故宫The Forbidden CityWord下载.docx

1、The Forbidden City has a history of nearly 600 years. It was built in 1420 during the Ming Dynasty.Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty in 1368, and then he set up his capital in Nanjing. But after the third Ming emperor Zhu Di came to the throne in 1402, he decided to move capital fro

2、m Nanjing to Beijing.The construction on the Forbidden City started in 1406 and completed in 1420. After its completion the capital was moved from Nanjing to Beijing in 1421. After that the following Ming Emperors and all the Qing Emperors lived and handled state affairs in the Forbidden City. There

3、 were 14 Ming Emperors and 10 Qing Emperors who lived in the Forbidden City.In 1911 the Qing Dynasty was overthrown by the 1911 Revolution led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen. But after1911, based on the 19 articles of the preferential treatment for the Qing court, the last emperor Puyi and his royal family were

4、 still allowed to live in the inner court of the Forbidden City. But in 1924 they were driven out of the Palace. One year later, on October 10th, 1925, the Forbidden City was converted into the Palace Museum and opened to the public.In 1961, the Palace Museum was listed as the important historical m

5、onuments under special preservation by the Chinese Government. In 1987 it was listed as a World Cultural Heritage site by UNESCO.During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the emperors residence was forbidden to the ordinary people. In the feudal society, the emperor had supreme power and he believed he wa

6、s the person just below heaven but above all the people. In another words, the common people were forbidden to enter the imperial palace. Hence the name “Forbidden City”.But in Chinese, the imperial palace also called “Purple Forbidden City”. The word Purple comes from ancient Chinese astronomers be

7、lief that purple was the symbolic color of the North Star. In ancient China, astronomers put the stars into three constellations. The Purple Star was located in the center of the universe, which was believed to be the center of the cosmos, and the Palace on the Purple Star was called the Son of Heav

8、en, and he also believed that his Imperial Palace was in the center of the earth, for his palace was built along the north-south central axis of the capital city of Beijing, then he called his Forbidden City “Purple Forbidden City”.The Forbidden City covers an area of 72 hectares with a total floor

9、space of about 150000 square meters. It is rectangular in shape, about 960 meters long from north to south, and 750 meters wide from east to west, surrounded with a 10-meter high city wall and 52-meter wide moat.Most of the Structures in The Forbidden City were made of wood with white marble, stone

10、or brick foundations. The building materials are from different part of our country. The timbers in the Ming Dynasty were cut from southwest part of our country, but in the Qing Dynasty, the timber was transported from northeast part of our country. The stones and marble were from Fanshan District,

11、70 kilometers from Beijing. The bricks used for building the city wall were transported form Linqing, Shandong province; while the bricks used for laying floors inside were specially made in Jiangsu Province. There were altogether 230000 artisans and more than a million civilians involved in buildin

12、g The Forbidden City. It was really a construction and a hard job for the Chinese laboring people.Talking about the rooms in the Forbidden City. The famous saying is that there are 9999 and a half rooms in The Forbidden City, just a half room less than the “Heavenly Palace”. It was said that the emp

13、eror on earth didnt dare to compare himself with the God of Heaven. Therefore the number of rooms in the Imperial Palace was a half room less. But the fact is that, according to the record in 1973, The Forbidden City consists of 90 palaces and courtyards, 980 buildings with rooms of 8704.The Forbidd

14、en City can be divided into 2 parts: the outer Court and the Inner Palace. The Outer Court was the place where the emperors attended the grand ceremonies and conduct state affairs. The Inner Palace was the living quarters for the emperors, empress and his imperial concubines.The Forbidden City was b

15、uilt along the central axis. The buildings along the central axis are: The Meridian Gate, the Gate of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Middle Harmony, the Hall of Preserving Harmony, the Gate of Heavenly Purity, the Palace of Heavenly Purity, the Palace of Union and Peace, t

16、he Palace of Earthly Tranquility and the Imperial Garden.THE MERIDIAN GATEThere are four gate in each side of the Forbidden City. The Meridian Gate is the main entrance to the Forbidden City and also the south gate of the Forbidden City. It is called Meridian Gate because the emperor believed that t

