Chinese Spatial Strategies: Imperial Beijing, 1420-1911

CHINESE SPATIAL STRATEGIES

How was Beijing conceived, designed and constructed, as a political architecture? How did the Chinese design a space, at the scale of a building, a city and a large civil-engineering project? Were the constructions of the Great Wall, the Grand Canal, the city of Beijing and the imperial palace interrelated? Does that reveal a layout of power relations, a formalistic aesthetic or an existential worldview? By examining the buildings of Imperial Beijing (1420–1911) this book seeks to answer these questions, and explore a generic approach to spatial disposition in the Chinese tradition. Chinese Spatial Strategies considers spatial design on many levels and in different aspects including: • • • • • •

the design of a geo-political map of China in Asia the layout of the city as a representation of imperial ideology the city as a social realm of interrelations between the central authority and local urban society the Forbidden City as an apparatus of power an imperial religious system across the city a comparison with European approach to state power and to visualaesthetic compositions

Drawing upon recent work in social theory, the author provides a spatial and political analysis of the Forbidden City, and a realistic, analytical and critical account of Imperial Beijing. This book transcends the convention of formal descriptions of Chinese buildings and cities, and will appeal to all those with an interest in Chinese architecture in a broad perspective. Jianfei Zhu teaches Architecture in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne.

CHINESE SPATIAL STRATEGIES Imperial Beijing 1420–1911

Jianfei Zhu

First published 2004 by RoutledgeCurzon 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada By RoutledgeCurzon 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2004 Jianfei Zhu All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Zhu, Jianfei, 1962– Chinese spatial strategies : imperial Beijing, 1420–1911 / Jianfei Zhu. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Architecture–China–Beijing–Ming-Qing dynasties, 1368–1912. 2. Space (Architecture)–China–Beijing. 3. Architecture and state–China–Beijing. 4. Architecture and religion. 5. City planning–China–Beijing. 6. Forbidden City (Beijing, China). 7. Beijing (China)–Buildings, structures, etc. I. Title. NA1547. P6Z48 2003 720
.951
156–dc21 2003005929 ISBN 0-203-61348-1 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-33841-3 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–31883–1 (Print Edition )

FOR MY PARENTS, AND HONG AND SHIYAO

CONTENTS

List of figures Acknowledgements

ix xiii

Introduction: Beijing as a critical problem

1

In search of a Chinese space 1 Outline of the research and the argument 4 A note on method 9 PART I

A social geography

15

1

A geo-political project

17

2

City plan as ideology

28

A classical tradition 28 Neo-Confucianism 37 3

Social space of the city

45

A city of cities 45 Space of the state 61 Space of society 78 Society versus the state 88 Concluding notes to Part I: Architecture of the city and the land

vii

91

CONTENTS

PART II

A political architecture

95

4

97

A sea of walls: the Purple Forbidden Palace The Palace City 99

5

The palace: framing a political landscape

119

The inner court as a corporeal space 119 The outer court as an institutional space 133 A composition of forces 143 6

The palace: a battlefield

149

Flows of reports and directives 149 Defence 155 Recurring crises 162 7

Constructs of authority

170

Legalism and The Art of War 170 Vis-à-vis the Panopticon: two ages of reason 179 Concluding notes to Part II: Architecture as a machine of the state

189

Part III

Religious and aesthetic compositions

195

8

197

A religious discourse Composing and building the discourse 197 Performing an ideology 205

9

Formal compositions: visual and existential

222

Beijing as a scroll 222 Vis-à-vis ‘Cartesian perspectivalism’: two ways of seeing 234 Concluding notes to Part III: Architecture of horizon

245

Appendix: dynasties, reigns and emperors Notes Bibliography Index

248 250 266 275

viii

FIGURES

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11

3.12

Location of principal capitals in Chinese dynastic history Ming China’s maritime expeditions between 1405 and 1433 Sections of the Great Wall constructed after the 1420s Northern border garrisons and sections of the Great Wall built after the 1420s The Grand Canal reopened by 1415 Plan of Beijing in the Ming and Qing dynasties (1553–1750) Plan of the Forbidden City and its immediate surroundings An interpretation of the Kaogongji’s planning theory of an imperial capital A portrait of Emperor Kangxi in his library, by an artist of the Qing dynasty City wall and city gate in Beijing Two levels of space and their social functions in Beijing A structure of the city walls of Beijing: a development of hierarchical depth Open urban space of Beijing A network of open urban space of Beijing: Capital City and Outer City A network of open urban space of Beijing: Imperial City A polarizing tendency among the cities of Beijing: ‘free’ versus ‘controlled’ space The 1 per cent most integrated lines, forming an integration core, in the Imperial City The 1 per cent most integrated lines, forming an integration core, in the Capital City The 1 per cent most integrated lines, forming an integration core, in the Outer City The body of the state: location of imperial palaces, state ministries, prefecture offices and country offices and the associated functions in Beijing of the Qing dynasty The war-machine of the state: a disposition of security and military forces in Beijing in the mid-Qing dynasty (late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries) ix

