Beijing weather: sunny

With whom: friends

Accommodation: Unnamed Courtyard Hotel

Comments: The hotel is located in a hutong with Beijing characteristics. The location is very good, and the surrounding environment is also very distinctive. The hotel's service is very good. They can help with free laundry and send express delivery for us. The staff are very friendly, patient and kind. It is a three-hundred-year-old courtyard house. It is said that it was the residence of Ren Zan, a third-rank military officer in the middle of the Qing Dynasty. There are piano, chess, calligraphy and paintings scattered around. It is a very elegant and beautiful courtyard hotel.





600-year-old Bauhinia City

The Forbidden City is the imperial palace of the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It is located on the central axis and covers an area of ​​720,000 square meters. The largest palace-shaped building is the first of the five largest palaces in the world, and the other four are the Palace, the Palace, the White House and the Kremlin.
In 2019, I, a southern girl, finally set foot on the land of the north and saw the Forbidden City that I had seen on TV since I was a child. What I didn't expect was that I had traveled to the five continents, but never set foot in the north of my country. It was really too late to meet the Forbidden City. After staying abroad for a long time, the more I can appreciate the beauty of the East. On that ancient Chinese land, there is an endless fighting spirit from ancient times to the present.
This time I stayed in the Forbidden City for more than three hours. I followed the central axis from Meridian Gate to Shenwu Gate, and then went back to the East Sixth Palace and West Sixth Palace. .


Entering from the Meridian Gate, you can see five Han stone bridges, and on the opposite side of the bridge is the temple, commonly known as the Jinluan Temple. This is the main place where the emperors of Ming and Qing Dynasties held enthronement ceremonies and celebrated major festivals. In front of the main hall is a majestic lion, which symbolizes the supreme power of the emperor.


The sundial was used to calculate time in ancient times, and the corona was placed on the side of the hall, showing that the emperor had the power to control time.

The central axis is the hall, Zhonghe hall, Baohe hall, Qianqing gate, Qianqing palace, Jiaotai hall, Kunning palace, Kunning gate and imperial garden. The Hall, Hall of Central Harmony, and Hall of Preserving Harmony belonged to the Outer Court, where the emperor and his ministers dealt with official affairs, while the Qianqing Palace and Kunning Palace were the sleeping palaces of the emperor and empress respectively.

You may notice that different animals are carved on the roof of each hall, and the number of carvings in different halls is also different. The higher the number, the higher the level of the palace, and the noble people living in it. In the palace, there is a strict hierarchy, and signs symbolizing power are everywhere.

The East Sixth Palace is neatly located on the east side of the meridian of the Forbidden City, corresponding to the East Sixth Palace on the east side of the meridian. The East and West Twelve Palaces enclose the central Housan Palace like two armpits, thus corresponding to the so-called Ye Ting in ancient times. The West Sixth Palace is the residence of the harem and concubines in the Qing Dynasty, including Gong, Yikun Palace, Chuxiu Palace, Xianfu Palace, Gong and Qixiang Palace (Taiji Palace). Empress Dowager Zeng Cixi lived in the palace.

There are various exhibition halls in the Palace Museum, including Treasure Hall, Ancient Building Hall, Clock Hall, Sculpture Hall, etc. It collects various exhibits of thousands of years in ancient times, which have very high protection and research value, and some of them are open to the public for sightseeing.

Jingshan overlooking the capital

Jingshan was built in the Liao and Jin Dynasties and has a history of thousands of years. Jingshan Park is also one of the oldest and best-preserved palace gardens in China. It used to be an important part of the imperial palace. It was not until 1928 that Jingshan was classified as a park. Walking out of the Shenwu Gate of the Forbidden City, you can see the Wanchun Pavilion in Jingshan when you look up, and the people on the pavilion are also looking at the Bauhinia City not far away.
Standing at the highest point of Jingshan Park, people can overlook the whole picture of the Forbidden City. I saw that in the huge Forbidden City, many tourists crowded together. No matter in season, summer, autumn or winter, the Forbidden City is always the most popular cultural attraction.
However, Jingshan’s history can be traced back more than 400 years earlier than the Forbidden City. At that time, the Forbidden City did not exist, and the Ming and Qing dynasties were not established. There are only mountains and rivers and fresh and pleasant natural scenery here. I hope that Jingshan can be well preserved, so that the younger generations can also have the opportunity to experience the natural scenery and humanistic style of the ancient capital of my dynasty in Jingshan Park.

In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty (1644), Li Zicheng led an army of 400,000 peasant rebels to attack. In the early morning of March 19th in the lunar calendar, Emperor Chongzhen climbed to Jingshan Mountain, knowing that the situation was over, he hanged himself in Jingshan Mountain.
In 1930, the Palace Museum erected a stele of Ming Sizong's martyrdom in Jinglu.
In 1944, the 300-year Monument of Ming Sizong's martyrdom was erected, making Jingshan Park a famous cultural landscape.

There are five square pavilions in Jingshan, the middle peak is Wanchun Pavilion, which is also a courtyard at the highest point of Jingshan, overlooking the Forbidden City; the east side is Guanmiao Pavilion and Zhoushang Pavilion; the west side is Jifang Pavilion and Fulan Pavilion .

Jingshan garden features tens of thousands of peonies, peonies and other flowers. The seasons are different throughout the year, and the scenery park will hold flower shows of the corresponding seasons. There are peony exhibitions in spring, lotus exhibitions in summer and autumn chrysanthemum exhibitions in autumn. The scene of clusters of flowers and evergreen pines and cypresses should be too beautiful to behold.

Beihai Park

The park is located in the heart of the capital. It has survived the Jin, Yuan, Ming, Qing and other dynasties, and it is still preserved to this day. It has accumulated nearly a thousand years of history and culture. Royal Palace. The park is inspired by 'Wonderland'. Therefore, the water area occupies more than half of the area of ​​the park. The pool named Taiye Pool is directly drawn from Yuquan Mountain via the Jinshui River, and its water has been taken from Jishuitan since the Ming Dynasty.
In Taiye Pool are Qionghua, Tuancheng and Xishan Terrace respectively, which symbolize Qionghua, Yingzhou and Abbot. There are lotus flowers blooming on the emerald green lake, and the shadows of the trees next to it are reflected in the lake water. A cloud bridge connecting the Qiongdao Temple Pagoda and the opposite bank, the scenery is beautiful and pleasant. The design of pools and gardens of flowers and plants in the garden embodies people's beautiful yearning and strong pursuit for fairyland.

From Jingmen, through an alley is the entrance of the park. The old alleys in the old alleys belonged to the imperial city, but are now divided into residential areas for the common people. Hu's time flow is very different from that of the bustling city, as if he has retained the leisure and comfort of the ancient times.