3dTechnology reveals the Forbidden CityYears of Secrets
Four years ago, the secrets of an ancient palace hidden beneath the ground of the Forbidden City were revealed by 3D technology. Is the palace more than 600 years old? Legend has it that Kublai Khan ever built the Yuan Palace here?
The mysterious Forbidden City hides endless secrets, the most peculiar of which are the exquisite porcelain fragments found in the foundations, each of which is priceless. But why are these porcelains broken and buried deep here?
Legend has it that the craftsmen who built the Forbidden City were ordered to be executed, will these dusty secrets be revealed? Now, let's delve into the interior of the Forbidden City through 3D technology and reveal the secrets hidden in 600 years of history.
The Forbidden City, a city within a city, is closely linked to imperial power in its construction and history. The Forbidden City is 960 meters long from north to south, 750 meters wide from east to west, covers an area of more than 720,000 square meters, and is said to include 9,999 half-rooms"Heavenly Palace"Less than half a room.
These ornate palaces, with red walls and yellow tiles, are arranged along a north-south central axis, with symmetry on both sides. Let's uncover this mysterious palace and discover its hidden secrets.
Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, was dissatisfied with the geographical shortcomings of the Nanjing Imperial Palace, while Zhu Di, the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty, saw the problems of the Nanjing Imperial Palace after ascending the throne and decided to move the royal city to Beijing.
In Beijing, Zhu Di began to build a new imperial palace, which is now known as the Forbidden City. After 15 years of construction, more than 1.1 million people were employed, of which 100,000 were craftsmen.
So, although the last owner of the Forbidden City was the Qing Dynasty, the original builder of this imperial city was the emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
In this historical record, the construction of the three major halls in the inner city can be called a feat that has never been done before or since. One of the striking details is that a piece of marble in front of the main hall weighs 300 tons, and it comes from a quarry 70 kilometers away from the construction site.
Such a transportation process is already very difficult today, and how did people achieve it in that era of technological backwardness? According to historical records, workers dug wells every 50 meters on the road from the quarry to the construction site.
When winter came, they sprinkled water on the road and waited for the water to freeze. Then they dragged the boulders on their cattle and horses. Along the way, there are also people who constantly splash water in front of them to make the ice smoother.
The ancients were really wise and ingenious. Some people may wonder why Ming Chengzu firmly chose Beijing instead of Luoyang or Chang'an as the capital. There are three reasons: first, when Zhu Di was the king of Yan, Beijing was his territory, which made him feel more down-to-earth; Second, the threat of the northern nomads, moving the capital to Beijing is more conducive to the grasp of military intelligence; Third, the ruins of the Yuan Imperial Palace provided a good foundation for moving the capital.
A Yuan Shizu named Kublai Khan was born in Beijing that year"In the land of the hidden swallow, the dragon is entrenched"A luxurious palace was built in the name of the city. However, since the fall of the Yuan Dynasty, the palace has been covered by the dust of history, and later generations of archaeologists have been trying to find its traces, but have never found it.
It wasn't until 2018 that a group of workers accidentally discovered a layer of hidden floor tiles under the floor tiles during the restoration of the Forbidden City. The workers didn't take it to heart at first, thinking that it was an extra layer built by the ancients out of rigor.
When they dug deeper, there was a third layer hidden under the second layer of floor tiles, which made them immediately realize the seriousness of the problem and immediately contacted professional archaeological experts.
Fortunately, the Palace Museum has a wealth of archaeological experts, and they rushed to the scene as soon as they received the news, stunned by the scene in front of them.
1.The Yuan Imperial Palace, located in front of the Taihe Hall of the Forbidden City, has caused experts to speculate about the reason why Ming Chengzu built the Forbidden City due to the discovery of three layers of floor tiles. They believe that for safety reasons, Ming Chengzu may have ordered craftsmen to lay two more layers of floor tiles.
2.The experts discovered a mystery in the place of the three-story floor tiles of the Yuan Imperial Palace, which made them think about the decision of Ming Chengzu when he built the Forbidden City. They believe that it may be for safety reasons that Ming Chengzu asked the craftsman to lay two more layers of floor tiles.
3.The discovery of the three-story floor tiles of the Yuan Imperial Palace has caused experts to think about the motives of Ming Chengzu for building the Forbidden City. They speculated that Ming Chengzu might have been worried that those enemies would infiltrate him by digging tunnels to assassinate him, so he ordered someone to lay two more layers of floor tiles.
4.The discovery of the three-story floor tiles of the Yuan Imperial Palace has sparked a discussion among experts about the reasons why Ming Chengzu built the Forbidden City. They believe that it may be that Ming Chengzu may have asked the craftsman to lay two more layers of floor tiles in order to prevent the enemy from lurking around him by digging tunnels to assassinate him.
