[TĐH: The original name of this article is: “Is it true that
China Forbidden City
was built by a Vietnamese architect?.”
I have changed the title, to reflect accurately the answer below]
Richard Wang · Knows Chinese Updated 9mo
Even Chinese people, few people know that the Forbidden City in Beijing is not very big. The current palace in Beijing is actually a simplified version of the Forbidden City in Nanjing, while the one in Nanjing is the original & complete version.
The missionary Matteo Ricci, who visited Beijing and Nanjing, once commented, “Nanjing, whether it is the palace or the entire city, has a larger scale than Beijing.” According to the ruins of the Forbidden City in Nanjing, its area is 1.13 sq km; The area of the Forbidden City in Beijing is 0.72 sq km.
The current Forbidden City in Beijing was actually built in imitation of the Forbidden City in Nanjing by Zhu Di，the Emperor Chengzu of Ming dynasty after his successful rebellion and usurpation of the throne. In the later years, Nanjing existed as the second capital of the Ming Empire. However, as the emperors did not stay in Nanjing , the Forbidden City in Nanjing was not given much attention and was neglected in maintenance. In addition, southern China was relatively humid, which was not conducive to preserving wooden buildings. After a series of lightning strikes and fires, in the late Ming Dynasty, most of the palaces in the entire Nanjing Forbidden City could no longer be used as imperial palaces. Now, due to the entire Qing Dynasty, the wars of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and the Nanjing Massacre, only the ruins and a part of the city wall remain of the Nanjing Forbidden City. Especially when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom established its capital here, they extensively demolished the Ming Dynasty Forbidden City and used a large amount of precious materials that could still be used to build their own palaces.
The Forbidden City in Vietnam is completely modeled after the Forbidden City in Beijing. The reason for saying this is because the names of its palaces are all copied from those in Beijing, not the one in Nanjing. According to historical records, the Nanjing Forbidden City arranged the detailed positions of each palace based on the location of the stars in the sky observed in the Nanjing area. For example, the “Fengtian Hall”, “Huagai Hall”, and “Jingshen Hall” in the center of the first half all have corresponding stars in the sky. The major halls of the Forbidden City in Beijing originally used these names, but changed their names during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The current names are the version from the Qing Dynasty.
Here is a restored map of the Forbidden City in Nanjing.
This is a map of the Forbidden City in Beijing.
The following picture is a map of the Hue Palace in Vietnam which built in early 19th century. Its layout has been built as much as possible in the form of the Forbidden City in Beijing. And the names of several main halls are completely copied from the main halls of the Forbidden City in Beijing, such as the largest hall, which is also named “Taihe Hall”.
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