18 21 24 25 26 30 31 33 43 47 49 50 51 53 55 57 58 59 60

64

70

FIGURES

3.13 3.14 3.15

3.16 3.17

3.18

4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10

4.11 4.12 4.13 5.1 5.2 5.3

Two areas of the Capital City of Beijing in 1750: covering (a) Andingmen and (b) Dongzimen A spectacle of state: a scene of the emperor with his entourage entering Beijing from his tour to southern China Nodes of a civic social space: a distribution of major temple, fair and pilgrim sites, and the areas of guildhalls, theatres and theatre-restaurants in Beijing in the nineteenth century A key node of a civic social space: Longfusi temple with its urban surroundings in 1750 A spectacle of a civic society: scenes of a festival at an intersecting node. Section of a scroll painting Qingming Shanghetu (Up along a river at Qingming festival) by Chen Mei and others, 1736 A spectacle of a civic society: scenes of a market fair in the suburb. Section of a scroll painting Qingming Shanghetu (Up along a river at Qingming festival) by Chen Mei and others, 1736 The Forbidden City viewed from above A passage in the Forbidden City A map of the Forbidden City (1750–1856) A ‘courtyard-boundary’ map of the Forbidden City (1750–1856) A courtyard-boundary map of the Forbidden City (1750–1856), with the u-space marked in black A ‘cell map’ of the Forbidden City (1750–1856), with the u-space marked Depth values of all spaces from the standpoint of the four gates, marked on the cell map A diagonal progression of depth, towards the north-west, in the Forbidden City The south-to-north route, and depth values of all spaces from the southern gate, on the cell map of the Forbidden City The south-east diagonal route, and depth values of all spaces from the south-eastern gates, on the cell map of the Forbidden City The 10 per cent most integrated and 10 per cent most segregated spaces in the Forbidden City Key spaces marked on the courtyard-boundary map Key spaces marked on the cell map Residence of the court ladies in relation to that of the emperor: on the courtyard-boundary map Residence of the court ladies in relation to that of the emperor: on the cell map A schematic plan of the Palace of Mental Cultivation (yangxindian): the ‘real’ residence for the emperor x

72 76

81 85

86

88 98 99 100 104 105 106 107 109 110

111 114 116 117 122 123 124

FIGURES

5.4 5.5

5.6 5.7

5.8 5.9 5.10

5.11 6.1

6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4

8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4

A view into the front gate of the Palace of Mental Cultivation Eastern side room in the Palace of Mental Cultivation where Empress Dowager held ‘audience behind the curtain’ (chuilian tingzheng) from 1861 Deployment of eunuchs in the central area of the inner court: on the courtyard-boundary map Deployment of eunuchs inside the two residential compounds for the emperor: on the courtyard-boundary map Deployment of eunuchs in the central area of the inner court: on the cell map A layout of state institutions of the Qing in Beijing Two major routes into the Forbidden City: the central-axial route for ceremonies and the south-east diagonal route for working audiences and other practical communications A constitution of the throne and the state in Ming-Qing China Routes of a nationwide postal system linking Beijing to the provinces and frontier regions, as in the late Ming dynasty (1644) A deployment of security and defensive forces in the Forbidden City, in the early nineteenth century Patrolling routes at night inside and outside the Forbidden City, in the early nineteenth century Trajectory of Cheng De’s assassination attempt in the Forbidden City in 1803 Trajectory of Lin Qing’s invasion into the Forbidden City in 1813 The pyramid of authority: a socio-spatial constitution of the throne and the state in Ming-Qing China Interpretations of shi: a key concept in Legalism and The Art of War Elevation, section and plan of a Penitentiary Panopticon designed by Jeremy Bentham in 1791 A prisoner, in his cell, kneeling at prayer before the central inspection tower in a panoptic prison in Europe in the early nineteenth century Sites of ‘celestial’ sacrifice and ‘terrestrial’ ceremony attended by the emperor in person in the Qing dynasty Primary points of a spatio-temporal framework of a religious institution at the Qing court The four focal sites of ‘terrestrial’ ceremony inside the Forbidden City The Hall of Supreme Harmony (taihedian) viewed from the south xi

125

126 128

129 130 137

141 147

153 157 160 165 166 171 174 181

183 202 204 209 210

FIGURES

8.5 8.6 8.7 8.8 9.1 9.2

9.3

9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8

The Meridian Gate (wumen) and the Forbidden City beyond viewed from the south Plan of the Altar of Heaven, with sites for ‘celestial’ sacrifices Plan of the Circular Altar, a site for a supreme ‘celestial’ sacrifice An aerial view of the Altar of Heaven from the south A cross-section along the central axis from Tiananmen in the south to Shengwumen in the north The last of twelve scroll paintings titled Kangxi Nanxuntu (Emperor Kangxi’s tour to the South), by Wang Hui (1632–1717) and others A section of a scroll painting titled Qianli Jiangshantu (A thousand li of rivers and mountains), by Wang Ximeng (active 1096–1120) An illustration of the aids used to draw a perspective, by Albrecht Dürer, 1527 Design of a cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton, by Etienne-Louis Boullée, 1784 A painting titled View of an Ideal City, by an artist in the School of Piero della Francesca, c.1470 An aerial view of Versailles, built and extended from 1660 An aerial view from the north on the axis, overlooking central Beijing formed in 1420 and extended in 1553

xii

211 212 213 219 226

228–9

232–3 237 238 239 241 243

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My primary debt is to Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson who supervised my PhD thesis at University College London from which this book is developed. Stephan Feuchtwang at London School of Economics and Political Sciences offered important advice on the research and critical comments on the thesis. This research since then was much developed in the lectures and seminars I gave at several institutions. I benefited a lot from the conversations with many at these schools: Mark Cousins at the Architectural Association (London), Wu Liangyong, Guo Daiheng, Zhang Fuhe and Zhang Jie at Tsinghua University (Beijing), Zou Denong, Wang Qiheng, Zhang Yukun and Zhang Qi at Tianjin University, Guo Husheng, Zhu Guangya and Chen Wei at South-east University (Nanjing), Wu Jiang, Chang Qing and Peng Nu at Tongji University (Shanghai); and recently Yung Ho Chang at Peking University (Beijing), Zhao Chen, Wang Qun and Ding Wowo at Nanjing University, and Li Shiqiao from National University of Singapore. Barrie Shelton, Rory Spence, Stanislaus Fung and Augustin Berque have given helpful comments while I was visiting Hobart, Adelaide and Sydney. At the University of Melbourne, credit should be given to Ross King, Miles Lewis and Kim Dovey for the initial lecture and conversations. The university also offered generous grants that supported the writing of the manuscript published here. I have received useful comments and advice on a draft of the book from John Friedmann, Michael Dutton, Kim Dovey, Anthony King, Thomas Markus and two anonymous referees. Mary Wall and Wang Mingxian, the editor of AA Files (London) and Jianzhushi (Beijing), have actively supported the publication of a part of this research, which has attracted continuous response and critical debate (especially in China), which in turn have helped the revision of the draft. Ongoing discussions with William Lim, Yung Ho Chang and Chu-Joe Hsia have helped develop a contemporary viewpoint about the research. For the illustrations published in this book, I have received great help from Amy Chan and Andrew Martel. Sean Doyle has offered professional advice on the production of the illustrations. My sincere thanks to them all. The writing of this book is also a life experience, a long journey, from London to Melbourne, via so many other places. My greatest thanks are to Hong for constant and enduring support, and to Shiyao for understanding and for revealing a new life growing up along the journey. xiii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Credits Parts of Chapter 5, 6 and 8 were first published in my ‘A Celestial Battlefield: The Forbidden City and Beijing in Late Imperial China’, AA files, London, no. 28, Autumn 1994, pp. 48–60. © Architectural Association and the author. This article was translated into Chinese by Xin Xifang and published in Jianzhushi (Architect), Beijing, no. 74. 1997, pp. 101–12, which was reprinted in Wenhua Yenjiu: Cultural Studies, Tianjin, no. 1, 2000, pp. 284–305.

