The architectural layout of the imperial palace in the Ming Dynasty followed the ritual of "five gates and three dynasties" in Zhou Rites. The five schools and three dynasties are all on the middle road of the imperial palace, but Zhou Li also has regulations on the left and right facilities, such as "left door and right door (Nianbi)". Pao is the chef, and Pao is the bathhouse. A large well was dug on the east side of Wenhua Hall on Huanggong East Road, and a Yude Hall was also built on the west side of Wuying Hall on West Road. In addition, there is a regulation of "Zuozu Youshe" in Zhou Rites. Ancestors are ancestral temples, and people's homes are called ancestral halls. If you pay attention, you will find that the ancestral halls of the big families that still exist are all on the left hand side outside the family compound, such as the Chen Gong Temple in the former residence of Chen Fang next to the Meixi Memorial Archway in Zhuhai.
In ancient China, filial piety was the first, and ancestor worship was a very important filial piety. There were such ancestral temples at the Yin Ruins site in the Shang Dynasty, and the appearance of the left ancestor and the right society can already be seen. The statute of "Zuozu Youshe" came from the Zhou rituals after the Shang Dynasty. The ancestral temples of the Zhou Dynasty were divided into several temples, called the capital palace, with the first ancestor in the middle, and Zhaomu on both sides. The king of Wen is Zhao, and the king of Wu is Mu. The Gongzu Temple of the King of Qin is the relic of the Qinzong Temple in Yongcheng, the capital of the former Qin Dynasty, and has formed a custom. Unlike the Zhou Temple, the front of the Qin Temple is the hall for offering sacrifices, and the back is the room where the gods live. By the Eastern Han Dynasty, this form was basically formed, which is called the same hall and different rooms.
When Beijing was established as the capital in the Yuan Dynasty, there was also a Taimiao. The Yuantai Temple is not near the Yuanhuang Palace, but in the Qihua Gate of Dadu, which is near the current Chaoyang Gate. The regulations of the Yuantai Temple are based on the Mongolian custom combined with the Han ritual system, going up from west to east and down from the east, with different rooms in the same hall. There is a hall of enjoyment in front and a hall of sleeping in the back. The sleeping hall is not seven rooms or nine rooms, but eight rooms.
The ancestral temple in Nanjing originally built by Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of Ming Dynasty, was in the form of "a separate palace in the capital" and was called the Temple of the Four Ancestors. Later, ancestral temples with the same hall and different rooms were built in half of the Ming Dynasty, and the Nanjing Taimiao was also changed to the form of "same hall and different rooms". In the eighteenth year of Yongle (AD 1420), when Zhu Di built the imperial palace in Beijing, he built the imperial ancestral temple together.
Although the Taimiao is outside the imperial palace, it is still within the imperial city. The area between Tiananmen, Duanmen and Meridian Gate is to the east of the back gable of the house; to the west of the city wall on the west side of Nanchizi Street; to the north of the city wall of Chang’an East Street; to the south of the eastern section of Nantongzi River; this area is now the Working People’s Cultural Palace. Its central building is Taimiao.
Enter the Working People's Cultural Palace from the east side of Tiananmen Square. Outside the Ancestral Temple is a large area of ancient cypresses, most of which were planted in the early Ming Dynasty, six hundred years old.
The Ancestral Temple in the Working People's Cultural Palace also has a wall. This wall is a palace wall, made of blue bricks, and the outside is plastered and painted red. On the top of the palace wall are overlapping eaves, yellow glazed tile wall caps and wall ridges, and there are ridge beasts at the end of the ridges. The Taimiao sits north and faces south according to the etiquette, and its palace gate is of course in the south.
This is a three-door five-storey glazed arched door with a wall, a solid couch door leaf, and sixty-three gilt door nails in nine rows and seven columns. You can see that there is a white stone Xumizuo under it, so you can also call it the glazed gate of "four pillars and five floors".
There is actually a source for the old saying "byside and heresy". In addition to the main entrance, mansions must have side doors. Do you remember that the Taihe Gate and Hall of Supreme Harmony in the middle of the palace have side doors? It is the front, middle and rear left and right doors. For these left and right doors, the left door is the top, and when you cannot go through the main door, the left side door is the top, so it is called "side door heresy". The left side door in the palace is used by clan princes and princes, and other ministers can only go through the right side door. The side door heresy originally meant that although it was not as great as the main door, it was still one level higher than the right door, but somehow it evolved into the meaning of "wrong way". There are also side doors on both sides of the Taimiao palace gate, look at its left side door.
This is the "two pillars and first floor" glazed wall door and chessboard door leaf, which is much simpler than the main entrance.
Standing in the opening in the middle of the south gate of the Taimiao, you can see the gate of the Taimiao.
The blue sky sets off the outline of the petals on the ticket, surrounded by the curve of the door opening, the gate of the Taimiao and the three white stone bridges in front of the gate are completely presented. This picture effect is called too white, which is a characteristic of Chinese architectural aesthetics. Over-white is to use the outline of close-range buildings to make a picture frame for the distant view, leaving a blank space in the picture. Especially places like door openings can form a kaleidoscope effect, forming contrasts such as distance, near and far, virtual and real, complex and simple, and light and dark. This layout is the embodiment of the principle of Chinese art "seeing the situation from afar and observing the shape from close up" in the layout of the building complex. The gate of the Forbidden City also has this overwhite effect, look at the effect of looking at the Taihe Gate from the Meridian Gate.
After entering the gate of the Taimiao palace, it is directly opposite the gate of the Taimiao.
This is a palace gate with five rooms and three openings. There is a five-foot-high white stone platform below, and a circle of white marble handrails on the platform. There are three roads of white marble handrails in front of the platform, and the road in the middle is the imperial road. The gate hall is five rooms wide and two rooms deep, with the door leaf on the central pillar. On the top of the gate hall is a roof with bucket arches and beams, a yellow glazed tile single-eave hip roof, and seven ridge beasts on the vertical ridge. Because it is the place where the ancestors of the emperor's family are sacrificed, the gate of the Taimiao has a very high standard.
Look at the platform base of the gate hall, the white stone Xumizuo, the white marble Zen stick railing, and the cloud and dragon embossed pillar. On the base of the platform, there are also Chishous that disperse water, that is, those faucets.
Look at its Yulu Danbi stone.
Below is the seawater river cliff, on which two hollow lions are rolling hydrangea balls, and two flying dragons are playing with orbs high in the sky. The two lions wearing streamers imply "good things come and go" in the folks. The pattern of two lions rolling hydrangea balls on the Danbi stone is very rare, and it seems that it has never been seen in the palace.
Stand in the gate hall to have a look.
Open the door between the open room and the second room, and a little solid wall. There are eighty-one gold-plated door nails in nine rows and nine columns. Gold-pasted Tuanlong painted the ceiling of Pingqi, and the beams and beams were painted with gold-pasted double dragons and seals. In recent years, the painted paintings have been heavily oiled, and the gilded double dragons and seals are still relics of the Qing Dynasty, and they are already dim.
The gate hall is very large, but because it is not closed for a while, it looks a bit empty, as if there is something missing. Don't tell me, there is really a shortage of things in this temple. At the beginning, there were many green dragon halberds standing in the east and west of this gate hall, which were halberds with a half-moon blade on one side. The one with half-moon blades on both sides is the Fang Tian Halberd. If there are painted decorations on the Fang Tian Halberd’s shaft, it is called the Fang Tian Painting Halberd, and Lu Bu wields a Fang Tian Painting Halberd. There are two rows of fifteen halberds inserted on each side of the Taimiao gate, that is, thirty green dragon halberds on each side. There are thirty halberds on each side in front of the gate hall, and thirty halberds on each side in the back, that is a total of 120 green dragon halberds. There is no door plaque on this gate. With the help of these green dragon halberds, it is called "Halberd Gate". In the Ming Dynasty, there were twenty-four halberds on each side, a total of ninety-six halberds; in the Qing Dynasty, it was increased to thirty on each side, a total of one hundred and twenty halberds.
