SHEN WOO Wei Zi Formation

Before the meridian gate of the Forbidden City)

Ladies and gentlemen,

I feel very happy to accompany you to visit today. This is the world-famous Palace Museum, commonly referred to as the Forbidden City. Aisin Giorro Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, was forced to abdicate, dating back to 1420, when Judy, the third Yongle emperor of the Ming Dynasty, moved his capital here. There were 14 in the Ming Dynasty and 10 in the Qing Dynasty. Twenty-four emperors ruled China for five centuries in this magnificent palace. The Forbidden City, with its natural scale and magnificent momentum, is not only the largest and most well-preserved ancient royal palace complex in China, but also in the world. Because this Miyagi embodies the excellent tradition and unique style of China's ancient architectural art, it has a very important position in the history of architecture, and it is a classic of architectural art, which was evaluated as a world cultural heritage by UNESCO from 65438 to 0987.

The Forbidden City, also known as the Forbidden City, is a blend of astronomy and folklore. Ancient astronomers in China divided all the stars in the sky into three walls, twenty-eight nights and thirty-one days. Among them, the three walls refer to Taiwei College, Ziwei College and Tianshi College. Ziweiyuan is in the center of Sanyuan, which accords with the saying that Ziweiyuan is in the middle. Therefore, the ancients thought that the ultraviolet micro-wall was the position of the Emperor of Heaven, so it was called the Purple Palace. The emperor is the son of the Emperor of Heaven and the highest being on the earth. Therefore, they should imitate the Emperor of Heaven and crown their palaces with purple words to show their imperial spirit of being in the center and looking around the world. There is also a saying that "purple gas comes from the east." Legend has it that Lao Tzu went through the customs to Hangu Pass, and Guanling told Yin Youzi that he came from the East and knew that saints would pass by. Sure enough, I rode a green cow and asked him to write the Tao Te Ching. Therefore, later generations used "purple gas coming from the east" to express auspiciousness. Of course, the imperial residence hopes to show auspicious phenomena, so it is logical to name it after the word "purple". The meaning of the word "forbidden" is more obvious, that is, the forbidden area of the palace is heavily guarded and the people are not allowed to get close. There is not a word of empty talk. Until 1924, the last emperor was expelled from the palace, and the people could not get close to it. It is conceivable how lofty and sacred the Forbidden City was!

The Forbidden City was built in Beijing because of history and because it is a treasure trove of geomantic omen. It is a long story. The construction of the Forbidden City began in the fourth year of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty (1406), and it took 14 years to be basically completed. Today, it has a history of more than 570 years. As you can see, the Forbidden City is a group of first-class buildings with red walls and yellow tiles. Why? According to the Taoist theory of Yin-Yang and Five Elements, the five elements include gold, wood, water, fire and earth, among which earth occupies a central position. Because the people of China have lived on the Loess Plateau for generations, they have a feeling of admiration and attachment to yellow, so since the Tang Dynasty, yellow has become the color representing the royal family, and others are not allowed to use it in clothes and buildings. On the other hand, red symbolizes happiness, auspiciousness and wealth. For these reasons, the basic colors of the Palace Museum are red and yellow.

The Forbidden City covers an area of more than 720,000 square meters, with more than 9,900 palaces and pavilions, with a construction area of about 6,543.8+0.5 million square meters. Surrounded by a 9.9-meter-high wall called 10 meter, there is a 52-meter-wide moat outside the wall, commonly known as Tongzi River. The city is about 960 meters long from north to south and 760 meters wide from east to west. In every corner of the city, there is a strange, harmonious and beautiful turret, which is octagonal and called nine beams, eighteen columns and seventy-two ridges. There are doors around the city, the main entrance to the south is the noon gate, the north gate is called Shenwumen, the east gate is called Donghuamen, and the west gate is called Xihuamen. During the construction of the Forbidden City, 230,000 famous craftsmen and 1 10,000 civilian workers were recruited. The building materials used come from all over the country. For example, white marble comes from Fangshan County, Beijing, five-color tiger skin stone comes from Panshan Mountain, Jixian County, Hebei Province, and granite comes from Quyang County, Hebei Province. The square brick on the ground in the palace was fired in Suzhou, and the brick for building the wall was fired in Linqing, Shandong. The red color used on the walls of the palace was made of Tongyan Mountain in Xuanhua (present-day gaoqing county). Wood mainly comes from Huguang, Jiangxi, Shanxi and other provinces. It can also be seen that the project was huge at that time.

