600 years ago, Minh Thanh To Zhou Di announced the completion of the construction of a new capital, called Beijing, with the highlight of the Forbidden City, a historic building that still exists today.
Only 2 years after expelling the Nguyen Dynasty from Trung Nguyen, Minh Thai ancestor Chu Nguyen Chuong handed over Yen Kinh (later called Beijing) to his fourth son, Yen Vuong Chu De .
The Forbidden City is a construction ordered by the Chinese emperor Minh Thanh To to be built 600 years ago.
In 1402, Zhu Di usurped the throne and became the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty in China, calling himself Minh Thanh To . In 1420, Zhu Di announced the completion of the construction of the new capital, called Beijing.
Beijing is the land of the saints, located in a strategic position covering the Central Highlands, fertile land, easy to control the four sides, master the world, can keep the throne forever, history books of the Ming Dynasty. state the reason Minh Thanh To decided to move the capital.
All buildings built by the Mongols were destroyed, replaced by the Forbidden City. In early 1421, three palaces in the Forbidden City were struck by lightning. The fact that three new palaces were burned down, including Thai Hoa Palace at that time, was seen as a displeasure of nature because Minh Thanh To usurped his throne.
Minh Thanh To Chu Di ascended the throne from 1402-1424.
Since then, the Ming emperor has always sought to erase all historical traces of his nephew Chu Nguyen Chuong, and replace them with documents describing how magnificent the Forbidden City was.
Aurelia Campbell, a professor of Asian art history at Boston University and the author of a book about the Chinese emperor who built the capital Beijing, says that the entire structure was built to represent centralized authority. Emperor
Thai Hoa Palace, the largest palace inside the Forbidden City, was not rebuilt until 20 years later.
Artisans rebuilt the palace in accordance with the wishes of the Ming emperor, using 380,000 giant golden Southernwood trees.
These precious trees with a trunk diameter of up to 1.3 meters are harvested from remote valleys in the southwest, and are difficult to bring to Beijing.
“Large blocks of wood are transported by floating in the river, every 80 blocks are bundled together, brought by 10 sailors and 40 workers to Beijing,” Campbell wrote. “They were released along the Yangtze River and passed through the Dai Yunhe Canal to Beijing.” It takes 2-5 years for the bundles to reach Beijing.
How the ancient Chinese transported timber on the river.
Minh Thanh To considered himself to be the discoverer of precious trees, and sent court officials to Sichuan to supervise the collection of timber.
“This partly shows the personality of Minh Thanh To. He is like other dictators, very brutal and always considers everything to revolve around him,” Professor Campbell said on SCMP.
Darkness still covers Thai Hoa Palace. This building burned down again in 1557, 1597, and was flattened by an earthquake in 1679.
The Thai Hoa Palace that still exists today was built during the reign of Emperor Khang Hi of the Qing Dynasty.
“Regarding the architecture of the palace, I don’t think Minh Thanh To had any hidden meaning when it was built. He just looked at his father’s palace in Nanjing and asked the workers to build a similar palace,” Professor Campbell told SCMP.
There was a perception that Beijing was built in four years, starting in 1416. In fact, the Ming emperor recruited craftsmen from all over in 1406. The canal reclamation work, It took the longest time to bring grain for labor and huge amounts of timber to Beijing.
Aurelia Campbell, author of a book about the Chinese emperor Ming Chengzu.
Tim Brook, a history professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada, said that throughout his life Minh Thanh To always made people believe that his rise to the throne was due to Thien Menh.
“He forced the scholars of the time to portray himself as a worthy heir to his father Zhou Yuanzhang,” says Brook.
Under Minh Thanh To, the Ming dynasty reached its peak of development, sending people to the Indian Ocean, pacifying the lands now belonging to Jiangxi, Guizhou and Yunnan.
Inheriting the experience from his father, Minh Thanh To had 5 times sent out to the North to punish, temporarily quell the threat from the Mongols.
“More than 10,000 mandarins and their families were executed in the early stages when Minh Thanh To came to power. Anyone who considers him unorthodox to the throne is killed, even if they say a word,” Brook said.
But Brook admits that Minh Thanh To’s decision to move the capital to Beijing has had an impact to this day. “Most of the buildings in the Forbidden City have existed for the past 600 years and become images associated with the Ming emperor,” Brook said.