Preface to Palace Life in Qing Dynasty

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Forbidden City was still a heavily guarded palace, and Lebanese people were not allowed to approach it easily. From the early years of the Ming Dynasty at 142 1 to the demise of the Qing Dynasty at 19 1 1, in this forbidden area of 720,000 square meters, the mighty emperor and dignitaries staged a real tragicomedy. People with different faces have disappeared one by one with the passage of time, but their relics-magnificent palaces, luxurious furnishings, rare jewels, elegant scripts and daily sundries-are still vivid. From the square brick with concave cloth soles, it seems that people can still see the overlapping footprints of the nobles, samurai civil servants, eunuchs, ladies-in-waiting and craftsmen in China.

Palace life, especially the life of the concubines of Empress Dowager Cixi in Qing Dynasty, has been kept secret in royal documents, which makes people feel more mysterious. Since Ding Ge in191/year, there have been many unofficial history, novels, movies and plays with the theme of honest and upright officials' life, but there are also many works that express their feelings and make people believe. Literary works can only be appreciated as art and can never replace history, so many people want to know the truth of history after appreciating the fragrance of art, which requires museum workers and historical researchers to do some answers. How did the solemn and complicated ceremony in court proceed? How did the "busy" emperor handle government affairs? How did the emperors arrange their food, clothing, housing and transportation? Does the emperor also have his cultural life? What customs and beliefs are there in the palace? These are all things that people who care about history are happy to know.

There are numerous records of historical events in the Qing Dynasty, but few records of court life. There are few in-depth studies in the field of history. Only by observing and thinking about the palace cultural relics and looking between the lines of the literature can we know a little. For example, I learned from the name of astronomical instruments in the palace that Ferdinand ferdinand verbiest, a foreign missionary, did build astronomical instruments for the imperial court; From the kang table engraved with various data, we know that Emperor Kangxi really studied several crawlers carefully. From the comparison of musical instruments made in Kangxi and Qianlong dynasties, we can know that Emperor Kangxi was quite familiar with the rules of music, but Emperor Qianlong did not know about court merchants. Emperor Qianlong's calligraphy, through the auspicious words of New Year's Day written by himself over the years, only knows that his early handwriting is not good and it will take several years to make progress; We can learn more about court life from the palace pictures. Studying the palace from the perspective of documentary records is one of the main means. For example, the emperor shunzhi was cremated after his death and then buried in the underground palace. There are no clear records in all official books, but traces can still be found in the subtle differences in the words used in documents such as Canon of Qing Dynasty and General Examination of Qing Literature. Next, we learned from the imperial edict of Emperor Qianlong forbidding Manchu to be cremated again that the old custom of Manchu was cremation. For example, according to a large amount of information stored in the archives, Empress Dowager Cixi plans to set up a scenic spot along the way from the Summer Palace to Xihuamen on her 60th birthday. However, according to the memoirs and Weng Wengong's diary, Empress Dowager Cixi lived in Zhongnanhai before her death, and was ordered to stop because of Lu Haijun's defeat in the Anti-Japanese War. Only one scenic spot was set up in a section of Beichang Street. The above situation shows that you can't achieve your goal without making great efforts to find out some real situations in the palace.

In this book, you can see a lot of things that you can't see when you visit the Palace Museum, because you not only use a lot of palace cultural relics that have never been made public, but also capture night scenes and other special scenery that are extremely difficult to shoot all night in pursuit of the reappearance of historical scenes. In particular, in order to pursue the relics of Emperor Kang and Gan's southern tour and northern hunting, I trudged to Wan Li and gained many pictures from ups and downs, cold and heat.

The topic selection of this book is a bold attempt, involving a wide range, and the workload is far from being completed by three editors. Many colleagues, such as research room, storage department, exhibition department, open management department, library, Palace Museum Press and so on, assisted in the work. Mr. Liu Beiqi from the Forbidden City Publishing House, Mr. Chen Wanxiong, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Hong Kong Branch of the Commercial Press, Ms. You Bishan, Director of Art Design, Mr. Wen and Ms. Guan Peizhen, Assistant Editor, gave a lot of guidance and tips. I am deeply grateful. Mr. Hu Chui, the photographer, undertook all the artistic photography work. Ms. Liu Lu, former researcher of the Palace History Group in the research room and now director of the editorial office of the Forbidden City Press, has undertaken a lot of work, compiled and directed the shooting of "Hunting in the South and Hunting in the North". The book's military preparation, hunting trip, the foreign affairs part of amusement government affairs, and the sacrificial part of the sacrificial part were all written by Ms. Liu Lu. Mr. Ji Hongzhang, deputy director of the research office, is responsible for organizing the shooting work, while Mr. Liu Zhigang and Mr. Guo Yuhai assist in a large number of shooting work. This book should be said to be the crystallization of collective labor.

Wan Yi Wang Shuqing Road is in a tight array.