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Other entries in Beijing

Easter in Beijing

Jane's parents came out to visit us from Wales. It was their first time to Asia.  Jane had a 17 day vacation so for much of the time they stayed in Hong Kong and Jane showed them around.  There is lots to do and see in HK, so a one or two week sojourn affords time to see many varied sights and experiences.  I was fortunate that I had a 4 day break so we went to Beijing. 

I had been to Beijing several tmes, but not since the Olympics.  What a change.  The city was renewed and cleaned up.  One thing that had not changed was the crowds, only more. We had engaged a guide for the four day stay.  What a treat not having to worry or trying to figure how or where to go.  Our hotel was near to central of Beijing.  The very centre of the city is Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City and that was the first area we explored.  I remember visiting in 1992 and the FC was relatively empty and you could go pretty much anymore.  Well those days are over.  There were thousands of visitors, almost 100% Chinese discovering their past. It was nice to see this change, China is prospering and they now have the surplus wealth to travel. 

What follows is from Wikipedia, they can explain things between and more correctly than I ever can. 

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost five hundred years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government. Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 720,000 m² (7,800,000 sq ft). The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. 

Upon the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the Hongwu Emperor moved the capital from Beijing in the north to Nanjing in the south, and ordered that the Yuan palaces be burnt down. When his son Zhu Di became the Yongle Emperor, he moved the capital back to Beijing, and construction began in 1406 of what would become the Forbidden City. Construction lasted 15 years, and required more than a million workers. Materials used include whole logs of precious wood found in the jungles of south-western China, and large blocks of marble from quarries near Beijing. The floors of major halls were paved with "golden bricks", specially baked paving bricks from Suzhou. From 1420 to 1644, the Forbidden City was the seat of the Ming Dynasty.

In April 1644, it was captured by rebel forces led by Li Zicheng, who proclaimed himself emperor of the Shun Dynasty. He soon fled before the combined armies of former Ming general Wu Sangui and Manchu forces, setting fire to parts of the Forbidden City in the process. By October of 1644 (5 months later), the Manchus had achieved supremacy in northern China, and a ceremony was held at the Forbidden City to proclaim the young Shunzhi Emperor as ruler of all China under the Qing Dynasty. The Qing rulers changed the names of the principal buildings, to emphasise "Harmony" rather than "Supremacy", made the name plates bilingual (Chinese and Manchu), and introduced Shamanist elements to the palace. In 1860, during the Second Opium War, Anglo-French forces took control of the Forbidden City and occupied it until the end of the war.

In 1900 Empress Dowager Cixi fled from the Forbidden City during the Boxer Rebellion, leaving it to be occupied by forces of the treaty powers until the following year. After being the home of 24 emperors — fourteen of the Ming Dynasty and ten of the Qing Dynasty — the Forbidden City ceased being the political centre of China in 1912 with the abdication of Puyi, the last Emperor of China. Under an agreement with the new Republic of China government, Puyi remained in the Inner Court, while the Outer Court was given over to public use, until he was evicted after a coup in 1924. The Palace Museum was then established in the Forbidden City. In 1933, the Japanese invasion of China forced the evacuation of the national treasures in the Forbidden City.  Part of the collection was returned at the end of World War II,  but the other part was evacuated to Taiwan in 1947 under orders by Chiang Kai-shek, whose Kuomintang was losing the Chinese Civil War. This relatively small but high quality collection was kept in storage until 1965, when it again became public, as the core of the National Palace Museum in Taipei.

After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, some damage was done to the Forbidden City as the country was swept up in revolutionary zeal.  During the Cultural Revolution, however, further destruction was prevented when Premier Zhou Enlai sent an army battalion to guard the city.

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