The halberd gate is also talked about. Zhou Lizhong said that when the emperor traveled and camped, he set up a halberd as a gate in the camp. Since the Tang Dynasty, it has become a rule to set up halberds in front of the gate. The number of halberds represents the rank of the owner in the gate. The highest is the temple palace, with 24 on each side; the lower ranks are reduced. In the early Qing Dynasty, the number of halberd gates here in Taimiao was increased to 30 on each side for unknown reasons, more than in the Ming Dynasty. The Royal Azure Dragon Halberd is a gold-plated iron halberd, while others are ordinary iron halberds. In the twenty-sixth year of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty (1900 A.D.), one hundred and twenty gold-plated red-rod iron halberds at the Jimen Gate of Taimiao were looted by the Eight-Power Allied Forces who invaded China.
In addition to the Taimiao here, the Shouhuang Gate of the Shouhuang Hall in Jingshan Park is also a halberd gate. It is on the central axis of Beijing. When the Shouhuang Palace was rebuilt in 2016, the Shouhuang Gate was rebuilt. Take a look at the gate hall where the halberd is set up at the Shouhuang Gate, and you can make up your mind about the past of the Taimiao Halberd Gate.
In front of the halberd gate of Taimiao is a river, which is a section of Waijinshui River. In the early Ming Dynasty, there was no water in the river under the bridge. It was the Jinshui River that was brought in during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty.
There are seven white stone bridges on the river, and there are white marble handrails on the bridges.
In front of the halberd gate are three white stone bridges, one set. There are left and right side gates on both sides of the halberd gate, and there is also a white stone bridge in front of the side gate. Look at the left side door and the white stone bridge in front of the door.
There is a well pavilion on the left side of the left side door and on the right side of the right side door, and there is also a white stone bridge in front of the well pavilion. In this way, there are seven white stone bridges in total. Take a look at the Zuojing Pavilion and the supporting Baishi Bridge.
Most of the well pavilions in the palace have a four-corner roof, the well pavilions in the imperial garden have a four-column octagonal roof, and the Dapai well has a four-column rolling roof with a skylight. The well pavilion of the Taimiao is a yellow glazed tile six-column hexagonal single-eave roof, double-layer horizontal beams, bucket arches and beams, which are much more luxurious than those in the palace in terms of scale and style. The roofs of the well pavilions in the palace are all hollow to reach the sky. Let’s take a look inside the roof of the well pavilions in the Taimiao Temple.
The roof is closed, and there is a flat-painted hexagonal flat chess ceiling. Ordinarily, the ceiling should also be hollow. I wonder if the ceiling was closed in the early Ming Dynasty or later?
Cypress trees are planted in the courtyard outside the Taimiao, and there are also trees planted in the Jimen Square after entering the south gate of the Taimiao. Here are all pine trees, which were also planted in the early Ming Dynasty.
The gate of the halberd is usually not opened, and it will only be opened when the emperor personally sacrifices. Now the emperor is lying flat and will never come again, so the Halberd Gate will never be opened for us tourists. So where do we go to visit Taimiao? Then you can only go through the side door. In the past, the left side door was for the princes and princes of the clan. These princes and princes of the clan were all swept into the garbage dump of history by the Revolution of 1911. In order to prevent tourists from going through the left side door to pretend to be garlic, or putting green onions in their noses to pretend to be elephants, all tourists are allowed to go through the right side door.
The left and right side gates are the same, one opens the gate of the palace, one foot and a half high platform, brackets and beams, yellow glazed tiles with single eaves on the top of the mountain, and five ridge beasts on the ridge. The double dragon and seal are painted on the forehead, and the door leaf is on the central column.
Go through the door on the right and look back.
Take another look at the back of the halberd gate.
Turn around and you can see the majestic Taimiao Hall.
Since it is a royal ancestral hall, according to the regulations of the same hall and different rooms, there should be at least two halls facing south. The front one is called Xiangdian, and the back one is called Sleeping Hall, which is also an extension of the concept of palace architecture. The ancestors of the ancestors usually live in different sacrificial rooms in the dormitory in the form of tablets. When the descendants come to burn incense and kowtow to perform sacrifices, they must be invited out of the dormitory in advance and brought to the hall of enjoyment to sit together and enjoy Sacrifice and fruit offerings for descendants. The folk ancestral halls of large households imitate this example, and almost all of them have two front and rear halls of worship and sleeping halls, such as the Chen Clan Ancestral Hall in Guangzhou. But it is different in Shanxi, where most of them have only one sleeping hall, such as the Notre Dame Hall in Jinci Temple. What sits in the Temple of Our Lady is not a memorial tablet, but a statue. They sacrificed in a sacrifice hall in front of the sleeping hall. Jinci Temple is somewhat similar to the Palace of the Capital.
The Xiangdian of Taimiao is very large, and its specifications are also very high. Below it is a three-layer white stone platform, each layer is four feet high, and each layer has a circle of white marble handrails. There are white jade Chishou scattered water under the baluster pillars. On the base of the platform is the large Danchi platform. In front of the platform, there are three roads of white marble handrails, and the middle road is the Danbi Yu Road called "Shen Road". There are also handrails on the east and west sides of the platform to walk up and down. Look at Danbi Yulu.
Look at the bluestone reliefs on the lower Danbi stone.
Up and down are seawater river cliffs, and in the middle are six dragon horses galloping on the waves. "Shangshu" has "Fuxi's family has the world, and the dragon and horse bear the map out of the river." This river is the Meng River, and the map on the back of the dragon and horse is the river map. Therefore, there are "dragon horses, the essence of heaven and earth, their shape, and the body of the horse with dragon scales, so they are called dragon horses."
The outside of the platform base is also filled with white jade Chishou scattered water.
Check out the platform.
There should be decorations on the large platform, the tortoises and cranes and the furnace are all gone now. There is only one copper cylinder sitting in the corner. This cylinder should not be in this position. It is estimated that it was under the platform in the past.
The "Tai Temple" plaque is hung under the eaves of this hall of enjoyment, and the Kowloon is pasted with a golden bucket plaque, which seems to be the handwriting of Emperor Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty. I don't know if it has been hanging here all the time, or it was moved over later.
The hall is eleven rooms wide and four rooms deep. In fact, it should be nine rooms wide and four rooms deep, surrounded by a closed eaves corridor. Counting from the middle to both sides are Ming Room, Primary Room, Secondary Room, Slight Room, End Room and the closed eaves. There are four six-panel partition doors in the bright room and the second room, and gray brick sill walls and four-panel partition windows in the slightly, far-reaching and closed verandas. The partitions are made of three-crossed and six-bowl lattice flowers, the lattice core on the door is woodcut with Ruyi pattern, and there are no golden lock leaves on the doors and windows. On the top of the main hall is the roof of the hall with yellow glazed tiles and double eaves, and nine ridge beasts. It is the same as the Baohe Hall in the palace, second only to the Taihe Hall. Look at the owl kiss on the main ridge.
This is the Qing style owl kiss. Pay attention to the Xu Xun sword stuck on the back. In the Qing Dynasty, it was a little thin and tall; It shows that this hall was repaired in the Qing Dynasty. Look at Xu Xun's sword again. It is bounded by a gold-plated copper kiss hook, and then tied with a kiss lock and fixed on the slope tile with a cable nail. This set of large gold chains can only be found in the highest-level royal halls.
