Inside The Palace
The main ceremonial halls stand directly ahead, dominating the court. Raised on a three-tiered marble terrace is the first and most spectacular of the three, the Taihedian , Hall of Supreme Harmony. This was used for the most important state occasions, such as the emperor's coronation or birthdays and the nomination of generals at the outset of a campaign, and last saw action in an armistice ceremony in 1918. It was proposed, though not carried through, that parliament should sit here during the Republic. A marble pavement ramp, intricately carved with dragons and flanked by bronze incense burners, marks the path along which the emperor's chair was carried. His golden dragon throne stands within. 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, reworked in the eighteenth century, and it's among the finest carvings in the palace. It's certainly the largest - a 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 Qiangingong , 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 Kinningong , Palace of Earthly Tranquillity, where the emperor and empress traditionally spent their wedding night. By law 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 Ming 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 (Y5) is housed, displaying the result of one Qing emperor's collecting passion. Explosions of Baroque ornament, most are English and French, though by the entrance 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 cafes 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, Xuan Wu. You can exit here into Jingshan Park, which provides an overview of the complex.
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