The building in front of us is called the meridian gate. Wumen is the main entrance of the Forbidden City, commonly known as the Five Peaks Pagoda. In the Ming dynasty, lanterns were hung at the door at noon on the fifteenth day of the first month every year to send food to hundreds of officials. In the Qing Dynasty, this activity was cancelled. Every year, on the first day of the tenth lunar month, a ceremony will be held here to promulgate the calendar for the following year. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, in order to avoid the name of Li Hong, it was renamed "Promulgation Calendar". In the Qing Dynasty, emperors held ceremonies or big sacrifices, as well as New Year's Day, winter solstice, longevity, weddings and other major festivals, all of which were decorated with halogen books and ceremonial ceremonies. In addition, whenever the country has a great victory, the emperor accepts the ceremony of offering prisoners at the noon gate, and if the emperor personally signs it, it will also leave from the noon gate.

About "beheading at the meridian gate", it may be due to the perfunctory stage and unofficial history's novels. In fact, the crimes were committed by court officials of the Ming Dynasty, some of them beat staff at the noon gate, and of course some of them were killed on the spot.

(After entering the meridian gate, before Jinshui Bridge)

Now that we are in the Forbidden City, before the official tour, let me introduce the layout and tour route of the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City covers an area of more than 720,000 square meters. In such a large area, it combines various architectural technologies to build such a grand building complex. Not only is there no miscellaneous phenomenon, but it gives people a sense of rigorous structure, gorgeous colors and regular layout. The most important means is to highlight an extremely obvious red central axis in the building. This central axis is organically integrated with the whole of Beijing, starting from the bell tower in the north and reaching Yongdingmen in the south, with a total length of about 8 kilometers, and the garden part of the royal restricted area is about 8 kilometers. The important buildings in the palace are all on this central axis, and other buildings are symmetrically distributed on the east and west sides. The design and layout of the whole palace showed the "dignity" of the feudal monarch and the strictness of the feudal hierarchy.

The Forbidden City faces the Palace. Now we are at the southernmost tip of the outer court, in front of us is Taihe Gate. There are a pair of bronze lions in front of the door, which are majestic and fierce. They have become the guardians of the front bridge, symbolizing power and dignity. The emperor is the son of heaven, and the lion in front of the door is naturally the most exquisite, tallest and biggest. The lion stands in the east, and there is a young lion under its front paws, which symbolizes the eternal imperial power from generation to generation. The river in front of us is called Jinshui River, which is used for decoration and waterproofing. The five bridges on the river symbolize the five virtues advocated by Confucius: benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom and faith. The whole river looks like a bow, and the central axis is an arrow, which shows that the emperor ruled the country on behalf of heaven.

(in front of Taihe Gate)

The architecture of the Forbidden City is divided into two parts: the outer court and the inner court. The part from the Wumen Gate to the Gan Qing Gate is divided into "Outer Courtyard", with the three halls of Ethereum, Zhonghe and Baohe as the center, and the two groups of palaces of Wenhua and Wuying on the east and west sides, which are symmetrical left and right, forming a magnificent "Outer Courtyard" pattern. The three halls are arranged in front of each other on the same huge I-shaped white marble foundation, which is 8 meters high and divided into three layers. Each layer is surrounded by white marble railings, and three sets have three layers of stone carvings. The Hall of Supreme Harmony, commonly known as the Golden Throne Hall, is the tallest building in the Forbidden City and the largest and most magnificent ancient wooden structure in China. Inside the Gan Qing Gate is the "Palace", and the architectural layout is also symmetrical. The central part is Gan Qing Palace, Jiaotai Palace and Kunning Palace, where feudal emperors lived and handled their daily affairs. On both sides, the Sixth East-West Palace is the residence of concubines, and the First East-West Palace is the residence of the Prince. There are also three royal gardens-Royal Garden, Cining Garden and Qianlong Garden. Neijinshui River winds around Wuying Hall, Taihe Gate and Wenhua Hall along the west side of the "inner courtyard" and flows out of the palace. There are white jade stone bridges on the river, and there are winding white jade carved railings on both sides of the river, which are shaped like jade belts. Most of the buildings in the Forbidden City are topped with yellow glazed tiles, which are resplendent and solemn in the sun.

The architecture of the Forbidden City not only highlights the central axis.