THE FORBIDDEN CITY (GUGONG)

    Indeed, for the five centuries of its operation, through the reigns of 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties, ordinary Chinese were forbidden from even approaching the walls of the palace. Today the complex is open to visitors daily 8.30am-5pm, with last admission at 3.30pm in winter, 4pm in summer. Note that "the entrance is quite a way after Tiananmen; Just keep on past the souvenir stalls till you can't go any further. As well as the main entrance under Tiananmen you can also come in through the smaller north and east gates. You have the freedom of most of the hundred-hectare site, though not all of the buildings, which are labeled in English. If you want detailed explanation of everything you see, you can tag on to one of the numerous tour groups or buy one of the many specialist books on sale. The audio tour (Y30), available by the main gate, is also worth considering. You're provided with a cassette player and headphones and suavely talked through the complex by Roger Moore - though if you, do this, it's worth retracing your steps afterwards for an untutored view. Useful bus routes serving the forbidden City are #5 from Qial1l11en,and #54 from Beijing Zhan, or you could use #1, which passes the complex on its journey along Chang'an Jie.

History of the Forbidden City

    After the Manchu dynasty fell in 1911, the Forbidden City began to fall into disrepair, exacerbated by heavy looting of artifacts and jewels by the Japanese In the 1930s and again by the Nationalists, prior to their flight to Taiwan, in 1949.A program of restoration has been under way for decades, and today tile complex is in better shape than it was for most of the last century, in the interests of more than two million visitors a year. It's big enough to fill several separate visits, and its elegance on such a massive scale is extraordinary.

    The complex, with its maze of eight hundred buildings and reputed nine thousand chambers, was the symbolic and literal heart of the capital, and of the empire too. From within, the emperors, the Sons of Heaven, issued commands with absolute authority to their millions of subjects. Very rarely did they emerge - perhaps with good reason. Their lives, right down to the fall of  the Manchu in the twentieth century, were governed by an extraordinarily developed taste for luxury and excess. It is estimated that a single meal for a Qing emperor could have fed several thousand of his impoverished peasants, a scale obviously appreciated by the last influential Manchu, the Empress Dowager Cixi, who herself would commonly order preparation of one hundred or more dishes. Sex, too, provided startling statistics, with Ming-dynasty harems numbering a population of only just below five figures.

    Although the earliest structures on the forbidden city site began with Kublai Khan during the Mongol dynasty, the plan (and originals) of the Imperial Palace buildings, are essentially Ming. Most date to the fifteenth century arid, the ambitions of the Emperor Yongle, the monarch responsible for switching the capital back to Beijing in 1403. The halls, were laid out according to geomantic theories - in accordance to the yin and yang, the balance of negative and positive - and since they stood at the exact centre of Beijing, and Beijing was considered the centre of the universe, the harmony was supreme. The palace complex constantly reiterates such references, alongside personal symbols of imperial power such as the dragon and phoenix (emperor and empress) and the crane and turtle (longevity of reign).

Eunchs and Concubines

    For much of the imperial period, the Inner Court of the Forbidden City  was the home of more than six thousand members of the royal household, around half this number eunchs. The castrated male was introduced into the Imperial court as a means of ensuring the authenticity of the emperor's offspring and as a radical solution to the problem of nepotism. In daily contact with the royals, they often rose to considerable power, but this was bought at the expense of their dreadfully low standing outside the confines of the court. Confucianism held that disfiguration of the body impaired the soul, and eunuchs were buried apart from their ancestors in special graveyards outside the city. In the hope that they would still be buried "whole", they kept and carried around their testicles in bags hung on their belts. They were usually recruited from the poorest families - attracted by the rare chance of amassing wealth other than by birth.

    Scarcely less numerous were the concubines, whose status varied from wives and consorts to basic whores. They would be delivered to the emperor's bedchamber, wrapped in yellow cloth, and carried by one of the eunuchs, since with feet bound they could hardly walk.

Entering the complex of the Forbidden City

    Once through Tiananmen, you .find yourself on a long walkway, with the moated palace complex and massive Wumen gate directly ahead (this where you buy your ticket). The two parks either side, Zhongshan and the People's Culture Park (both daily 6am-9pm) are great places to chill out away from the rigorous formality outside. The Workers' Culture Palace (Y5), on the eastern side, which was symbolically named in deference to the fact that only with the Communist takeover in 1949 were ordinary Chinese allowed within this central sector of their city, has a number of modern exhibition halls (sometimes worth checking) and a scattering of original fifteenth-century structures, most of them Ming or Qing ancestral temples. The hall at the back often holds prestigious art exhibitions. The western Zhongshan Park (Y1) boasts the remains of the Altar of Band and Grain, a biennial sacrificial site with harvest functions closely related to those of the Temple of Heaven.