Illustration credits Figures 1.2, 1.4, 1.5: Cambridge University Press (from Frederick W. Mote and Denis Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7, Part 1, 1988). Figure 1.3: Tsinghua University (from Lin Zhu (comp.) Zhongguo Jianzhushi Ziliaoji, 1986, Beijing). Figures 2.1, 2.2, 8.6, 8.7, 9.1: Liu Dunzhen, Zhongguo Gudai Jianzhushi, Beijing: Zhongguo Jianzhu Gongye Chubanshe, 1980. Figures 2.4, 3.14, 9.2, 9.3: Palace Museum, Beijing, People’s Republic of China. Figure 3.1: Osvald Siren, The Walls and Gates of Peking, 1924, in the plates section with no pagination. Figures 3.13, 3.16: Xinyayuan Institute (comp.) Qianlong Jingcheng Quantu, 1940, Beijing. Figures 3.17, 3.18: National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China. Figures 4.1, 4.3: Beijing Chubanshe (from Hou Renzhi et al. (comp.) Beijing Lishi Dituji, 1988). Figures 5.4, 5.5: Allen Lane, Penguin Books (Yu Zhuoyun (comp.) Palaces of the Forbidden City, 1982). Figure 6.1: Hara Shobo Press (from Chen Cheng-Siang, An Historical and Cultural Atlas of China, 1982). Figure 8.4: Academy Editions (from Laurence G. Liu, Chinese Architecture, 1989). Figures 8.5, 8.8: George Braziller, Inc. (from Nelson I. Wu, Chinese and Indian Architecture, 1963). Figure 9.5: Bibliothéque nationale de France. Figure 9.6: Art Resource Inc. and Scala Group S.p.A. © Photo SCALA, Florence, Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali, 1990. Figure 9.7: Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques et des Sites (from Spiro Kostof, A History of Architecture, 1995). Figure 9.8: Zijincheng Chubanshe, Palace Museum Press (from Dijing Jiuying: As Dusk Fell Upon the Imperial City, 1994). Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their permission to reprint material in this book. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not here acknowledged and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future editions of this book.

xiv

INTRODUCTION Beijing as a critical problem

In search of a Chinese space From the Great Wall to the Forbidden City, from the Summer Palace of Beijing to the gardens of Suzhou: the wonders of Chinese architecture are known to many in the world. They are well presented in popular literature and increasingly in academic studies. Despite our increasing knowledge about them, however, critical issues concerning spatial design in the Chinese tradition remains not well explored. If there is indeed a unique approach in this tradition, what is it and how is it constituted, in social, cultural and theoretical context? What is, if any, a Chinese approach to spatial design? What is a Chinese approach to spatial positioning, of things and human beings, of objects and subjects, in relation to each other and in relation to nature? Current scholarship is limited to two lines of inquiry. It is either too much concerned with physical structure, form and layout, as in the area of Chinese architecture and city planning, to be able to explore these questions directly and critically. Or, in sinology and religious studies, when an attempt is made to move beyond the physical, the focus is often on symbolic and spiritual dimensions, on religious structures and the layout of ancient capital cities. As such, studies on Chinese spaces and design approaches remain much constrained, by the concerns of form, physicality and symbolic representation. The problem is multifaceted. On the one hand, there is a lack of social realism, of a close attention paid to social reality in historical context regarding the design and use of space and form. On the other, there is a lack of analytical penetration, of detailed and differentiated analysis, on specific form, space, social use and cultural discourse. Furthermore, the study is not critical in a serious sense. There is no framing of questions in a contemporary mindset, no inquiry of a Chinese approach to spatial design as a theoretical problem, in a frame of ideas and concepts raised in contemporary critical discourse. Today, the question about a Chinese approach to spatial design acquires a new significance. In the past two decades, amidst the forces of globalization, China has managed to regenerate itself, and is transforming itself into a modern, industrial and mercantile power. Large buildings and structures are constructed in cities across China. Clusters of cities are networked into megacities. The central state, on the other hand, is actively leading the economy and 1

