This outer city is basically square, slightly shorter than the inner city. The main buildings in the city include the outer city gate and the Xiangfu Courtyard.
The outer city gate, also known as Zhongdaozhuang, is also the main entrance of the Forbidden City. There are three plaques on the gate: vertical plaque, middle plaque and lower plaque. This means that Master Xiang Fu has always adhered to the Confucian doctrine of the mean, and those who are "moderate" are neither humble nor impartial.
Among them, the word "auspicious symbol" is written on the vertical plaque; The plaque reads "Grace of God", which means that Chen Tingjing is directly embedded in the Zhuangmen of 1699. The next plaque is "Zhongdaozhuang".
There are 7749 bronze doornails on the gate of the city gate, which shows that the Chen family is only one row less than the royal family, and its position is second only to the royal family. Because this gate is called Zhongdaozhuang, later generations are also used to calling Xiangfu Outer Town Zhongdaozhuang.
Xiangfu Courtyard is Chen Tingjing's mansion, also known as "the Emperor's Father", commonly known as the Prime Minister's Mansion or Xiangfu Courtyard. This is a courtyard with four north-south entrances. The whole building layout is front hall and back bedroom, lady's courtyard, west garden and housekeeper's courtyard.
In front of the Xiangfu Courtyard is a three-room-wide gate with the words "Tezuzhadi" written on its forehead, in which "Tezuzhadi" is the residence of aristocratic bureaucrats in feudal society, so "Tezuzhadi" refers to Xiangfu Courtyard.
At first, only three characters of "Tsukiji" were hung on the gate of Xiangfu Courtyard. Four years later, Chen Tingjing officially paid homage to the scholar of Wenyuan Pavilion and the official minister, so he changed the plaque of "Da Dish" on the gate.
Because Chen Tingjing also served as the Zuodu suggestion of Douchayuan, under the plaque of "University Scholar", there was another plaque of "General Xian Fu".
The first gate of Xiangfuyuan is tall and majestic. As the saying goes, "How high the official is, how big the door is." So the height of this door is enough to see the extraordinary bearing of the senior officials of the hospital at that time.
Behind this door, there is a beautifully carved screen wall with "Kirin Spitting Jade" carved in the middle, which symbolizes the prosperity and good luck of Chen's descendants.
The auspicious patterns of folk eight treasures and four arts on both sides of the screen wall show the elegance, nobility and family status of the owner. Among them, the folk eight treasures are auspicious things in eight kinds of folklore. It refers to Hehe, jade fish, Drum Plate, Pan, Longmen, Ganoderma lucidum, pine and cypress, and crane. The four arts refer to the four skills of piano, chess, book and painting.
The screen wall is folded into a narrow courtyard in the east, with Ruyi Gate in the east, which leads to the East Academy, inverted seats in the south, and Xiangfu Gate 2 in the north, which is called Yimen.
This instrument has three wide facades, and the middle door is the main entrance, which is the passage for the host and distinguished guests. It is usually closed, and it is only opened when the emperor visits or an official of a certain level visits the DPRK. Ordinary officials and ordinary people can only enter and exit from the side doors on both sides in the order of left writing and right martial arts.
Under the eaves of Yimen, the plaque of "auspicious symbol" is clearly hung, and the square of the door is inlaid with the word "Tianen Shide", which symbolizes the favor of the emperor and the Chen family pays back the favor from generation to generation.
There is also a screen wall carved with eight-character bricks in Yimen, which is a figure of deer, crane, tung, pine, flower and bird, meaning that Liuhe is in the same spring, the road is in front of you, and both hands can live long.
The gate and the second gate of Xiangfu compound are not on the same central axis. This is because when Chen Tingjing built this mansion, it was built according to the pattern of "front hall and back bedroom" and "East Academy and West Garden". Therefore, the local people call it the "Imperial City Little Forbidden City".
There is a spacious square yard at the second door of Xiangfu Courtyard, and the main building of Xiangfu Courtyard is the due north lobby.
This hall was originally the reception hall of the Prime Minister's House, and was renamed "Dianhan Hall" after Emperor Kangxi gave it a plaque. There are three plaques hanging above the main hall, and the middle one is "Dianhan Hall", which was given by Emperor Kangxi in the 39th year.
Under the plaque of Dianhantang, there is an antique screen with exquisite carving and exquisite workmanship, which shows the scenery of Chen Tingjing when he was an official. At the same time, we can also see that Chen Tingjing is knowledgeable and has a high level of artistic appreciation.
It is said that Chen Tingjing is not only an honest official, but also very good at national strategies, astronomy, geography, customs, ancient civilizations, and poems and songs.
Dianhan Hall is the place where imperial academy university students order goods. This is Emperor Kangxi's praise for Chen Tingjing's many times as an examiner for the senior high school entrance examination and for selecting a large number of outstanding talents for the country.