In addition, if you look at the top of the Taimiao Xiangdian and the Jimen Veranda from the front, the ratio of the length of the main ridge to the length of the roof is a little different. The main ridge of the Halberd Gate appears slightly shorter, while the main ridge of the Xiangdian appears slightly longer. This is the reason why there is a push mountain on the roof of the Xiangdian, but the roof of the Halberd Gate does not. In ancient times, the main ridge of the roof of the veranda was shorter, and in the Qin and Han Dynasties it was usually less than one-third of the length of the roof, or even only one-fourth. The main ridge of the verandah roof in the Song Dynasty began to lengthen, and the standard of the Ming Dynasty was the verandah roof like the Jimen. For larger roofs, in order to make the roof proportions more coordinated, a push-up structure was implemented. Pushing the mountain is to push the mountain face of the roof outward, and the main ridge is lengthened. By the Qing Dynasty, it had become standard to push the roof of the roof of the hall, so the roof of the roof of the hall in the Qing Dynasty seemed to have a longer main ridge, usually exceeding one-third of the length of the roof. The vertical ridge on the top of the verandah with Tuishan is not straight on the plane, but curved, which can only be seen when standing on a high place.
After reading the exterior of the main hall, you can buy a ticket to enter the hall. I entered the hall from the east gate once, but this time I went through the left gate. Look inside the hall.
The floor of the hall is made of gold bricks.
You can see that there is a row of iron grates on the ground, just like the iron grates on the gutter. This ditch is not a drainage ditch, but an ancient floor heating system. The original installation should be closed, with hot air passing through it, which is equivalent to the flue of his second uncle's kang in the back of the mountain. In the winter of the 1970s, the Xiangdian used to be the Taimiao. There were no gold bricks for the pavement when it was repaired, so the current iron grates had to be erected. The main halls in the palace also have such a floor heating system, because those halls have not been used since Wuqing, and the Ming Dynasty gold brick factory was restarted during the renovation in recent years, so the floors of the main halls in the palace are all intact.
The Xiangdian is four rooms deep and has a closed eaves porch. There are only three rows of large pillars in the hall, which are the front and rear eaves columns and the central column. After subtracting the front and rear two rows of gold columns, the porch columns have become wall columns, and the space in the hall is very large. These pillars are all plain, why use plain surface instead of red lacquered gold pillars? Because all the wooden structures of this hall are made of golden nanmu, it is only high-end to show the essence of wood. Golden nanmu is expensive for the shiny threads that are faintly visible in the wood texture, just like gold threads. These gold threads should be resin crystals, and the newly opened wood will have a special resin aroma. The golden nanmu in Xiangdian should have had a very special surface treatment at first, and should be coated with a layer of wax. It is necessary to show the lines of those golden threads, but also to protect it against the butcher's knife of time. Hundreds of years later, those golden threads are no longer visible, and the surface is much darker.
Take a look at Mingjian.
The open space in the Ming Dynasty is very large, and all the wooden components are plain, and the beams, brackets, and flat chess ceilings are all plain. Liang Fang and the ceiling were decorated with gold in the Ming Dynasty, and some traces can still be seen today.
From the secondary room to the outside, there are painted Hexi seals on the wooden structure, and lotus flowers painted on the ceiling of Pingqi. These paintings are from the Qing Dynasty and belong to superfluous painting.
Under the pillars of the palace hall are all plinth-shaped pillar foundations, which look solemn and royal. The Taimiao is also full of plinth-shaped plinths. In this Xiangdian, only the six pillars in the Ming Dynasty are under the lotus plinths. I said in the previous episode of Ningshou Palace that there is a Gyeongbokgung Palace in the Ningshou Palace area of the palace, and its eaves and pillars are made of lotus flowers. Gyeongbokgung Palace is not open, but you can see an example of the royal lotus pillar foundation here in Xiangdian of Taimiao Temple.
In the hall, there is a row of sacrificial drum instruments in front of the pillars on the back eaves. In the past, these drums were needed to play Shao music under the porch of the front eaves during the sacrificial period.
Take a look at the words on the chime bells in the Ming Dynasty, "Zhonghua Hezhong", imitating the chime bells unearthed from the tomb of Zeng Hou Yi.
There are also four imitation bronze reliefs and bas-reliefs hanging on the wall. These are also works in recent years, the pictures of the four gods, namely Qinglong, Baihu, Suzaku and Xuanwu. Take a look at the picture of Suzaku below.
Now the hall of enjoyment is empty. In the past, during the ceremony, every room in the hall of enjoyment was equipped with a golden lacquer throne, on which a tablet was placed. The tablet of the emperor and empress was called "divine master". In the Ming Dynasty, each emperor had one empress, who was the first wife of the empress; in the Qing Dynasty, both the biological wife and the step-wife of each emperor could sit on the throne. In front of the throne is the incense table, the same table for the emperor and empress. On the table are meat and vegetables offered with bronze 簠 (reading axe, rice bowl), gui (reading ghosts, vegetable bowl), beans (meat bowl) and 笾 (reading side, fruit plate) fruits and vegetables. The meat dishes include rat belly and chicken intestines, the vegetarian dishes include celery and leeks, and the staple food is corn and sorghum. Of course, there must be a soup bowl in front of these meals, so as to prevent the empress from choking when eating offerings and dare not eat again, which has become "wasting food because of choking". There is also tableware. In the Ming Dynasty, spoons and chopsticks were called spoons, and in the Qing Dynasty, knives and forks were added, all of which were gold. Each emperor and empress also has a jue, so many delicious foods cannot be accompanied by wine. There is also a small bronze case in front of this table of food called Zu (Nianzu), on which the heads of cattle, sheep and pigs are placed, which is called Tailao. The sacrificial pigs, cattle and sheep were not bought from supermarkets, but were specially bred in advance and raised in prison. At that time, it will be pulled out, beheaded and cooked, and the head will be offered here. The highest grade is called Tailao, which has the heads of cattle, sheep and pigs; the second grade is called Shaolao, which has sheep and pig heads; the lowest grade is called Tezhu, which only has pig heads. Folk ancestors can't afford to kill a whole pig, so they go to the store to buy a roast suckling pig to offer to their ancestors. This is a custom in Lingnan. There is an incense table in front of these foods, on which are common incense burners, candlesticks and vases, which are the five offerings. In front of the five offerings is a bronze harp (Nian Bandit). In addition to eating in the sky, the emperor and empress also had to wear clothes in order to have enough food and clothing. These sacrificial ceremonies are not made up by me. They are all recorded in the "Records" of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Now there are definitely no occasions where this set is displayed in Beijing. Maybe some localities can display it when performing Confucian ceremonies. I don’t know if it has been displayed in the Confucius Temple in Qufu. However, even if the Confucian Temple in Qufu performed a ceremony to worship Confucius, the heads of cattle, sheep and pigs must not be specially raised, and they cannot be called too prison.
There are three existing wooden halls of the Ming Dynasty in China: the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City, the Hall of Enjoyment in the Taimiao Temple, and the Hall of Enthusiasm in the Changling Mausoleum of the Ming Dynasty, all of which are all made of nanmu. After the Hall of Supreme Harmony was burned down in the late Ming Dynasty, it was rebuilt in the Qing Dynasty with a red pine structure, and the scale was also smaller than that of the Huangji Hall in the Ming Dynasty. Among the three existing halls, the Taihe Hall has the highest platform, the Taimiao Xiangdian is the highest, the Taihe Hall is the deepest, and the Taimiao Xiangdian is the widest. The building scale of Changling's En Temple is basically the same as that of Taimiao Xiangdian. If the Hall of Supreme Harmony had not been rebuilt and shrunk in the Qing Dynasty, it should be the largest of the three. Now, from the front view, the Taimiao Xiangdian is larger than the Taihe Hall, which is actually the case. If you stand on the square in front of the hall, the Hall of Supreme Harmony will be more majestic, because its three-story base is much larger than that of the Taimiao, and the base of the Hall of Supreme Harmony is twice as high as the main hall of the Taimiao.