INTRODUCTION

society. What are the cultural underpinnings behind these developments? Is there a generic approach to space and spatial design behind these developments, rooted in China’s past and developed through its long history? Beijing, the capital of late imperial China, is perhaps a good case to start such an inquiry. For 500 years, from 1420 to 1911, twenty-four emperors, as Son of Heaven, resided here, ruling the empire from within the deep palaces at the centre of the city. The city itself, despite historical change and turbulence, and the transfer from the Ming to the Qing dynasty, remained unchanged. A long history, a developed imperial institution, a complex system of rule over the city, the government and the empire as it evolved across the two dynasties, were all accommodated in this city, in one single plan, in one spatial complex. Beijing, in fact, is one of the largest objects, and certainly the largest social spatial complex, which the old empire has bequeathed us in the modern world. It is the richest case on which a study can be conducted for the benefit of our inquiry. This book is an attempt to study Beijing in historical reality and to explore the issue of a Chinese approach to spatial design. The aim is to uncover concrete social reality in historical context, to expose and analyse layers of spatial arrangements, and to search and to argue for a generic approach to design and disposition rooted in Chinese culture and mentality. The study is intended to be realistic, analytical and critical. How to achieve all these aims in one study? How to organize a study on such a city over such a long time, both to uncover its social spatial realities and to explore the theoretical issue of design and disposition? The work, as now presented in this book, wanders through different areas and employs different approaches, in order to address different issues. An awareness of historical evolution and change from early Ming to late Qing is combined with a social and synchronic frame of analysis. The natural ‘suppression’ of time into space in the case of imperial Beijing itself lends a guide. In this research, social issues and social spaces take on primary status as starting points of investigation. Social, synchronic and structural issues or questions are used as points of departure, to divide and organize the work. Historical knowledge, at the same time, supplies an insertion of episodes, examples, sometimes major cases, on which different levels of social analysis are applied. The work combines a comprehensive coverage of areas with an analytical focus upon space and spatial arrangement. The work concerns historical Beijing in many important areas, social, political, cultural and existential, in which, in each case, the questions of spatial design, arrangement and use are raised and explored. More specifically, the search for spatial patterns and arrangements in historical, imperial Beijing is conducted in these following areas. First, the geographical design of the Ming empire in the minds of the emperors in the early fifteenth century is studied. It is a large space in which Beijing occupies a strategic position. Second, when the city was established, the overall layout, the plan, conveyed ideas of a legitimate throne under ‘heaven’, that is, an ideology of Chinese imperial rule. Third, there is a realm of urban social space and social life that needs careful study. How was political control imposed, how despite the control did the social and civic life of the urban 2

INTRODUCTION

population survive, and even prosper at times? How was urban space composed, in relation to temples and periodical fairs and festivals? Fourth, the palace as a field of political operation is studied. The most complex spatial organization, operating as an apparatus of control, resided at the centre and asserted power over the court, the administration, the city and the provinces. How was it structured and how did it operate in the past? How successful was it, and when and why did it fail at times? What is the spatial problem, if any, and how does space become part of a political operation? Fifth, another aspect of court life, a field of rituals and sacrifices, at palaces, temples and altars, is also studied. How were they spatially composed? How were they enacted, and embodied, by the emperor? How did these spatial notations, compositions and embodiment contribute to the representation of ideology already framed on the city plan? Lastly, another area for investigation in this book concerns spatial composition itself, of the overall and important parts of Beijing, as an aesthetic, experiential and existential problem. In a visual and phenomenological sense, the question here is how Beijing is composed and from here what attitudes of a collective mind, regarding spatial positioning of things and human beings, are revealed. These areas – geographical, formal, social, political, ceremonial and existential – contain many questions that will be used for research. Among these questions, a few most important ones, as critical problems, should be raised here. The first concerns the reality of space. Space is conceived as a field of real practice, one that is not well presented, sometimes even suppressed, by a plan. While a plan is a projection of a space on a horizontal, representational surface, space itself is a field of movement, social practice and human daily life. Following a ‘space syntax’ method, to be explained later, a field of space is to be uncovered and differentiated from formal configurations of a plan. Developing from here, a theoretical assumption is that while a plan represents intentions of designers and authority, that is, ideology, a spatial field reveals a domain of embodied, day-to-day social practice, which includes naturally political practice. In other words, space contains a field of power relations. This leads to another problem to be investigated: how power and space are interrelated, and how space accommodates and facilitates an operation of power in a set of power relations. The space syntax method, and an analytics of power relations, both developed in the recent past in Western scholarship, are borrowed. While space is regarded as a field of practice, power is understood as relational and operational. Power relations are found in a field of relational, operational strategies, in a spatial setting, designed and employed by a dominant social force, in relations with other forces. In imperial Beijing, the question is how power relations were supported in spatial arrangements, in a geopolitical background, in urban–rural, centre–periphery relations, and in the complex apparatus of imperial authority. In relation to this and the issues raised above is a problem of visuality and ways of seeing. As a focus of this study, seeing is examined not in an immediate, personal experience, but in a developed, mediated, instituted practice. It is studied in two areas: seeing as a political act in the mechanism of control, and 3

INTRODUCTION

seeing as an aesthetic, existential element in the composition of space. In the first, the question is how did the emperor see, in the sense of observing, knowing and controlling, the outside world beyond the walls of the palace? This concerns the institutionalization of an imperial gaze, an eye-power of the throne directing, rather efficiently at times, to the court, to bureaucracy, to the city and the provinces of the empire. In the second, the question concerns an imaginary eye, a mind’s eye, in the composition of a pure space. An issue of positioning, of human beings as subjects, in relation to nature and ‘heaven’, are raised and explored. The study of imperial Beijing also benefits from comparison with cases in other cultures. Cases in post-Renaissance and early modern Europe pose an immediate concern. This study includes two cross-cultural comparisons. In the first, the eye-power of the emperor in the Chinese system is compared with proposals for a centralized state power in early modern Europe. In the second, a visual composition of urban space in imperial Beijing is compared with that in post-Renaissance Europe after the invention of linear perspective. While the first concerns a space-power relationship which reveals indirectly a positioning of the human subject, the second explores more directly the approach to the positioning of human subjects in relation to others and to the world. Finally this study addresses the problem of spatial design. This concept is often used in the architecture discipline. In the current study, it is much extended, to include a design of a spatial pattern or disposition at all levels of human effort: buildings, complexes, walled cities, civil engineering at a geographical scale, and the overall political design at the scale of an empire. Design is understood as an effort of a disposition, a subjective and strategic deployment of things and human beings in a spatial field in order to achieve a certain purpose. In other words, the emphasis is placed on the effort, the subjective projection, the making and building, of a space or a spatial arrangement. The concern here is therefore the mind of the designers, ultimately the mind of imperial authority and a collective mentality developed in the Chinese history. The book, ultimately, explores the way in which the Chinese mind designs and arranges space, at the scale of the capital city Beijing.

