The construction of the old city of Beijing

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Eight years after the construction of the large-scale well-planned city of dadu started，Marco Polo came here.He was thought highly of by Khublai and appointed as a high official in the imperial courts of the Yuan Dynasty.In his famous travelling notes，he made a detailed description of the city of Dadu.He called it Khanbaliq which meant”the city of the great Khan”.His book was read by many people in the West.It is well-known that in the fifteenth century Christopher Columbus himself hadn’t made up his mind to make a vovage to china until he read Marco polo’s Travelling Notes.Columbus believed that the earth was round，and thought that hewould certainly reach China by sailing westward in a ship，since Marco Polo could succeed in getting to China through going eastward by land.Of course he failed to get to China.But the determination of this brave and talented man led to an unexpected discovery-the discovery of the New Continent.

Remarkable Example of the Imperial Capitals for Its Excellent Planning and Designing

The domination of the Yuan Dynasty lasted less than one hundred years only. It was replaced by the ming Dynasty founded by the Han Nationality. the ming rulers rose up in the lower reaches of the Yangzi River and made Nanjing their first capital Then they began their northern expedition. In 1368 they captured the city of dadu, and changed its name into Peiping(north Pacification). When the third emperor ofthe Ming Dynasty came to the throne, he decided to move his capital northward to large-scale reconstruction of the city was carried out In 1420 the rebuilding of the o Beijing(North Capital). This is the first time to use the name of Beijing. At this time ity was basically completed.

When the Ming troops first conquered Dadu City, they leveled down the Yuan imperial palaces to the ground. For the sake of defence, they built up a new bulwark on the bottle-neck of the Water Storing Pond, which was positioned 2.5 kilometre inside the original northern city wall.

The reconstruction work consisted of the following items

1. The emperor’s palace was rebuilt with the original central axis as the central line. The new emperor’s palace moved a bit southward, which was later called the Purple Forbidden City(which is now well-preserved and opened up as the Palace luseum) In the Forbidden City, the six great halls symbolic of the imperial power ranged from south to north on the central axis of the whole city. the other buildings were as usual arranged on either side of the six great halls in strict symmetry.

2. With the southward moving of the emperor’s palace, the south wall of the imperial city and the south wall of the city of Beijing proper were also moved southward. And as a result, the imperial city and the big city got larger space each. A new Imperial Ancestral Temple and a new Altar of land and grain were respectively put up in the increased space on the two sides of the central trunk line in front of the Forbidden City. The two groups of buildings which were erected in keeping with theold tradition were more closely connected with the emperor’s palace With these two groups of new buildings, the position of the central trunk line became more conspicuous from the viewpoint of the plane arrangement Besides, in the very front of the imperial city was opened up a new T-shape court square, out of which the present Tian An Men Square grew On the two sides of the court square, many central governmental offices and organs were concentrated symmetrically.

3. As a result of the southward moving of the south wall of the imperial city, there appeared an expanse of open land to the south end of the Heavenly Water.

Pond. So a new artificial lake was dug out in this place, which linked the heavenly Middle Sea and the north Sea while the expanded part of the lake was called the o Water Pond and made it much larger. The original parts of the lake were called the South Sea. Just to the north of the Forbidden City, a new man-made hill was piled up with the earth dug out from the South sea and from the moat around the forbidden City. This hill was named the Jing Hill or the Coal Hill. The middle peak of the Jing hill is47 metres in height. It formed a remarkable point of the central axis of the whole city and became the new geometric centre of the rebuilt city.

4. On the old site of the geometric centre of the former Dadu City, a new Drum Tower and a new Bell Tower were put up. The two buildings marked the apex of the central axis of the whole of the new city.

While the city was reconstructed, two groups of buildings were put up just to the south of the city. The two groups of buildings stood side by side. The one on the east side was called the temple of heaven a place where the emperors offered sacrifices to the Heaven and prayed for good harvests. The one on the west side was called the Altar of Mountain and River, a place where the emperors offered sacrifice to the God of Mountain and the God of river Between the two groups of buildings, there was a central trunk line which led northward straight to the middle south gate of the big city this entrance was called zhengyang gate or front Gate. In 1553, an outer city wall was built to reinforce the defence of the imperial capital. This newly built outer city enveloped the temple of heaven and the altar of Mountain and river(which was later called the Xiannong altar). The old city in the north was called”the Inner City”while the newly-built city in the south was called”the Outer City. The combination of the two cities formed an outline which resembles a chinese character t”meaning”protruding.

With the Outer City built, the central axis of the inner City extended southward to the due south gate of the Outer City. The new central axis was as long as nearly eight kilometres. The new central line became even more outstanding in the plane arrangement of the old city of Beijing.

With the Outer City built, the construction of the old city of Beijing was fundamentally completed. In 1644, the Qing Dynasty-the last feudal dynasty in China’s history–was founded. The rulers of the Qing Dynasty also took Beijing as their capital. They didn’t make any more changes in the construction of the city. The city remained as it had been until the liberation of Beijing City in 1949. This is now what we call the old city of Beijing.