17、he meridian line just went through the Forbidden City and his imperial residence was the center of the whole universe. In addition, according to the ancient Chinese compass, the Meridian indicated the south, so it was also served as the south gate of the Imperial Palace.The Meridian Gate is 35 meter

18、s high, it was first built in 1420, and was rebuilt in 1647. There are five towers surmounted on the top of the gate, so it was also nicknamed as the “Five Phoenix Tower”.The main tower is located in the center with four square-shaped towers in each other. The four side towers are connected by cover

19、ed galleries. Inside the tower bells and drums were installed. In the old days, when the emperor went to the Alters and the Temple of Heaven, bells were struck, and when the emperor went to the Supreme Ancestral Temple, the drums were beaten to make it down to the public. While when the high ranking

20、 officials came to attend the grand ceremonies, both the bells and drums were used as a signal of entering in and out respectively.There are mainly 2 functions of the Meridian Gate: the festive activities and the official ceremonies.The festive activities mainly were popular festivals held in front

21、the Meridian Gate during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, such as : the Spring Festival, the Dragon Baot Festival, the Double Nine Festival etc.The official ceremonies mainly were two: First, the ceremony of announcing the new lunar year calender. Every year the new lunar year calender was announced on

22、the first day of the 10th lunar month at the Meridian Gate. Second one was the ceremony of “Accepting Captives of War”. When a general returned from a battle, his captives would be offered in a ceremony here, which was served as the victorious ceremony.Court Beating used to be happened in front of t

23、he Meridian Gate, which was a kind of punishment to punish those officials by beating their buttocks with sticks. Any officials who went against the emperors wishes and incurred the emperors disfavor would be taken out of the Meridian Gate and got beaten. According to the record in 1519, more than 1

24、50 officials tried to dissuade the emperor from going to the south to select beauties. That made the emperor very angry, the 158 officials got beaten and 15 of them were beaten to death on the spot. Once again, in 1524,134 officials got beaten because they dissuade the emperor from promoting his fat

25、her to the “Title of the Emperor”, 17 of them died on the spot. Fortunately, this kind of punishment was abolished in the Qing Dynasty.During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the central passageway was only for the emperor. But apart from the emperor the empress could use the central passageway only onc

26、e in her whole life. It was on the day she got married during the imperial wedding ceremony. On the day, the empress was permitted to enter the Forbidden City through the middle doorway. However, on the day the imperial palace exam results were announced, the top three outstanding scholars were allo

27、wed to to through the central gate in the Forbidden City. The high-ranking civil and military officials used the east gate, and the royal family members went in through the west. The two smaller ones on both sides at the corner were for the low-ranking officials.During the palace exam, the candidate

28、s went in from the two side gates according to their numbers. The candidates with odd number used the left side gate while the candidates with even number used the right. The Meridian Gate have five openings. In this way, three obvious doorway can be easily seen outside the Meridian Gate, and two si

29、de gates were hidden from view. But all five doorways can be seen after walking through the Meridian Gate and turning around. This is a typical building method for this kind of gate: three obvious gates can be seen from the outside, but five doorways can be seen from inside.THE GATE OF SUPREME HARMO

30、NYEnter the Meridian Gate, there are five marble bridge on the Inner Golden Water River, shaped like a bow. The five bridges were supposed to represent the five virtues preached by Confucius: benevolence, righteousness, propriety, intelligence and fidelity. The function of the Inner Golden Water Riv

31、er was for draining the raining water away.There are two bronze lions in front of the Gate of Supreme Harmony. One is male and the other is female. In ancient times, stone and bronze lions were frequently seen in front of the gates as guardians. The bronze lions served as doorkeepers because their a

32、wesome looks, and they were place in front of the gate to ward of evil spirits too.The male lion was usually positioned on the left, playing with a ball, which is said to show the emperors supreme power to control the whole universe. The female lion is on the right, playing with a lion cub with her left paw, symbolizing prosperity of the royal familys offspring. The baby lion is lying on its back with his mothers paw on his mouth.The Gate of Supreme Harmony is the front gate of the three main halls in the outer court of the Forbid