There are auxiliary halls on the east and west sides of Xiangdian. Take a look at the eastern auxiliary hall.
There is a four-foot-high platform under the side hall, and there are hanging belts in the middle of the front and on the left and right sides. It is fifteen rooms wide and two rooms deep, with a verandah in front. On the top is a roof with bucket arches and beams, a yellow glazed tile single eaves resting on the top of the mountain, and five ridged beasts. Each room has four doors with four wipes, plain surface and lattice core, double cross and four bowls with lattice flowers. Look at its double-crossing and four-bowl lattice flowers.
Stand under the porch and look.
There are supporting halls on both sides of the hall of enjoyment, and behind it is the sleeping hall on the same platform.
Although the hall of enjoyment and the hall of sleeping are on the same platform, they are of different heights, and the hall of sleeping has only two floors. Therefore, you need to go down one level from the Xiangdian to the bedroom. Look behind Xiangdian.
The open room of Xiangdian is very large, and the door behind the open room is very small. A circle of white marble railings on the third floor of the Xiangdian platform only reaches the back of the Xiangdian, and then there are three handrails leading to the platform of the bedroom hall, and the road in the middle is a sacred road with Danbi stone. Standing on the platform of Shenlu behind Xiangdian, you can look back at the sleeping hall.
The bedroom hall is nine rooms wide and four rooms deep, which means that it has one less enclosed eaves corridor than the hall of enjoyment. On the top is the roof with bucket arches and beams, the roof of the hall with yellow glazed tiles and single eaves, and there is a push mountain. There are also nine spine beasts on the vertical ridge. On the front of the sleeping hall, there are four doors and four smeared partition doors, with plain surface and lattice core, and three interlaced and six bowls with lattice flowers. The second room, the first room and the last room are blue brick sill walls, and the partition windows are made of three crosses and six bowls with lattice flowers. The width of each opening in the bedroom hall is basically the same as that of the hall of enjoyment, but the doors and windows are smaller than that of the hall of enjoyment. There are painted seals on the beams and dougongs, the dougongs are still old painted, and the beams and columns are newly painted. In the past, there should be gold dragons and phoenixes. This sleeping hall is also the Phoebe Hall.
There are also auxiliary halls in the east and west of the sleeping hall, five rooms wide and two rooms deep, with eaves and corridors in front. Dougong lifts the beam, yellow glazed tiles and single eaves rest on the top of the mountain, and there are five ridge beasts on the ridge. There are hanging belts on the front and left and right of the veranda. The roofs of these two supporting halls are very high. This is a typical Qing Dynasty Datouwu, and the roof was remodeled in the Qing Dynasty.
Get down from the platform of the dormitory and walk to the side.
what! Why is there only one floor for this platform? It turns out that the foundation of the bedroom hall was merged with the foundation of the lower two floors of the hall of enjoyment. Go to the back of the bedroom.
The back of this sleeping hall is different from the enjoying hall in front, and also different from other halls in the palace. The back of it is neither closed nor opened, but there are windows behind each room, with four horizontally draped three-crossed and six-pan bowl lattice flower partition windows. Look further back.
Here is a palace wall, and there is the same glazed palace gate as the south palace gate. This is the north end when Zhu Di first built the Taimiao. Look at the door leaf.
The gate of the solid couch has nine rows and nine columns of gold-plated door nails. The gilt is very old, it should be from the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. Because the door is not opened, the back of the door leaf can be seen inside the door.
Although this is a solid couch door, the threading belt behind the core panel is exposed. This palace gate is the same as the Nangong Gate, and there are side doors on both sides. We still have to go through the right side door. Walking through the right side door, there are already shadows all over the place, and there are jade steps in front of it.
Only after the eyes adapt to the dark light can they see the mystery here.
If you look at it in the morning, it is like this.
This is the Jingdian built by Zhu Youtang, Emperor Xiaozong of the Ming Dynasty, during the Hongzhi period. Its shape and scale are basically the same as the previous bedroom hall, except that the front platform is relatively small.
The back of the hall is very cramped. I walked out of the north gate of the Taimiao Temple behind the hall. There are two ancient cypress trees on the east and west sides. These are the two cypresses that Ming Chengzu Zhu Di personally planted in the eighteenth year of Yongle. Presumably because of these two cypress trees, the northernmost end of the Taimiao palace wall cannot be moved. There should have been some buildings there at the earliest.
The Su Temple is the last building of the Ancestral Temple. After watching the Su Temple, the sun begins to set. Some people will stand under the sunset on the side of the temple to take pictures. It seems almost meaningless to take commemorative photos in other people's ancestral halls. After all, this is a place where people sleep dead.
There are often black old ravens standing on the branches of the bald trees in the cemetery, which are the famous crows. There are also standing on the ridge of the Taimiao.
When the old black raven stands on a branch, it is usually when the sun is almost setting. If it stands on the roof of the Taimiao, it probably means this. You see, the sun has already set on the eaves of the Jimen.
The Great Hall of Taimiao at sunset.
Because there are no royal ancestral memorial tablets here, the hall does not look gloomy, but has a sense of majesty.
At sunset, walk out of the Taimiao. Looking back, I took a look at the halberd gate, and the sun was shining brightly.
Put a picture of the Yanen Hall in the Changling Mausoleum of the Ming Dynasty mentioned above, which was taken in front of the Yanen Gate Hall.
This Yan En Hall is basically the same size as the Taimiao Xiang Hall, the height of the main hall is slightly smaller, and the roof is not pushed up. Because the square in front of Changling's Yan'en Hall is much smaller than that of the Taimiao, this Yan'en Hall is not as majestic as the Taimiao's Xiangdian, but they are basically the same size. The sacrificial room inside it is still there, and I hope it is the original one from the Ming Dynasty.
After Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang won the world, he built an ancestral temple in Nanjing called "Four Ancestors Temple". It started offering sacrifices to Zhu Bailiu, Zhu Yuanzhang's great ancestor, who was a poor farmer in southern Jiangsu at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty. In these four ancestor temples, there are Zhu Yuanzhang's Gaozu, Zengzu, Zu, and father's four ancestor halls. Zhu Yuanzhang also added the title of Gao Dashang to them. In fact, Emperor Xuan has been facing the loess all his life, with his back to the sky, dripping with sweat every day. According to Chinese tradition, the founding emperor should be called "Taizu" or "Gaozu", the second one should be called "Taizong" or "Gaozong", and the latter ones should be called "Zong". Taizu and Taizong are the ancestors of the people of the country. The ancestors of the founding emperor are all called "ancestors", and the ancestors of Zhu Yuanzhang are also called ancestors. Zhu Di usurped the seat of his nephew Zhu Yunwen. After his death, he was first called Taizong, but was later renamed Chengzu by Emperor Jiajing. As a result, there was no Taizong in the Ming Dynasty, but there were two ancestors.
Zhu Yuanzhang rebuilt the Sizu Temple into Nanjing Taimiao in the eighth year of Hongwu (1375 A.D.). Zhu Di copied and pasted the appearance of the Nanjing Taimiao to build the Beijing Taimiao. The very important ones in the Taimiao are actually the Sleeping Hall and the Sanctuary Hall, and these two halls are not open now. In the past, each bay in the bedroom hall and the hall of worship was a warm pavilion called a "sacrifice room" at the back of the Jinzhu. The former emperors of this dynasty and their wives usually lived here, so it was called the sleeping hall. Of course, all the people who lived here were memorial tablets, and there were no real people. The ancestors of Taizu lived in the hall, so it is called "the hall". After the Jingshan Shouhuang Hall was rebuilt, the Qing Dynasty sacrificial room was also rebuilt inside as a reminder, we can borrow it to have a look.
