The Forbidden City is one of the largest and best preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. The miracle wood that does not decay has made the miracle of standing over time in one of the five largest palaces in the world.
The Imperial Palace was the imperial palace in the Ming and Qing dynasties, formerly known as the Forbidden City. At that time, this was a complex of architectural works used only to serve as the imperial court of the emperor and the residence in the harem of the kings. The Forbidden City is located in the heart of Beijing’s central axis and is the quintessence of ancient Chinese palace architecture. The Forbidden City in Beijing has 3 main halls, covering an area of 720,000 square meters, a construction area of about 150,000 square meters, more than 70 large and small palaces, and more than 9,000 houses. It is one of the largest and best preserved ancient wooden structures in the world, and is known as the first of the five great palaces in the world.
The Forbidden City is the best preserved wooden structure in the world.
The construction of the Forbidden City began in the 4th year of Yongle Emperor Mingcheng (1406) with the Imperial Palace in Nanjing as the base for construction and was completed in the eighteenth year of Yongle (1420). It is a rectangular miniature city with a length of 961 meters from north to south and a width of 753 meters from east to west, surrounded by a wall 10 meters high on all sides and a moat 52 meters wide on the side. outside the city. The architectural works in the Forbidden City are divided into two parts: the outer court and the inner court. The central part of the Outer Dynasty is the Thai Hoa Palace, the Trung Hoa Palace, and the Bao Hoa Palace, collectively known as the Three Great Halls, where major national ceremonies are held. The center of the inner court is Can Thanh Palace, Giao Thai Palace, Khon Ninh Palace, collectively known as the Three Palaces, which is also the main palace where the Emperor and Empress lived.
During the reign of Minh Thanh Tong, the Forbidden City began to be built, at first, the architecture and specifications were based on the Forbidden City in Nanjing. In order to find construction timber, many officials were sent to supervise the logging. Sichuan, Ho Quang, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Son Tay, Van Quy, Giao Chi (now Vietnam) … But these places are all important sources of timber for the Forbidden City.
As for why the wood in the Forbidden City does not rot, experts once corrected that it is not that these logs do not rot, but they do not decay easily. Take virgin wood as an example, this wood is very hard and not easy to rot, the ancients used to have a definition of this wood “water cannot penetrate, ants cannot punch holes” . Some experts also give the example that many types of ancient coffins made of virgin wood when excavated are still very strong after a hundred years when out of the ground.
In addition to the good quality of the wood, the fact that the wood is not damaged is also related to the geographical location of the Forbidden City . The Forbidden City is located in the north, dry and cold, the number of wood-eating insects is relatively small.
Nowadays, the commonly used method of preventing woodworms is painting , many of the furniture in the Forbidden City are covered with a large layer of lacquer, which plays a very important role in termite prevention and anti-corrosion to a certain extent. certain.
In addition, the drainage system of the Forbidden City is very good , better than many cities today, there has never been a flood, the walls of the palace are equipped with ventilation holes, which plays a great role in preventing moisture.
To sum up , the Forbidden City has been around for more than 600 years and there is no record of the wood decaying, however, the kind of luxury built at that time was rare in history so to some extent That is, it can be said that the Forbidden City cannot be “copy”.