Outline of the research and the argument There was another capital city, Dadu or the Grand Capital, on the site before Beijing was built. Dadu was the capital of a Mongol empire, the Yuan dynasty, which controlled much of the Chinese territory. In 1368, the Chinese conquered the Yuan and reclaimed the land. Under the Chinese, the Ming empire was established and its capital was built at Nanjing in south-east China. In 1420, the third emperor of the Ming, Emperor Yongle (Zhu Di), amongst several of his campaigns to establish a China-centric world order in Asia, moved the capital from Nanjing to the site in the north-east, where Dadu stood. Beijing was built on the ruins of the Yuan capital, and was further extended in the following decades. From 1553 onwards, it reached a pattern that was to remain until the early years of the twentieth century. In 1644, the Manchurian Qing 4

INTRODUCTION

dynasty was established. The new authority inherited the same capital, adopted the same institutional structure, and gradually improved aspects of imperial rule in the following hundred years. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, the Qing began to experience difficulties, chiefly a dramatic rise of population without a parallel rise of agricultural productivity, which led to mounting taxation, exploitation of the rural population, peasant uprisings and social unrest. From the 1840s onwards, the Qing were increasingly under attack and intrusion by foreign powers, a process which led, in the end, to their demise and the end of dynastic China in 1911. This book will focus on the early Ming and early and middle Qing periods, although episodes of other times will be inserted. Early Ming is important because it was a time the city was first conceived, designed and built, in a series of moves of the ambitious Emperor Yongle. In early and middle Qing, we will be able to witness how the space and the imperial rule, formulated by the powerful emperors of early Ming, were inherited and improved. The reigns of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong (1611–1722, 1723–1735, 1736–1795), will be an important period. The difficult times in late Ming and late Qing will also be reviewed, to explore important factors, especially the internal and spatial ones, that contributed the decline. In examining the entire city as a social spatial system, the period in question will also be in most cases early and middle Qing. Urban society in late imperial China, as it were, peaked in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the population enjoyed a stable and prosperous time. The first measured map of Beijing was made at this time, in 1750, under Emperor Qianlong. It offers a source on which the current book is based. This map is known as Jingcheng Quantu (a complete map of the capital city), at the scale of 1:650, and measures 13 by 14 metres.1 Other documents are also used, including Guochao Gongshi, ‘A history of the Qing court’ (1750) and Qinggongshi Xubian, ‘An amended history of the Qing court’ (1806).2 The study in this book is organized in this order: geography, the city as a whole, the palaces as a field of political operation; court rituals and sacrifices at palaces, temples and altars; and an aesthetic, existential composition of space of Beijing. In Chapter 1, we examine the process in which Beijing as the capital of Ming came into being in the first two decades of the fifteenth century. The thoughts and actions of Emperor Yongle are reviewed. A space of the empire was conceived in which the site of Beijing attained a strategic importance. The siting of the capital is related to defence against threats from the north and material resources available through the Grand Canal from the south-east. The city, the new sections of the Great Wall and the renovated Grand Canal, all became part of one design, one geo-political, geo-architectural construction. Further, it was part of a larger project of establishing a Ming-centred world order in Asia, as revealed in the northern campaigns against the Mongols and the maritime expeditions to the south in the 1410s and 1420s, which reached Malacca, Ceylon, India, Arabia and finally the east coast of Africa. The Beijing which thus emerged in 1420, with extensions in 1553, is reviewed for its overall layout in Chapter 2. It is a centric and symmetrical layout. It symbolically represents Confucian ideas of a sacred emperor, the Son of Heaven, 5

INTRODUCTION

residing at the centre of the universe, coordinating the ways of ‘heaven’ with that of humans on earth. Beijing clearly inherited a classical planning model formulated in the Han dynasty, which prescribed a grand, centric, Confucian order. It is also argued that, as supervised and used by the Ming emperors, the layout of Beijing also absorbed neo-Confucian ideas of imperial rule developed in the Song and in early Ming. This is reflected in a reinforced emphasis on wangdao (sage rulership), as found in the sacred, symbolic layout strongly asserted; and in the emphasis of a need to combine wangdao and badao (sage and powerful rulership), in the combination of a symbolic layout with a dominating space. In Chapter 3, this dominating space of the city is examined. A field of space and spatial, social practice is uncovered, beneath and beyond the plan of the city. In the first section, the layer of actual space, including walls and a network of streets, of lines and nodes, is described, to reveal a hierarchical domination of centre above periphery. In the second, a space of the state is found, which exercised this vertical domination through its three organs: civil administration, public security and military defence. They imposed horizontal fragmentation as well as vertical division, forming a hierarchical disposition for vertical control. The third section concerns a space of society, in its three foci of urban social life: guild-houses, theatres and temples. Reviving a space of continuity and movement, they tended to confuse horizontal fragmentation and vertical division, and posed a threat to the state. Despite the domination of the state, there was a degree of compromise, especially in middle Qing in the eighteenth century. Beijing was full of streets with bustling, commercial and religious life, networking as they were between and around nodes of temples. Suburban temples and periodic festivals, in space and time, were the extreme points of relative freedom. Despite this, however, the state was in control, and the overall spatial disposition was hierarchical. With this overall hierarchy in mind, we move onto the top section of this high mountain, a pyramid of power relations at the court, at the centre of the city. In the following four chapters, we explore how the palace at the centre functioned as a machine of the state. In Chapter 4, the Palace City, or the Purple Forbidden City is opened, its physical and spatial condition is described. It is a space of excessive divisions. Walls and distances separated inside from outside, asserting at the same time a vertical domination of inside above outside, centre above periphery. Inside the walls, there is a complex and carefully structured spatial topography, to facilitate the differentiated functions: ceremonial versus practical, those of a higher status versus those of a lower position. Chapter 5 explores a map of power relations unfolding in and around this space. A spatial, political tectonics of the throne is uncovered, which served as a core structure of the machine. First, there is an inner court and a ‘corporeal’ space where eunuchs and court ladies served the body and the person of the emperor. Second, there is an outer court and an ‘institutional’ space where secretaries, ministers and high-rank officials assisted the emperor in his rule over the empire, that is, they served the mind or the ‘head’ of the state in the 6