In the Ming Dynasty, one emperor, one queen, and one room, there are nine bays in this dormitory, and there are nine rooms, which can accommodate nine emperors. This is the so-called "same room in different room". The memorial tablets of the first emperor usually sleep in separate rooms in the sleeping hall, and on the day they go to the throne in the corresponding bay in the front hall to enjoy sacrifices together. There is no memorial tablet for Emperor Jianwen Zhu Yunqi in the Imperial Ancestral Temple of the Ming Dynasty. By the time Chenghua Emperor Zhu Jianshenxie and Hongzhi Emperor Zhu Youtang (Nianzhu Youzhen) ascended the throne, the nine rooms of the dormitory hall were full, and there was no bed for Emperor Chenghua, the Ming Xianzong. All the ministers immediately shouted, "The current imperial examination is safe and sleepless"! Emperor Hongzhi Zhu Youtang then ordered the construction of the "Yin Hall" outside the back gate of the Taimiao as the sleeping hall of the four ancestors of the Taizu. This is the origin of the three main halls of the Taimiao in Beijing.
Ancient Chinese emperors had many names, and they were born with the same name as us, such as Zhu Yuanzhang. After ascending the throne, the emperor cannot be called by his name directly, and he is often referred to by the year name, such as Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang. After the emperor's death, the imperial court appraised the emperor's merits throughout his life, and used a name to cover the coffin. This is the posthumous title, such as Zhu Yuanzhang, Emperor Gao. When the tablet of the emperor was sent to the Taimiao, he was also given a sacrificial title, which was the temple name. The temple names are "Zu" and "Zong", the ancestors in the temple, such as Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang. In the sleeping hall of the Taimiao, Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of Taizu Gao, is in the middle, and the descendants are arranged on both sides according to left Zhao and right Mu.
There was a major change in the Taimiao in the Ming Dynasty, which happened during the Jiajing period. Jiajing Emperor Zhu Houcong (Nian Zhu Houcong) is a younger brother and brother, and a branch of the successor. After he came to power, he named his biological father Zhu Youju (Nian Zhu Youyuan) as Emperor Ruizongxian, and wanted to enshrine his father in the Taimiao, but the ministers objected, but failed. In a fit of rage, he rebuilt the Taimiao Temple in Beijing and built it in the form of a separate palace in the capital. There are eight temples in total including Taizu, Chengzu and Sanzhao and Sanmu. Building his father's Ruizong Temple on the east side of the Taimiao gate can be regarded as a temple for sacrifices. Because there is Zhu Dibo outside the north gate, the palace walls of the Taimiao cannot be moved, and can only be rebuilt inside the palace walls. At the same time, the Chongxian Hall was built on the west side of the Fengxian Hall in the imperial palace, and his father, like his predecessors, had places for sacrifices both inside and outside the palace. It doesn't matter if this change is made, it offends God. Five years later, in the 20th year of Jiajing (1541 A.D.), the Xintai Temple was struck by thunder and caught fire, and all the buildings were destroyed in seconds. After the fire, Emperor Jiajing learned from the painful experience, corrected his mistakes when he realized his mistakes, and restored the same hall and different rooms during reconstruction. Twenty-four years after it was built, he stopped arguing with the ministers and directly issued a decree, "There is neither Zhao Mu nor Shi Shi, only the order of ethics. The Taizu is in the middle, and the left four are Cheng, Xuan, Xian, Rui, The right four sequence benevolence, ying, filial piety, and martial arts". This is the arrangement of the nine rooms in the later palace of the Ming Dynasty. Emperor Jiajing's father Ruizong ranked before Wuzong Zhu Houzhao and after Xiaozong Zhu Youtang. In the end, Emperor Jiajing still stuffed his father into the Taimiao to enjoy the sacrifice. At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang's four generations of ancestors all moved to the back of the temple. In the twenty-sixth year of Jiajing's reign, there was a fire in the palace, and Empress Fang was killed. In the twenty-ninth year, Emperor Jiajing sent the tablet of Empress Fang to the Taimiao for the first time, lived in the fourth room in the west of the dormitory, and moved Zhu Gaochi, the emperor of Renzong from the first room in the west, into the hall of worship. This Empress Fang is the only empress in history who entered the Taimiao to enjoy sacrifices while the emperor was still alive. Emperor Jiajing occupied a place for himself in the bedroom hall to prevent future generations from moving his father Ruizong to the back hall. This Emperor Jiajing was very concerned about his subordinate position, and for fear of being despised by others, he tried his best to squeeze into the orthodox sequence. This process was later called "rituals". The reconstruction in the 24th year of Jiajing is the last large-scale construction of the Taimiao building. It is said that there is a word "April in the 24th year of Jiajing" on a certain beam on the roof of the dormitory, indicating that the Taimiao building has been 470 years ago. for many years. The current architectural layout of the Taimiao is the result of the 24th reconstruction of Jiajing, and has not changed since then.
In the first year of the Mandate of Heaven (AD 1616), Nurhachi established himself as the Empress Jin Dynasty and set up his capital in Shenyang in the ninth year. In the beginning, the Manchus didn’t have a temple. When they offered sacrifices to the shamans, they listed the ancestral cards in the hall and worshiped them together. After Huang Taiji came to the throne, in the ninth year of Tiancong (1635 A.D.), Dorgon came across the imperial seal, the "treasure of making patents", which Emperor Yuanshun took away from the palace when he fled north during his conquest of Chahar. Huang Taiji was overjoyed to get this jade seal of the Yuan Dynasty, and fainted. After waking up, he thought that it was a descendant from heaven, so he ordered to change the "golden" to "Daqing". Mei Chuanguo Yuxi boarded the throne of the emperor, and people called him "a certain emperor who is wide, warm and benevolent". At this time, Huang Taiji built the Taimiao outside the east gate of Shengjing City. The Shengjing Taimiao is similar to the same hall and different rooms. The front hall is dedicated to Taizu Wu Emperor Nurhachi, and the back hall is dedicated to Nurhachi's four ancestors, great-grandfather, great-grandfather, and father.
After Shunzhi entered the customs, he took over the Ming Taimiao, and immediately moved the tablets of Taizu Wu Emperor Nurhachi and Taizong Wen Emperor Huang Taiji in the front hall of Shengjing Taimiao to Beijing Taimiao. In Shengjing Taimiao, only the tablet of the Fourth Ancestor of Nurhachi remained, which is called the Temple of the Fourth Ancestor in the early Qing Dynasty. In the fifth year of Shunzhi (AD 1648), Emperor Shunzhi briefly repaired the Beijing Taimiao, and then moved the fourth ancestor tablet from the Shengjing Taimiao to the Beijing Taimiao. The Shengjing Sizu Temple was emptied and used as a warehouse.
