the Taihe Hall is xingshi, that is, the shape of lei zhenzi.

In that year, when Liang Jiu was rebuilding the Taihe Hall, he found that due to the change in the total number of rooms in the Taihe Hall, the specifications of the roof tiles had to be adjusted accordingly, resulting in a vacant position in the four directions of the eaves, and this position could just put a tile.

Therefore, Liang Jiu proposed to the Kangxi Emperor that the roof of the Taihe Hall was originally nine small beasts, which could be increased by one and become ten small beasts; considering that the Taihe Hall had been struck by lightning many times, the tenth small beast could be made into the shape of a thunder god, which meant that the Taihe Hall would be prevented from being struck by lightning.

In addition, in front of the first small beast (dragon), there is also a shape similar to that of an immortal riding a phoenix, called Jialing Pinga, which is a Miaoyin bird in Buddhism, introduced from India during the Sui and Tang dynasties, and used as an ornament on the roof of the building.

"The five ridges and six beasts on the roof of the ancient building of the Forbidden City are mainly for decoration and can highlight the hierarchy of the building. The higher the building level, the greater the number of small beasts. From the perspective of cultural implications, Zhou Qian said, these small beasts have strong disaster prevention cultural characteristics, and we can also call them "town objects" culture.

The Grand Canal drifts to the Forbidden City?

Specific to the construction of the Forbidden City, there was a saying that "the Grand Canal drifted to the Forbidden City", which was related to the transportation of construction timber.

Compared with ordinary wood, nan wood has the advantages of fragrant smell, not afraid of insects, not afraid of decay, etc., and is a superior wood for ancient palace construction and furniture production, but the problem is that its growth cycle is relatively long.

Zhou Qian mentioned that including the Taihe Temple, the wood used in the ancient buildings of the Forbidden City in the first construction was Nan wood, which originated from the deep mountains and old forest areas of Sichuan, Hunan, Shanxi, Zhejiang, Yunnan and other places, and the wood was huge, with a diameter of up to 2 meters.

The size and quantity of timber were large and numerous, and transportation became a problem due to the conditions at that time. Clever ancient craftsmen thought that nanmu could be transported to Beijing by water transport.

The specific method is: after the craftsman finds the nanmu in the deep mountain old forest, he patiently waits until the first

These rivers connected with the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, allowing all the nanmu to flow into the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and drift all the way to the Caoyun Wharf in the Tongzhou District of present-day Beijing. Of course, there are officials on duty along the way.

But Zhou Qian found that even so, historical records show that at least 20% of nanmu disappeared on the road of "drifting". After nanmu "floated" to the Caoyun wharf, a special person drove a mule cart to transport the wood to the Forbidden City.

"It can be seen from this that the saying 'the Grand Canal drifted to the Forbidden City' is basically reasonable." Looking back on years of research experience, Zhou Qian always feels that the Taihe Hall contains the essence of ancient Chinese architecture, and the study and interpretation of it still needs a long period of in-depth excavation.