INTRODUCTION

emperor. Third, there is a composition of the two, forming one tectonics of the throne. It is a triangle of power relations with the emperor at the top, the ‘corporeal agents’ on the lower left and inner side, and the ‘institutional agents’ on the lower right and outer side. Each line of the triangle defines a dialectic of power relations. Conflicts did occur among them in history, although the most problematic line of opposition was that between the inner and the outer, corporeal and institutional forces. In the following chapter, some aspects of the operation of the tectonics are examined. In the first section, we observe the functioning of the most important line of this triangle: that between the emperor and ministers and high-rank officials. The classical conflict between them, in the so-called jun-chen relationship, did not break the vital link: it only served to distance and externalize formal offices of the government, to pull inward and upward a smaller and more powerful office, and to strengthen the authoritarian rule of the emperor himself at the top. The link was strengthened for the emperor gradually. On this lifeline, reports flowed in and up to the emperor, and directives flowed down and out to officials anywhere in the empire. Together, they formed a oneway flow of visibility, of an eye-power, from the throne down to bureaucracy and the provinces. The pyramid of seeing was gradually perfected through institutional changes, especially under Emperor Yongle in the 1420s and 1430s, and Emperor Kangxi and Yongzheng in the 1700s, 1720s and 1730s. In contrast to outward visibility and control is a denial of inward visibility and permeability, which was sustained by walls, distances, social rules and finally a defence system around and inside the palace. This is examined in the second section. In the third section, cases of crisis in the late Ming and late Qing are reviewed. Inner and corporeal forces stand out as one of the major factors contributing to an introvert and corporeal corruption of the emperor, which in turn weakened the rational, disciplined, emperor–minister link, and finally the breaking of the defence system and the destruction of the inner corporeal space by external forces of a different origin. Despite the decline in the late Ming and late Qing, imperial authority as a model and a concrete spatio-political machine in Beijing proved powerful and effective for much of the 500 years. How was it designed? What were its principles in the Chinese intellectual tradition? Chapter 7 examines ancient theories of imperial rule and strategy, that is, Han Fei’s authoritarianism and Sun Zi’s The Art of War. Both advised the use of a natural dynamism and propensity for one’s own advantage: one should employ a design, a disposition, such as a high ground, in which a powerful propensity will generate a strategic effect naturally, without artificial effort. Han Fei (c. 280–233 BC) in particular advised the use of a rigorously delineated hierarchy, a pyramid, which institutionally (that is, ‘naturally’) assures a downward assertion of eye-power and domination. Later in this chapter, this theory and design of authority in early imperial China are compared with proposals of centralization of state power in early modern Europe, from Niccolò Machiavelli (1467–1527) to Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832). It is argued that due to a similar transition to a universal state, China of the Qin and Han (221 BC–AD 220) and Europe of Louis XIV 7

INTRODUCTION

(1643–1715) and Napoleon Bonaparte (1799–1814) each entered their own ‘age of reason’. Each developed rational theories about centralization of power. There are differences between them: China maintained an absolute monarchy and a religious-moralist symbolism, the West moved on to a people’s sovereignty and a positivist-legalist system. Despite the difference, there are comparable elements in the instrumental use of power. Han Fei’s design as reflected in the palace of Beijing in 1420 and Bentham’s proposal of a Panopticon in 1791 are compared. A spatial institutional setting, an asymmetrical visibility, an eyepower radiating from centre to periphery, a naturalized operation, a pyramid disposition where spatial depth correlates to political height, are common to both. To balance our view, we must also examine another aspect of the court: a religious and ceremonial life, and the symbolic discourse thus revealed. In Chapter 8, we realize that there is a spatio-temporal mapping of sites of religious events of the court, which also correlates to a semantic polarization of these locations. While ‘terrestrial’ ceremonies occurred frequently at the palace at the centre, ‘celestial’ sacrifices were held on critical days on the annual calendar and on sites further away, mostly outside the Capital City. In enacting and embodying these rituals and offerings, the north–south orientation, and the position and the labour of the emperor’s sacred body, are the important elements that generated meaning. The overall meaning of the discourse, furthermore, was produced through a synthesis of the terrestrial and celestial rituals. It was most eminently enacted on the supreme day of the annual cycle, the Winter Solstice. On that day, the emperor first offered sacrifices up to ‘heaven’ on the Altar of Heaven and then, returning to the palace at the centre, he faced down to the nobles and officials, the humans on earth. Confirming his position as the Son of Heaven first and the ruler of all humans second, he then was the ideal emperor in the Confucian symbolic universe. This practice materializes an ideal subjectivity of the emperor, as a sage ruler (wangdao). It also correlates and combines with another subjectivity of the emperor, the seeing-knowing subject, as a powerful ruler (badao). Further, this religious institution of the court enacts and substantiates the symbolic layout of the city discussed above. Chapter 9 examines the composition of space in a pure, aesthetic and existential sense. How can a city be both political and aesthetic? It is argued that formal, aesthetic composition had always been part of a political disposition, a situation, however, that should not prevent us from appreciating the values of a ‘pure’ composition. Beijing’s spatial composition, following the famous idea of Andrew Boyd, is likened to a horizontal scroll of a landscape painting. An imaginary eye, a mind’s eye, moves in, through and above space, compelling the landscape to open up, to incorporate other views, and other spaces. Spatial compositions in post-Renaissance Europe, after the invention of linear perspective, are compared. A design from the viewpoint of linear perspective is identified as one with the critical elements of an axis and an object, in light and in open space. The monocular view of the Albertian model, and the Cartesian theory of a subject distanced and opposed to an object, reside in this composition. In the Chinese case the situation is different. While the subject immerses 8

INTRODUCTION

itself into a field of relations with others, spreading its views to many positions, the object is fragmented and dispersed onto this field, with divisions and walls fragmenting it intensively. The axis is segmented and the visual spatial centre multiplied and dispersed. Subjects and objects, as independent entities, are dissolved in a space of links and relations. Beijing, like a scroll, displays these qualities: it unfolds gradually; the centre can be decentred to a series of views and spaces; it is infinitesimal with intensive subdivisions; it is horizontally vast with a cosmic, heavenly aura. The approach to spatial design and disposition, as revealed in Beijing, is thus strategic and holistic. It is strategic in its political design, which is in favour of a large and total perspective, as revealed in the spatial arrangement of the empire, of regional geography, of the centre-periphery hierarchy in the city and the palace. It is also holistic in the symbolic and ecological relations between humans and ‘heaven’, a pattern revealed in the layout of the whole city, the layout of religious sites and the enactment by the court, and the composition of an aesthetic and existential space. In all cases, the priority is given to a large and comprehensive design, for a submission to authority, and finally to nature. In this approach to design, the Cartesian subject and its opposed object, are both dissolved. The act of immersing and dispersing serves to erode the classical modern subject, and presents a Chinese subjectivity in a horizontal space under heaven.