In the Ming Dynasty, there was one bedroom for each emperor, one emperor and one empress. Later, there were too many emperors to live in, so the emperor's tablet behind Zhu Gaochi, Emperor Renzongzhao of Ming Dynasty, was moved to the back hall. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the Shengjing Taimiao also followed the Ming system, with one emperor and one empress. Nurhachi's queen is Huang Taiji's mother-in-law, posthumously named Empress Xiaocigao. After Shunzhi entered Beijing, Dorgon's Erniang was granted the title of Empress Xiaoliewu, and she also entered the Taimiao. Later, Dorgon suffered a crime and was removed from the Chengzong Temple, and his mother's tablet was also removed from the Taimiao. In the Taimiao, there is still one emperor and one empress, including Emperor Shunzhi. After the death of the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang, although she was only the concubine of the West Palace of Huang Taiji, the grandson of Emperor Kangxi thought that his grandma was so great, so he gave him the posthumous title of "Queen Xiaozhuang Wen", and insisted on putting it in the Taimiao Taizong Wen. Emperor Huang Taiji's dormitory is side by side with Zhe Zhe, posthumously known as Empress Xiaoduanwen. In order to strike a balance, after the death of Emperor Kangxi's biological mother and concubine concubine Shunzhi, he was named Empress Xiaokangzhang, and Emperor Shunzhi's continuation wife, Empress Xiaohuizhang, both entered the emperor Shunzhi sacrificial room in the palace. From then on, there is one room for each emperor in the sleeping hall, and after an emperor has served successively, even the posthumous ones are counted. In the palace sacrificial room of the Qing Dynasty, Emperor Kangxi, the holy ancestor Ren, had the most tablets, with four tablets for the three empresses and the birth mother of Emperor Yongzheng. Then there is Daoguang, Emperor Xuanzongcheng, who brought three empresses and Emperor Xianfeng's adoptive mother, which is also a total of four tablets. When Guangxu came to power, Taizu Nurhachi was in the middle, Huangtaiji, Kangxi, Qianlong, and Daoguang were in the east; Shunzhi, Yongzheng, Jiaqing, and Xianfeng were in the west, Zhao was in the east, and Mu was in the west. As a result, there is nowhere to put the tablet of Huang Kao Muzong Zaichun (Tongzhi) of Emperor Guangxu. The Qing Dynasty did not relocate the tablet of the first emperor to the back of the Zhendian like the Ming Dynasty, but remodeled the Taimiao Sleeping Hall in the fourth year of Guangxu (AD 1878). There was no movement in the middle, and it was still Nurhachi, the emperor Gaozu. Each of the other rooms was converted into two rooms, so that a total of seventeen former emperors could be accommodated, plus one current emperor. The Qing Dynasty planned to pass on eighteen generations. However, Qianlong placed twenty-five treasures in the Jiaotai Hall. He took the meaning from the "Book of Changes" in "the number of days is twenty and five", and prayed for at least twenty-five generations in the Qing Dynasty. When Guangxu succeeded to the throne, Zaitan and the Empress Dowager Ergong decided not to pass on so many generations, at most eighteen generations, which symbolized the eighteen levels of hell, and these Qing emperors pretended to be the judges in each level of hell.
In Ming Dynasty, there are two thrones in each room of Taimiao dormitory, behind which is a shrine. The number of thrones in each room of the sleeping hall in the Qing Dynasty depends on how many queens the emperor has. At the end of each room is a shrine, and there are bedding in the shrine. Even if it is the emperor's bedroom, the memorial tablet is placed in the shrine. There is a yellow curtain hanging on the door of the shrine, and the throne is outside the door. The throne in the sleeping hall is a chair without armrests. When the sacrifices are held, the tablets of the emperor and empress are placed on the chairs of the throne and taken to the hall of worship. The layout of the hall is the same as that of the sleeping hall. During the great sacrifice, Gaozu among the four ancestors sat in the middle, and then arranged on both sides downwards. In the reign of Guangxu, there was no room to sit in the nine rooms of Xiangdian during the great sacrifice, so turn to the east and west sides. Under the east wall are Emperor Xuanzong Daoguang and Emperor Muzong Tongzhi, and under the west wall is Emperor Wenzong Xianfeng.
There are memorial tablets in the east and west side halls of the Taimiao Xiangdian in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but they are not for the emperor or empress. The eight kings and seven princes in the east and west halls of the Taimiao in the Ming Dynasty, including Zhu Yuanzhang who made great contributions to the founding of the country and Zhu Dijing who made great achievements, such as Xu Da, Chang Yuchun, Mu Ying and Hu Dahai. These are basically military officers, and there is only one civil servant, Yao Guangxiao, who was also removed by Emperor Jiajing. In the Ming Dynasty, it was an unwritten habit that military generals were given the Taimiao, and civil servants were given the Confucian Temple. In the Qing Dynasty, the East Side Hall was dedicated to the princes and princes who shared the Taimiao. There were thirteen princes in the Qing Dynasty, including Daishan, Dorgon, Duoduo, Yunxiang and Yixin. Mrs. There are thirteen non-royal heroes in the Xibei Hall, including Tuhai, Zhang Tingyu, Agui, Fu Heng and Fukang'an in the Qing Dynasty.
During the renovation of the Taimiao during the Shunzhi period, painted paintings were added to the beams and brackets in the second room, the short room, and the end room in the Xiangdian, leaving only the golden silk nanmu plain surface with gold and seals in the Ming room and the first room. The most serious overhaul of the Taimiao Temple in the Qing Dynasty was completed in the third year of Qianlong (1738 A.D.), and it was completed in four years. It is said that the words "Four Years of Qianlong" were left on the roof beams of the Xiangdian. In this overhaul, the decayed wooden components were replaced, the glazed tiles on the roof were also replaced, and the paint was repainted, but there was no structural change. Since then, the Taimiao has not undergone major repairs, and the layout has been preserved until today. Therefore, what we see now is the Taimiao in the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty 470 years ago, and it has been overhauled in the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty more than 280 years ago. Later, it was slightly repaired, which cannot be called a major repair.
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Taimiao held four major sacrificial ceremonies every year, called "Daxiang Taimiao". The Daxiang is held in the first month of each season in spring, summer, autumn and winter, because this month is also called "Meng Yue", so this Daxiang is also called "Simeng Shixiang". Daxiang is to be attended by the emperor in person. Before that, he had to fast for three days. In the Ming Dynasty, it was in the Wuying Temple, and in the Qing Dynasty, Yongzheng was in the fasting palace. The day before Daxiang is still dark, there will be pigs, sheep and cattle crying in the slaughterhouse, and then the supervisor of rituals, the leaders of Taichang Temple, the Ministry of Rites and Guanglu Temple will be called to watch the sacrifices being slaughtered and cooked. The slaughter house is under the root of the imperial city opposite the south gate of the Taimiao.
You see a pair of stone lions at that intersection, I wonder if they are old objects from the past. Take a look at the well pavilion.
As the old saying goes, "If there is no butcher Zhang, pigs with hair will not be eaten." When slaughtering pigs, they draw water from this well. Like the two well pavilions in the south gate of Taimiao, this is also a six-column hexagonal pavilion with yellow glazed tiles and a yellow glazed tile single eaves roof with bucket arches and beams. Look inside its crest.
The cover plate on the top of this scorpion is obviously a later one, and it is estimated that it was put on after repairs a few years ago.
To the east of the well pavilion where the slaughter is located, the gate opens to the west. It is equivalent to the current meat factory, only slaughtering, plucking and dividing.
Frying and steaming is the magic chef at the west end of Jimen Square, look at the magic chef.
The chef sits west and faces east, with five rooms wide and three rooms deep, with bucket arches and beams, and yellow glazed tiles with single eaves hanging from the top of the mountain. The roof of the house is black, not painted black, but blackened by the smoke from the stove where the meat is cooked.
The day before the feast, the emperor sat down in the Hall of Zhonghe to review the congratulations boards as usual. After reading, the affixed congratulations boards were sent to the imperial temple for storage. Look at the shrine at the east end of Jimen Square in Taimiao.
Shenku sits east and faces west, with five rooms wide and two rooms deep, with bucket arches and beams, and yellow glazed tiles with single eaves hanging from the top of the mountain.
