Posted on 10.12.2012 and 17.09.2014
Built between 1406 and 1420 by a million of workers, Zijin Cheng (literally Purple Forbidden City), served for almost 500 years as the home of emperors - 14 of the Ming Dynasty and 10 of the Qing Dynasty - as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government. It's located in the middle of Beijing and covers 720,000 m2 (a rectangle with 961m from north to south and 753m from east to west), on which there is 980 surviving buildings with 8,886 bays of rooms (9,999 including antechambers). It is surrounded by a 7.9m high wall and a 6m deep by 52m wide moat. The walls are 8.62m wide at the base, tapering to 6.66m at the top. At the four corners of the wall sit towers with intricate roofs boasting 72 ridges, reproducing the Pavilion of Prince Teng and the Yellow Crane Pavilion as they appeared in Song Dynasty paintings. These towers are the most visible parts of the palace to commoners outside the walls. In the postcards is (I believe) the northwest corner tower.
The legend say that Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty, ordered the chief project commander to build four fine corner towers, each with 9 girders, 18 posts and 72 ridges. The chief project commander gathered all the carpenters together and gave them three months to fulfill that complicated and delicate mission. A carpenter met an old man selling grasshoppers and bought a grasshopper cage for relief. To his surprise, the cage had 9 girders, 18 posts and 72 ridges so the problem was solved. The Forbidden City is part of the site Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in Beijing and Shenyang, which 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.
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