A note on method A few words are needed to explain the method adopted in this book. This research does not restrict itself to the confines of Chinese architectural history or the history of Chinese city planning. Imposing such limits would restrict both the area of study, and the methods and ideas necessary to analyse a complex phenomenon and to develop a critical argument. Nor does this work follow a chronological and descriptive approach, which would be too broad and shallow for a focused analysis of a spatial pattern or arrangement. Instead, it subjects historical material to social and synchronic analysis, and critical debate and theorization. This is not only possible, as the work may attest, but also, more importantly, desirable. The purpose of this study is not to describe what happened in the past, but to analyse it and render it intelligible and meaningful to us in the present. In the use of analytical methods, and social concepts and theories, one question that should be raised is this. Can Western ideas and methods be employed for a study of China? In today’s cross-cultural and global environment, it is felt that if cultural difference is carefully respected, it is advisable, even desirable, to test ideas and methods across cultural boundaries. A few qualifications are necessary for the particular borrowing of Western ideas and methods in the Chinese case in this book. In this research, I do not assume that I am applying a universal theory in a specific case. Rather, I am bringing a specific theory to a specific case, to test its validity and usefulness, and the conclusion if any is specific, tentative and open to debate. In this process, ideas, theories and 9

INTRODUCTION

cultural cases are all local, not universal, nor hierarchical in their relations. Further, cross-cultural comparison is also tentative: cultural difference is respected and the assumption that there is a universal platform on which cultures can be freely compared is also suspended. With these words of caution, this work regards the crossing of ideas and theories as positive and constructive. It brings about dialogues across cultures, which can generate new questions and observations. In this study, a dialogue can be methodological (such as the use of space syntax method and power analysis), theoretical (between Jeremy Bentham and Han Fei, between Li Zehou and François Jullien) and cultural-historical (between late imperial China and postRenaissance Europe). The separation of a plan and a space, and the description of this space, are based on the space syntax method developed by Bill Hillier and Jullien Hanson, in their The Social Logic of Space (1984).3 The starting point is an insight that a real space for the embodied human movement and daily social practice does not quite reveal itself on a plan. Space syntax is a method that helps decompose the plan, and to trace out this underlying layer of space that accommodates real conditions of permeability and visibility. This space turns out to be topological, that is, elastic and relational. It is described in an abstract graph, of spaces and relational links between spaces, that is, in most cases, of points and elastic lines between points. Key measurements are ‘distance’, ‘depth’ and ‘segregation’ (or, conversely, ‘integration’), which measure degrees of difficulty (or ease) of access. They are often found in institutional settings as means of control. This is one of the most analytical and penetrating methods available for socio-spatial studies. An ‘analytics of social space’ is developed here, which is now a growing scholarship as evidenced in the recent work by Thomas Markus, Jullien Hanson and Kim Dovey.4 A comparable work is Michael Foucault’s Discipline and Punish (1977). With Foucault’s long-standing interest in institutions of reason and normalization, in the embodied operations of power in real spaces, and in the rise of modern rational knowledge on bodies and minds, the prison becomes the focus of this late and mature work.5 Here we are witnessing another analytics of social space at work, parallel and independent to Hillier and Hanson’s study. Historical change, institutional mechanism, concepts of power, knowledge and spacepower relationship receive closer attention and theorization. But the comparable points are important. While Hillier and Hanson have a method of describing space as relational and topological, Foucault has a social analysis of power being relational and operational. The two fit each other well when space and power are studied together. Further, both share notions of social space that are concrete, detailed and analytical. If cultural difference is respected, it can also be productive to study social space analytically on a Chinese city and its imperial institution. Foucault’s work on the prison in early modern Europe, and its pivotal model, the Panopticon, raises specific issues of seeing, positions of the subject, and modern Western forms of centralized power. In the Panopticon designed by Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) in 1791, surveillance from the central tower over 10