    The Wumen (Meridian Gate) itself is the largest and grandest of the Forbidden City gates and was reserved for the emperor's sole use. From its vantage point, the Sons of Heaven would announce the new year's calendar to their court and in times of war inspect the army. It was customary for victorious generals returning from battle to present their prisoners here for the emperor to decide their fate. He would be flanked, on all such imperial occasions, by a guard of elephants, the gift of Burmese subjects.

    Passing through the Wumen you find yourself in a vast paved court, cut east-west by the Jinshui He, the Golden Water Stream, with its five marble bridges, decorated with carved torches, a symbol of masculinity. Beyond is a further ceremonial gate, the Taihemen, Gate of Supreme Harmony, its entrance guarded by a magisterial row of lions, and beyond this a still greater courtyard where the principal imperial audiences were held. Within this space the entire court, up to one hundred thousand people, could be accommodated. They would have made their way in through the lesser side gates - military men from the west, civilian officials from the east - and waited in total silence as the emperor ascended this throne. Then, with only the Imperial Guard remaining standing, they prostrated themselves nine times.

    Moving on, you enter the Zhonghedian, Hall of Middle Harmony, another throne room, where the emperor performed ceremonies of greeting to foreigners and addressed the imperial offspring (products of several wives and numerous concubines). The hall was used, too, as a dressing room, for the major Taihedian events and it was here that the emperor examined the seed for each year's crop.

    The third of the great halls, the Baohedian,  Preserving Harmony Hall, was used for state banquets and imperial examinations, graduates from which were appointed to positions of power in what was the first recognizably bureaucratic civil service. Its galleries, originally treasure houses, display various finds from the site, though the most spectacular, a vast block carved with dragons and clouds, stands at the rear of the hall. This is a Ming creation, reworded in the eighteenth century, and it's among the finest carvings in the palace. It's certainly the largest - 250-tonne chunk of marble transported here from well outside the city by flooding the roads in winter to form sheets of ice.

    To the north, paralleling the structure of the ceremonial halls, are the three principal palaces of the imperial living quarters. Again, the first chamber, the Qianqinggong, Palace of Heavenly Purity, is the most extravagant. It was originally the imperial bedroom - its terrace is surmounted by incense burners in the form of cranes and tortoises (symbols of immortality) - though it later became a conventional state room. Beyond, echoing the Zhonghedian in the ceremonial complex, is the Jiaotaidian, Hall of Union, the empress's throne room, and finally the Kunninggong, Palace of Earthly Tranquility, the emperor had to spend the first three nights of his marriage, and the first day of Chinese New Year, with his wife. This palace is a bizarre building, partitioned in two. On the left is a large sacrificial room with its vats ready to receive offerings (1300 pigs a year under the Ming). The wedding chamber is a small room, off to one side, painted entirely in red, and covered with decorative emblems symbolizing fertility and joy. It was last pressed into operation in 1922 for the child wedding of Pu Yi, the final Manchu emperor, who finding it "like a melted red wax candle", decided that he preferred the Mind Nurture Palace and went back there.

    The Mind Nurture Palace, or Yangxindiang, is one of a group of palaces to the west where emperors spent most of their time. Several of the palaces retain their furniture from the Manchu times, most of it eighteenth-century, and in one, the Changchundong, is a series of paintings illustrating the Mind novel, The Story of the Stone. To the east is a similarly arranged group of palaces, adapted as museum galleries for displays of bronzes, ceramics, paintings, jewellery and Ming and Qing arts and crafts. The atmosphere here is much more intimate, and you can peer into well-appointed chambers full of elegant furniture and ornaments, including English clocks decorated with images of English gentlefolk, which look very odd among the jade trees and ornate flywhisks.

    Head over to the other side of the complex to the eastern palace quarters where an extraordinary clock Museum is housed, displaying the result of one Qing emperor's collecting passion. Most are English and French explosions of Baroque ornament, though perhaps the most arresting is a rhino-sized Chinese water clock.

    Moving away from the palace chambers - and by this stage something of a respite - the Kunningmen leads out from the Inner Court to the Imperial Garden. There are a couple of cafe's here (and toilets) amid a pleasing network of ponds, walkways and pavilions, the classic elements of a Chinese garden. At the centre is the Qinandian, Hall of Imperial Peace, dedicated to the Taoist god of fire, Xuanwu. You can exit here into Jingshan Park, which provides an overview of the complex.

Related Topics: Buffer zone to safeguard Forbidden City

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