On both sides of the temple, the royal plaques "Bo Wen Li Yue" and "Dragon and Phoenix Dance" were given by Kangxi.
"Bo Wen Yi Li" is Emperor Kangxi's praise for Chen Tingjing's profound literary talent, self-esteem and noble character.
Dance of the Dragon and the Phoenix is a praise of Chen Tingjing's personality and calligraphy. It is unrestrained and free-spirited, and contains the implication that the dragon is king, the phoenix is a minister, the phoenix dances with the dragon, and the monarch and the minister are harmonious and orderly. It embodies the profound friendship between teachers and students and the relationship between the monarch and the minister between Chen Tingjing and Emperor Kangxi.
The two sides of this imperial plaque, as well as the half-guide given to Chen Tingjing by Emperor Kangxi when he went out, show that Emperor Kangxi trusted and valued Chen Tingjing.
On the left and right sides of the screen, there are official rank cards with Chen Tingjing as the head of each department, indicating that Chen Tingjing was loyal to the imperial court and diligent in government affairs all his life, and was entrusted with important tasks by the emperor many times.
The East House of Xiangfu is Chen Tingjing's living room. During his 53-year career as an official in Beijing, Chen Tingjing only went home three times and lived here.
The West Room is Chen Tingjing's study, with Four Treasures of the Study on the table and four wall screens of plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum made of mahogany hanging on the wall, symbolizing that the master is strict with himself and is the next official.
At the same time, there is a piano and chess in the south of the room, which shows that Chen Tingjing is proficient in piano, chess, calligraphy and painting besides his superb literary accomplishment.
To the north of the main hall of Xiangfu is the backyard of Xiangfu. In the middle of the first room in the hospital, there is a middle-aged portrait of Emperor Kangxi. This portrait and the poems on both sides were given to Chen Tingjing by Emperor Kangxi.
It is said that Kangxi came to the Forbidden City twice and met local officials in this room. Chen's descendants, in order to commemorate the great kindness of the emperor, specially lived in Kangxi's mansion and kept it intact.
As the temporary residence of the emperor, although the furnishings in this room are greatly simplified, its style is magnificent and the things used are also very particular.
Chen Tingjing's poems and calligraphy are in the east wing of Xiangfu's backyard. In the West Wing, an emperor's memorial was written by Chen Tingjing when he was an official in North Korea.
There is also a west gate in the backyard of Xiangfu, which leads to the Miss Courtyard. Chen Tingjing's three daughters have lived here and moved here.
The north house in the yard is Miss Chen's living room, Miss Xiulou, East House and Westinghouse are the residences of maids and personal maids. Among them, the architectural style of Miss Xiulou's roof is called "rolled shed roof", and the front and rear slopes intersect in an arc shape, with no roof ridge and ridge beast, like a huge bow lying on the roof.
There are many forms of roofs in traditional buildings in China. There are seven kinds of roofs, namely, point roof, inclined roof, suspended roof, rigid roof, pyramid roof, roof and connected roof. Among them, Ding Dian with double eaves and inclined roof with double eaves have the highest grade, followed by Ding Dian with single eaves and inclined roof with single eaves.
Rolling shed roof is a low-grade form, but it is often used in royal garden buildings because of its soft lines and beautiful shape, which is rare in traditional residential buildings.
The young women's home is completely in the form of a rolled roof, which has two meanings. On the one hand, it means that the Chen family must be gentle and virtuous and abide by women's morality. On the other hand, it shows Chen's feudal ethical thought that men are superior to women.
The south room of the Miss Courtyard is a hall, which is connected with the beautiful West Garden.
Xiyuan is also called Muyuan, which means attachment and missing. This garden was built by Chen Tingjing for his dead father. Because it is located on the west side of the Prime Minister's House, it is also called West Garden or Back Garden.
The gate of the back garden is the Moon Gate, and rockeries, fish ponds, cloisters and flower beds complement each other. Although the area is small, it is cleverly conceived and beautifully built. It is a place where ladies recite poems, paint and play pipa.
In this young lady's yard, there is also a walkway leading to the outer wall. Seen from the aisle, it is the Wanghe Building on the outer wall, and there is a pavilion called Wanghe Pavilion upstairs.
This is the pavilion where the ladies of Xiangfu enjoy the scenery outside the city. In ancient China, due to the constraints of traditional ethics, ladies were not allowed to go in and out at will. In order to kill people's depression, women had to stand in the pavilion and look out at the scenery outside the house, so they named it "Wanghe Pavilion".
There is also a housekeeper's courtyard in the Xiangfu Courtyard, which is the place where Xiangfu Butler works and lives. The houses here are all single-storey structures, simple and simple, in sharp contrast with the gorgeous main buildings, which fully embodies the traditional etiquette concept of feudal society, that is, "there are points of respect and inferiority, and the upper and lower are orderly."