On the eve of the feast, the three main halls of the Taimiao will be arranged, and the incense table, sacrificial table, and musical instruments must be in place. The royal guard of honor moved all the halogen books out from Duanmen, and arranged them from Taihe Gate to the south gate of Taimiao. Before sunrise, the Minister of Taichang Temple is going to the Qianqing Gate to invite the emperor. The emperor went out to get into the sedan chair, which was very high-end, called "Li Yu", which was pronounced as carp. The emperor took the imperial road in a sedan chair and walked through the first three halls to the Gate of Supreme Harmony. He got out of the sedan chair and got into a car. The car was also very high-end, called "Jin Yu". There are six chariots for Jin Lu, and Zhou Rites have "the emperor drives six, the princes drive five, the ministers drive four, the doctor three, the official two, and the common people one". Luoyang once unearthed the "Tianzi Driving Six" buried in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. It was a real car and the bones of six dead horses. Unearthed from the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in Xi'an is a bronze four-horse carriage, called "Sima Anche". At the time of great enjoyment, the emperor drove out of the Meridian Gate with gold. The emperors of the Ming Dynasty first entered by the right gate of the Taimiao by car, and later entered through the newly opened Taimiao Street gate through the Duanmen; the emperors of the Qing Dynasty entered through the northwest gate of the Taimiao. The right gate of the Taimiao is between Duanmen and the left gate of Que. Look outside the right gate of Taimiao, which is on the side of Duanmen. The gate hall is only three rooms wide.
Inside the right gate of the Taimiao is the side of the Taimiao.
Taimiao Street Gate is between Tiananmen Square and Duanmen Gate. Look outside the gate of Taimiao Street, on the side of Tiananmen Square. This time the gate hall is five rooms wide, much larger.
Inside the gate of Taimiao Street is the side of Taimiao.
The northwest gate of the Taimiao Temple is opposite to the Quezuo Gate on the east side of the Meridian Gate Square. Look outside the northwest gate of the Taimiao Temple, which is facing the Quezuo Gate.
During the feast, no matter which gate Jin Lu entered, the emperor had to enter the gate and then change to Liyu to get off the sedan chair at Shenlu in front of the south gate. It is called "Jianyu", pronounced as sauce fish. Taichangsi Qing, who trotted all the way, appeared immediately, and he guided the emperor to enter the Taimiao Palace City through the left door of the glazed gate. Walking under the halberd gate, the emperor did not leave. There was a hut on the east side outside the halberd gate called "Liu Ci", also called "Little Golden Palace", where the emperor sat down and drank a pot of tea. At this time, a ceremonial officer went to the shrine to take the blessing boards reviewed by the first emperor, and put these blessing boards on the incense tables in the corresponding positions in the three main halls of the Taimiao. Here, an accompanying priest brought people to the sleeping hall, offered incense to each ancestor, and then moved the tablets of the first emperor and later, the god, from the shrine to the seat outside the shrine, that is, those few chairs. Afterwards, a prince brought the representatives of the clan into the bedroom hall, and brought the thrones of the first emperors and later emperors to the hall of enjoyment. The gods and masters after the first emperor are all in place, and everything is ready.
The Taichang Temple Minister standing outside Heci listened to the report that every step was OK in front of him. Once everything was ready, he would enter Heci Zou and ask the emperor to salute. The emperor went out, washed his hands and sanitized his hands, entered the left door of the three doors of the halberd gate, went up to the hall on the left steps of the hall of enjoyment, and entered the hall through the left door of the hall of enjoyment. The emperor walked the left step and the left door all the way, so why can't he go through the middle door? That is the road of the gods, the road that the former emperor and god took when he entered the Taimiao.
When enjoying the feast, the emperor's seat is in front of Mingjian. In addition to the waiters in the hall, there are also some clan members and members of the core leadership group who are required to come. In the Ming Dynasty, there were cabinet officials, and in the Qing Dynasty, there were great scholars. The other accompanying priests stood on the platform outside the hall and on the square. All the emperors and queens sat facing south in the hall, and all living people stood facing north. After everyone took their positions, the Minister of Taichang Temple ordered the band to play mourning music, and the ceremony began. First of all, the emperor should burn incense to the emperors and descendants, starting from Taizu, and proceed in order of Zhaomu, because the hall is full of emperors and queens, and this process would take an hour in the Guangxu period. After the emperor finished offering incense, he returned to his place of worship, stood there and took ten deep breaths secretly, which was regarded as a breath of relief. Seeing that the emperor's complexion was ruddy again, Taichang Siqing dared to start the next program. "Kneel down—kowtow—kowtow again—kowtow again—stand up—smash the dirt", this is the famous "kneeling three times and bowing nine times". Everyone inside and outside the hall must follow this command, including those eunuchs, maids, bearers, butchers.
To burn incense is to set off smoke. When the first emperors and queens saw the smoke rising in the sky, they knew that their grandsons were coming to offer sacrifices. They all came to the hall of worship with clouds, found their own tablets, and rolled them down on the chairs. The emperor led everyone to kneel three times and bow nine times to welcome the late emperors and queens, and then began to offer offerings. Different deacons brought meat and vegetarian dishes, rice and steamed buns, dried and fresh fruits, roasted Portuguese beer, pigs, sheep and cattle heads, and silk and satin. When the first emperors and later emperors enjoyed the sacrifices, there were music and dances to help them eat. The music is playing "The Chapter of Shuanping", not a sad music, but similar to a requiem, which is extremely soothing. "敉" read rice. The dance is "Dance of Ganqi", where Gan is a shield and Qi is an axe. This is a military dance. The actor holds a shield in one hand and an axe in the other.
After the dishes were all ready, the officials who read the congratulations came, even if they were the royal spokesperson. The spokesperson first knelt beside the Zhuan, kowtowed three times, and then everyone knelt down, and the music and dancing stopped. The spokesperson read the congratulatory words posted on the wishing board. The congratulatory words were full of uncommon characters and typos. Coupled with the speaker's southern Hokkien accent, no one knew what he was reading, and no one dared to ask. The first emperors and later emperors wanted to ask questions if they didn't understand, but they couldn't open their mouths. They were afraid that if they opened their mouths, all the people in the hall would run away and all the offerings would be swept away. After the speaker finished his congratulatory speech, he walked up to Taizu's altar, kowtowed three more times, and presented the congratulatory board. After the congratulations, the music and dance started again, the music was still the same song, and the previous martial dance was replaced by Wen Wu this time. Wenwu is called Bayi, read Bayi, and there are sixty-four people dancing in eight rows and eight rows with long sleeves. Zhou Li stipulated that the son of heaven should be eight times, and the princes should be six times. During the Spring and Autumn Period, when rituals collapsed and music was destroyed, Confucius reprimanded Lu Guoqing Ji Sun for his arrogance. The "forbearance" mentioned by Confucius is the forbearance of the heart, not the forbearance of patience.
After the dance, a round of wine was served to the late emperors and queens. At this time, play the music of "Chapter of Fuping", dance "Dance of Feathers", and "Dance" to read Lun. Shikipingzhizhang is still a requiem, with a different key, which is regarded as the second movement; Yudanzhidance is a kind of literary dance with feathers in hand. After that, drink again, change music and dance. These three rounds of wine offerings are three offerings, and the last ceremony is after the wine entering three rounds, which is called "drinking blessings and receiving sacrifices". "Fu" is blessing wine, packed in juli and enshrined to ancestors by the emperor in front of Taizu. "胙" is 胙肉, which is a large piece of boiled pork. The first three offerings are for the ancestors, and the last drink and blessing is to pray for the blessings of the ancestors. First ask the ancestors to have enough wine and food, and then ask the ancestors to do business. In the Chinese custom, inviting people to do things is always at the dinner table, and this is also the reason, inviting nobles to drink and receive blessings.