5.Experts have discovered a secret in the place of the three-story floor tiles of the Yuan Imperial Palace, which has led to speculation about why Ming Chengzu built the Forbidden City. They believed that Ming Chengzu might be worried that those enemies would infiltrate him by digging tunnels to assassinate him, so they asked someone to lay two more layers of floor tiles.
According to historical records, in order to ensure the safety of the imperial city, Ming Chengzu ordered the height of the Forbidden City wall to be raised to 10 meters, and a 52-meter-wide moat was surrounded by it. Deconstructed in 3D, we find that the palace walls are made of solid layers of rammed earth, and the exterior is covered with three layers of huge Ming Dynasty bricks, making it unusually strong and almost impenetrable.
In order to protect the palace walls from erosion, craftsmen built an intricate system of seamless joints and drainage under the palace walls, which is intricate and intricately designed to be foolproof.
After in-depth research, experts found that the construction techniques of the three-layer floor tiles are different, constituting a unique "three-layered" soil structure, which belongs to the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and the lowest floor tiles were laid in the Yuan Dynasty.
The experts suddenly realized that the ruins of the Yuan Imperial Palace they had been looking for turned out to be right in front of them! In that year, Ming Chengzu ordered the bulldozing of the Yuan Imperial Palace, transported a large number of building materials, and built the Ming Imperial Palace on the site of the Yuan Imperial Palace, which is also known as the Forbidden City in Beijing.
He also instructed that the excavated earth be piled up in the center of the Yuan Imperial Palace, forming a small hill pack, which is now known as Jingshan Park. This practice has far-reaching implications, indicating that he and the Ming Dynasty have completely put the Yuan Dynasty under their feet.
Picture: Restoration of the Yuan Dadu Palace A new palace was completed in scale far larger than the Yuan Imperial Palace, and to this day, it still sits firmly on the throne of the world's largest palace complex. The archaeological community across the country fell into a frenzy because of the discovery of the ruins of the Yuan Imperial Palace, and the experts were ecstatic at the discovery of this site and immediately began archaeological excavations.
Soon, they found a large number of porcelain fragments from the Yuan Dynasty in the foundation west of Longzongmen. After preliminary identification, these fragments are the fine porcelain of the Yuan Dynasty court, with exquisite workmanship, and must have been priceless before they were broken.
If they were once exalted, why are they now turned to dust and buried deep beneath the foundation? In order to explore the mysteries of the Yuan Imperial Palace, experts carried out archaeological excavations, but found a pile of fine porcelain fragments in the foundation.
These porcelains can be called works of art, belonging to the royal family, and are unique among the people. Among them, there are many masterpieces of the Yuan Dynasty Dingyao, if they are auctioned today, they can easily be auctioned for tens of millions of **.
Why, then, did these fine pieces of porcelain break and be buried deep under the foundation? After preliminary splicing, experts found that the porcelain had some flaws, such as incorrect drawing.
In ancient royal palaces, if such flawed porcelain was found, it had to be singled out. Since these flawed porcelains could not be ** or used, the palace people could only smash them to pieces and dispose of them intensively, and then bury them deep in the ground.
Even if broken, these objects still symbolize the exclusivity of imperial power and the dignity of the royal family. In the Forbidden City, every corner exudes royal majesty. Take the Baohe Hall, one of the three major halls, as an example, its construction process is enough to reflect this.
The 3D technology reveals the mysteries of the construction of the temple: first, a layer of marble serves as the foundation, followed by dozens of pieces of rubble and rammed earth to form the second layer. The staggered stone beams, the royal gold bricks, and even the columns are made of golden silk nanmu.
These are only the parts on the ground, and the roofs of the three main halls are even more stunning. They are made almost entirely of wood, without a single nail, but rely on a myriad of delicate pieces of wood, connected by mortise and tenon joints, and stabilized only by their own gravity.
These seemingly fragile wooden blocks actually contain the wisdom of the ancients. Using simple materials, the experts made a miniature model of the three halls and placed them in a simulated environment, so that even at level 10, these models could stand still.
This ingenious approach demonstrates the remarkable creativity of the ancients.
It turned out that Ming Chengzu spent 15 years of time and countless manpower and material resources to build this majestic Forbidden City. What is embarrassing is that this palace, which took countless painstaking efforts, was only lived by him for 4 years after it was completed, and the Ming Empire only existed for 276 years before it was replaced by the Qing Dynasty, and the Qing Dynasty's rule did not last long.
Despite the changes in the world, only this palace has survived the wind and frost.