The word "sincerity" is engraved on the lintel of the housekeeper's house, which is the employment standard for the prime minister to select housekeeper talents. In addition, next to Guanjiayuan, there is an East Academy, where Chen's younger brother studies.
The academy is a courtyard with two entrances, north and south, but there is a gate in the southeast corner of the front and rear rooms, which looks like two independent quadrangles.
Throughout the entire Xiangfu Courtyard, the decorative components such as archways, doors and windows, railings, screen walls and column bases in the courtyard are exquisitely crafted and well carved. The whole courtyard is extraordinary in momentum, magnificent and elegant in style, which has become a model of the perfect combination of feudal etiquette of "court culture" and local traditional crafts.
In the Kangxi period of Qing Dynasty, the second year after Chen Tingjing expanded the outer city of Xiangfu, Chen Tingjing ordered the construction of merit archway in the outer city gate.
This archway was built in 1704. The archway is a four-column and three-story building, with poles and stones on both sides of the columns, two dragon balls carved on the lower eaves, auspicious patterns and high reliefs in the upper flower shop, Zhongfan and Fang Ding. Plaques and plates are placed in every room.
On the middle panel of the memorial archway, the words "General Constitution of Jinze" are written, and the words "Gate of Yanze" and "Xie Cong V" are engraved on the side building.
The main card in the main building is "Tsunezawa General Constitution", and the side building is engraved with "Ayanze" and "V's Grace".
"Nakazawa Tomohide" is another name for the Prime Minister, ranking first among all officials. "General Constitution" is another name for Shi Yu, the left capital of Douchayuan. Duchayuan is the highest supervisory organ of the Qing court, shouldering the heavy responsibility of supervising and inspecting officials at all levels.
Under the "Tsuzawa General Charter", there are four big characters engraved with the official positions and fame of Chen Tingjing and his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, the most prominent one is the specific name of Chen Tingjing's official position at the bottom. The wooden roof is built in imitation of wood, with kissing animals at both ends of the main ridge and Kirin at the ridge brake. The whole archway looks grand and solemn, and it is beautifully made.
Not far from this building, there is a small two-column archway on the first floor, which is not as large as it in scale and decoration, but before the completion of the big archway, it is still a landmark building that honors the ancestors of the Chen family.
The time to build this archway dates back to the year of the college entrance examination in Chen Tingjing. The front is engraved with the names and official positions of six people, including Wei Chenxiu of Xixiang County, Hanzhong District, Shaanxi Province, and Rulinlang, the supervisor of Zhejiang Road, and the back is engraved with the imperial examinations of six people, including Jiajing Chen Jinshi God Bless and Shunzhi Ding Youke Chen Jing.
Among them, Chen Tianyou was the first scholar of the Chen family, and his grandfather Chen Xiu was the first official of the Chen family. Chen Chang was the biggest official in the family before Chen Tingjing. He was an imperial envoy of the Ming Dynasty, and later entered the Qing court as a magistrate, studying politics in Jiangnan. Not only is the article well written, but also his calligraphy is beautiful. At the same time, there are many inscriptions written by him in the inner city of the imperial city.
1704, after the expansion of the outer city of Xiangfu in Chen Tingjing, the total area of Xiangfu reached more than 36,000 square meters, with 19 large courtyards, more than 880 houses and 9 gates extending in all directions, which can keep relevant cards.
Form a strong fortress, the outer city surrounds the inner city, and the inside and outside are interlocking, which is stable and safe. The total length of the city wall exceeds1.700m, the average height is1.2m, and the width varies from 2.5m to 3m. Towers, towers and turrets take care of each other and are scattered all over the place, forming a solid defense line.
The whole imperial city, including the inner city and the outer city, looks like a turtle, with a northern end and a southern end. Although it is not vivid, it has a clear outline, so it is also called "turtle city", which means eternal freeze for thousands of years.
The architectural features of the whole imperial city are: standing on the mountain, changing with the shape, overlapping buildings, patchwork, simple and solemn, vigorous and solid.
As a ritual building in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, every courtyard and building in the Forbidden City contains profound cultural connotations. However, as far as the building itself is concerned, because it spans the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it presents obviously different styles.
Therefore, the inner city is a relic of the Ming Dynasty, and the architectural design is simple and rugged, vigorous and solid, giving people a strange mystery. The outer city was built in the Qing Dynasty, and the architectural layout followed the rule of "front hall and rear bedroom" in the Qing Dynasty. In terms of architectural style, it showed the majesty of "Dr. Zheng's taste for glory" and gave people a magnificent impression.
These ancient buildings, known as "Oriental Castle" and "the home of the first cultural giant in northern China", have left rich historical and cultural heritage for the Chinese nation.
Master Huang Fu Chengxiang