After that came the end, the minister of Taichang Temple stepped forward and knelt down to tell the priest that the sacrifice was over. We must not forget to say "We will eat the leftovers you eat", and then we can remove the leftover offerings from the ancestors. It turned out that the ancestors did not enjoy those offerings, and they were all left untouched. After the offerings were removed, the emperor would bring all the staff to kneel down and bow nine times to say "goodbye" to the ancestors. The tablets of the ancestors are placed on the throne and brought back to the bedroom in turn, and they are also seated in their respective shrines, which is called worshiping the gods and returning to the palace. Some young men came up to take away the wishing boards, gauze (silk) and incense heads, and sent them to the big burner in front of the East Side Hall to be burned to ashes. This glazed burner was originally located in front of the East Side Hall, but now it is gone.
Now, a gray brick carving furnace can be seen at the southern end of the West Side Hall. This burner is used to burn sacrifices when offering sacrifices to the temple.
Then talk about the end of the great feast. Before the fire in the burning furnace was extinguished, the minister of Taichang Temple trotted all the way into the hall and shouted sharply, "The ceremony will be completed in a certain month of a certain year." This is the last sound of the ceremony. The emperor went out of the left gate of Xiangdian, descended the left steps, left the left door of the halberd gate, and the left door of the south gate. Get into Liyu waiting there, transfer to Jinyu, then transfer to Liyu, and return to Taihemen on the same road. The accompanying princes watched the emperor return to the palace at the Jinshui Bridge inside the Meridian Gate. The emperor entered the gate of Taihe, and the accompanying officials went back to the gate of the Taimiao to line up to receive free gizzard meat, and then tied it with a rope and carried it home to stir-fry twice-cooked pork for their wives and children to eat.
The whole ceremony is divided into three sections, welcoming the gods, three offerings to receive blessings and seeing off the gods. Daxiang is the highest standard sacrificial ceremony, and the one with the same standard as the four times a year is the Qiji Festival on New Year's Eve (Nianxia Festival, not Blind Festival). The first 祫祭 was the four patriarchs Gao, Zeng, Zu, and You in the 祧 hall. After the fourth year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty (AD 1647), all the gods and gods in the bedroom hall also attended the 祫祭 offering, just like Daxiang.
In addition to these big sacrifices, occasionally the emperor will come to the Taimiao to make a sacrifice, also called a just report. "Only" read to know, only to tell is to let the ancestors know respectfully. When the emperor ascended the throne, married a wife and had children, he would come to offer sacrifices on his birthday. Marrying a wife includes not only the canonization of the queen, but also the canonization of the concubine. In addition, before the departure of the personal conquest and after the triumphant return, they should also come to offer sacrifices. If you hide your face and go back to the palace after a defeat, you will definitely not come in person, just send an official to replace it. If there are other things that need to be told to the ancestors, officials will be sent to sacrifice. When it was time for offering sacrifices, the emperor only went to the bedroom hall to perform sacrifices, and sent officials to perform sacrifices in the hall of worship.
The Qing Dynasty was the last feudal dynasty in China, and the Taimiao was the last royal ancestral temple in Chinese history. The Taimiao sacrificial norms in the Qing Dynasty inherited the ceremonies of worshiping ancestors in the traditional Chinese filial piety, and also had some humanization reforms. In ancient times, princes and princes built temples to worship their ancestors. It is said that the emperor personally killed pigs and sheep with a knife. Moreover, after the king told the temple before going out to fight, he actually put the ancestral tablet on the chariot and pulled it out to fight in order to ask for the blessing of the ancestors and gods. By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, these were all gone. In the Qing Dynasty, the successive queens of the emperor in the Taimiao enjoyed sacrifices together, which can be regarded as realizing openness, fairness and justice. Moreover, the Qing Dynasty no longer practiced relocation, and the sleeping hall was rebuilt when there was no room for it, and the seniors were no longer moved to the Zhendian, where there were only the fourth ancestors.
The Royal Taimiao embodies the two meanings of "doing things with the gods" and "doing with humanity" to the ancestors. It not only regards the ancestors as gods, and enjoys sacrifices in the hall of worship; tell.
Every New Year's Eve is a time to get rid of the old and usher in the new, and it is also the time when spring comes. If there is an auspicious snowfall, it is a sign of prosperity in the coming year. Zu Yourui Xuefei,
The green pine is tired by snow.
Zhu Lanmei on the jade steps,
Frozen clouds are condensed and drunk.
Red, orange, yellow and green are rich and noble, and poplar flowers and goose feathers are soothing to the cold.
This is exactly:
The jade steps of the golden hall are paved with auspicious snow, and there are no plums in the corners of the red walls. In addition to the year-old pear blossoms, the joy of disappearing is far away.
The millennium Emperor N is gone, and the children and grandchildren will not come to accompany him. The weather is cold and the snow is getting fat, and the old and the young forget to be tired.
The song "Bodhisattva Man" can be regarded as "walking to the imperial temple to watch the snow at the beginning of the year".
The Taimiao is the highest-level ancestral temple in China, the imperial ancestral temple of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. As part of the Ming and Qing imperial palaces, it was listed as a world cultural heritage in 1987.
In the Forbidden City, the last official large-scale event was the surrender ceremony of the Japanese army in the North China Theater on October 10, 1945, which I mentioned in the previous episode of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The last official activity of Taimiao was in the 1970s. On January 8, 1976, Premier Zhou Enlai passed away. On January 11, the body of Premier Zhou was cremated, and hundreds of thousands of people in the capital saw him off along the ten-mile long street. Subsequently, Premier Zhou’s ashes were set up in a mourning hall in the front hall of the Ancestral Temple. During the three days from January 12 to 14, people from all walks of life in the capital, representatives from all over the country and diplomatic envoys from various countries came to express their condolences. Look at the scene at that time.
The Working People's Cultural Palace is an activity place belonging to the Beijing Federation of Trade Unions. Before the reform and opening up, the Working People's Cultural Palace held garden activities every year during the May Day. Now, during May Day every year, the Municipal Federation of Trade Unions will also hold some exhibitions here. They are all exhibitions of cultural activities of Beijing employees, such as calligraphy, painting, photography, etc. I have also been fortunate enough to participate in several photography exhibitions. In addition, previous model workers in Beijing will be announced here, and there is a special gallery outside the Taimiao to display pictures and deeds of model workers.
It is said that the Taimiao will start a major renovation this year (2022), and it is planned to restore the original state of the Qing Dynasty. I guess it will be restored to be like the Huangji Hall in Jingshan Park, shining brightly, but it will definitely lose the sense of vicissitudes. Moreover, the overhaul of the Taimiao will definitely take a long time, and it will not be done in three to five years. After the overhaul is completed, I don't know if I can still enter the hall to visit the Xiangdian in front. Therefore, if you want to see the Royal Golden Phoebe Hall of the Ming Dynasty, you must hurry up. If tourists are not allowed to enter the hall after the overhaul in the future, they can only go to Changping Mingchang Mausoleum to see the Jinsinanmu Hall, which is as big as this Taimiao Xiangdian, and the hall is full of vicissitudes.
By the way, although the Taimiao is considered part of the Ming and Qing palace buildings, it is a separate ticket to visit, and it is not closed on Mondays. There are many tourists every weekend, and there are also many tourists on Mondays. Those who cannot enter the Forbidden City on Mondays will turn around to see the Taimiao.
Temple of Ming Emperor and Qing Emperor,
Kuandian fragrant Nan material.
I am free and easy,
No ghosts were heard.
In short, as the imperial temple of the "Zuozu Youshe" of the ancient royal family, it has a magnificent building and a long history, which is worth a closer look.
