It was an artificial hill rising right above what was once the center of the Qing Empire--the Forbidden City. It was also an imperial garden created by the emperors, and only reserved for their eyes. The imperial court astronomers called it ¡®The Guarding Hill¡¯, and according to Feng Shui rites, it was believed at the time to protect the empire for eternity.
That place is the Jing Shan, or Prospect Hill. A historical hill which runs through the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and which impresses all who ever visit it with its panoramic view of a city it has towered for centuries.
The emperors are long gone, but the hill continues to stand, watching over the remnants of a lost empire.
I decided to take a tour inside the park on the spur of the moment as I was roaming around, near the back of the Palace Museum once called the Forbidden City.
The Emperor was said to be the Heavens¡¯ representative on Earth. The Forbidden City was his residence and was therefore forbidden to the commoners. Over the past 800 years, 24 emperors had occupied this vast palace. In times of peace, it stood for prosperity and pride of the country, as a place heavenly in nature which only the privileged could see.
During times of chaos however, the palace was a cursed place. And during the three successive empires which ruled from Beijing (the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties), the Forbidden City witnessed so much bloodshed it can be hardly considered a gift from Heavens.
It is March, and after a long chilly Beijing winter, the park is finally dressing itself in a green coat. The hill stands high up, covered with old cypress trees which, together, make a verdant wood. Up the hill, in the emerald mist, lurk halls, pavilions, kiosks, and bells jingling from the eaves in the breeze. The sun sheds its rays over the yellow roof tiles and delicate figurines. When the crows¡¯ squawking pierce the peaceful settings, I feel I am now walking into a different time.
I have. For this is a place so connected to the past. At first, it was just a bare mound of earth. The Yuan emperors integrated it into one of their imperial gardens. The Ming emperors heaped the mound up with the soil unearthed during the construction of the Forbidden City. Then came the Qing Dynasty, and the garden reached its full glory. Of all the emperors and ministers the garden had entertained, there is one man it cannot cut itself from: Chong Zhen, the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, who hanged himself at one of the trees on the last day of his reign.
Walk anticlockwise at the foot of the hill for a short while, and you will stumble upon two stone tablets and a twisted locust tree among a heap of rocks ¨C this is where Emperor Chong Zhen met his fate after an insurgent force from western China captured Beijing and marched to the imperial palace. The inscription has become somewhat illegible, but between the lines, grief and sorrow mark the tragic destiny of an Emperor who worked assiduously to try to salvage a dynasty wrecked by the corruption and laziness of his predecessors but acknowledged his failure ultimately and ended his life in dishonor.
Chong Zhen should have been a good emperor on almost every account. Quick in wits, kind to people, assiduous at the task, he had the ambition to revive the empire. But when he became enthroned, the 260-year-old dynasty was already dying. The rebellion overran the south, while Manchurian invaders were knocking at the door in the northern part of the empire. Chong Zhen also had to fight a powerful and corrupted bureaucratic system. Famine and floods across the country pulled the last trigger, leaving hundreds of thousands of people dead, and driving the rest of them to do anything violent just to live.
For Emperor Chong Zhen, the worst came true on March 19, 1644. After years of bitter fighting with the imperial army, the rebels from southwestern China brought war to the empire¡¯s heart. Seeing his people and favored ministers dropping him and turning to the enemy, the emperor became bitter and desperate. As the rebels besieged the Forbidden City, he knew it was over. Determined to not to live in shame, he hanged himself in this garden at the back of his palace. Chong Zhen must have had a lot to say, but said only one thing. Before he died, he wrote a line on his dragon gown: ¡°Enemy, do anything you want onto me, but leave my people alone¡±. His people had already vanished.
Back to the present time, and on with my walk. The lovely landscape on the way up the hill is like a flattering feat. The rocky path turns and twists. Yellow flowers blossom in the bushes. Along the way, graceful kiosks once sheltered Buddhist statues.
Nothing compares though to the view at the top, the hill unfolding under my feet. The Forbidden City extends colorfully right under my eyes: yellows for the roof tiles, reds for the walls. Everywhere, the halls which housed the heart of a sophisticated bureaucratic machine. People around me were in awe at the panoramic view of the biggest palace complex in the world.
Yet these views are never meant for some, like imperial concubines, and captives of the inner court. In a lifetime, some of the concubines would only see the Emperor once. And when that Eperor died, they were forced to live in one of the rooms around the Garden of Forgotten Favorites for the rest of their days.
These views did not come easy either. It took one hundred thousand men to build the complex, using one hundred million bricks, two hundred million tiles, and hundreds of tons of timber from the southern nanmu trees, trees which would take four years to get here by river and the Grand Canal. Such was the grandiosity of a project designed to celebrate the eternal glory of the Ming Emperors.
True, these views belong to times. Empires only rise to fall, but the complex was meant to remain for eternity.
As the path led my steps downward and my walk was about to end, I could not but feel a deep sense of pride ¨C a pride born in everything which comprises this place. The same pride which make the Chinese people cherish their tradition, on the fundamentals of which we push for change in a confident way today.
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