INTRODUCTION

the cells on the periphery is a critical process of asserting forces of control and normalization. Seeing is asymmetrical: an eye-power radiates from centre to periphery without itself being seen from periphery. The eye-power is spatialized and institutionalized, that is, made automatic and permanent in operation. This model, according to Foucault, was generalized in a modern disciplinary society in the nineteenth century in the West, into the central state apparatus on the one hand and a dispersed, localized surveillance network on the other. It marked a transition from an open display of the power of the king to a hidden form of control and surveillance of the state behind the walls. It becomes a critical facet of modernity. It is a masterpiece of a modernist, instrumentalist and functionalist design. Questions must be raised regarding China. One of the main theses of this work, following Li Zehou and François Jullien, is that a comparable development was found in early imperial China, in the Qin and Han dynasties, particularly under the authoritarian theory of Han Fei. Supplying a theory of absolute power and authority, this practice was gradually perfected in late imperial China, and is best represented in imperial Beijing. The practice was deep and invisible, behind the walls, but was also dispersed and total. The design and the theory were instrumentalist and functionalist. A political and bureaucratic ‘modernity’ was already initiated in the Qin and Han, becoming mature in the Song, and perfected and then gradually and increasingly unwieldy in late imperial Beijing. Michael Dutton’s book, Policing and Punishment in China (1992), is a pioneering research that relates Foucault’s analysis of the Panopticon with the legal and political tradition in imperial and twentieth-century China.6 Relations can be made between Dutton’s and the current work. While Dutton’s use of the Panopticon is literal and local, as a real prison institution implemented and transformed in early twentieth-century China, the current book treats Bentham’s design as a theoretical figure and a historical moment. While Dutton focuses on the local and popular practice of control, such as population registration and mutual aid and surveillance, the current work concerns a total and imperial control from the top of the state. The two however are related: the hierarchy reproduced itself at both imperial and local level. Li Zehou in Zhongguo Gudai Sixian Shilun (Studies on ancient Chinese thought) (1986) has suggested that there is a rationalist, functionalist aspect of the Chinese mind.7 The theory of strategy, Daoism and Legalism, developed by Sun Zi, Lao Zi and Han Fei respectively, can be compared and related, in that, influencing each other, they cultivated this rationalist, utilitarian thought. Finally, in Legalism, it became a theory of total authority provided to the imperial court, which was followed and its application gradually perfected. Key to their ideas was the use of shi (propensity and dynamism) in a configuration, a disposition or a design, geographical or institutional. François Jullien’s book, The Propensity of Things (1995) shares the same view, but extends the observation to a broad understanding.8 First, Jullien makes comparisons with European cases, suggesting that ideas in Bentham’s Panopticon are already explored in Han Fei’s Legalism in ancient China. The 11

INTRODUCTION

current book extends this idea further, and makes a closer comparison in the design of space, in the case of imperial Beijing. Second, Jullien’s book is a broad reading of areas of discourse in Chinese tradition. They include war and strategy, Legalism and authoritarianism, landscape painting, writing of poetry and prose, and reflections on history, dynastic change and general metaphysics. For Jullien, the Chinese advice to employ a natural propensity is generic: it can be applied for a strategic or political purpose, or a cultural and aesthetic pursuit. More importantly, it is a way the Chinese perceive and understand the world, as a ceaseless transformation, with propensity inherent in nature itself. The current work, following Li and Jullien, examines the space of Beijing as a design or a disposition with dynamic propensities, which can be political and aesthetic, practical and symbolic. Issues of seeing and subjectivity are already raised in the Panopticon design. A modern, rational subject resides at the centre, seeing, knowing and controlling the inmates as objects, in the light of reason and power. A direct research on visuality and modern subjectivity can be found in Erwin Panofsky’s classic essay Perspective as a Symbolic Form (1927) and more recently in Martin Jay’s ‘Scopic regime of modernity’ (1988).9 Their central thesis is that the method of creating a linear perspective invented in early fifteenth-century Italy was later on formalized in the Cartesian theory of a modern, rational subject in the seventeenth century, laying down a modern, scientific worldview in the West. A ‘Cartesian perspectivalism’ presumes a centric, autonomous, rational subject, distanced from and also seeing and controlling the world of objects. The current research on imperial Beijing contrasts the dynamic, temporal way of seeing with the linear perspective. A different form of subjectivity is found in traditional Chinese painting and urban space: a mind’s eye floats in and above spaces, immersing itself in the world, moving from space to space, from one view to the next, forever decentring the Cartesian perspective, and the position of the rational subject. A ‘post-modernity’ is naturally developed in a culture and mentality as found in traditional China, where subjects and objects are dissolved in the ceaseless change and transformation of nature. The arrangements and systems uncovered in this study, such as the tectonics of the throne, or the machine of imperial rule, may be regarded a ‘habitus’ in Pierre Bourdieu’s theory.10 It is understood that Bourdieu’s habitus was an attempt to move beyond the regime of the rule and the structure in the then dominant ideas of structuralism. It was thus theorized as a dialectic between structure and agency, language and speech: the subjective human agents have a freedom to produce a disposition which, in the end, is also a reproduction of a structure. One can probably say the same thing about the imperial system, as a habitus that is structurally inherited and framed in a long history but also individually reformed and gradually perfected. Reservations must however be raised. In the current research, the idea of a habitus appears too structuralist and too constraining. The dialectic of structure and agency, language and speech, seems so general and symmetrical that, although it may be correct, it quickly degenerates into formal rhetoric and becomes ineffective as a tool for empirical research. The current research, instead, extends two other lines of 12

INTRODUCTION

Bourdieu’s thought that were less articulated as primary concepts. Ideas of strategy and disposition are emphasized here as useful and working concepts. They help bring forward an activist and subjectivist line in the research. Ideas of the first knowledge, those that were theorized by the native population, are also emphasized in the study of the Chinese case, where articulated thought greatly helps us understand the practice. In both cases, the purpose is to expose the subjective mind, to observe how the Chinese, as a collective subject, think and act, and design a space.

13

Part I A SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY

1 A GEO-POLITICAL PROJECT

Following the trajectory of Chinese capitals in historical progression, one finds a move towards east, and then south-east. Qin dynasty (221–207 BC), unifying China for the first time, built its capital Xianyang west of North China Plain. After the short-lived Qin was a long and powerful Han dynasty. The Former Han dynasty (Western Han, 202 BC–AD 9) established its capital city Changan (modern-day Xian) next to the ruins of Xianyang. It used another city Luoyang to the east of Changan as a secondary capital, to secure a better control of the North China Plain. The Latter Han dynasty (Eastern Han, AD 25–220) maintained the dual capital system but elevated the eastern city Luoyang to the status of principle capital, to maintain a solid power base in the North China Plain. The following two major dynasties in Chinese history, Sui (581–618) and Tang (618–906), continued to use the two sites as their dual capitals, although Changan, now a much larger and formalized city, was the primary capital, which facilitated a balanced control of eastern and western regions. By then population and centre of grain production had moved further east and south-east, a situation which compelled the Tang court later on to move its administrative centre to the eastern city Luoyang. The next Chinese dynasty, Northern Song (960–1126), used Bianliang (modern-day Kaifeng) as its capital, a city further east of Luoyang. Now, well into the North China Plain, Song emperors in Bianliang could assert a direct control over central China and defend it against ‘barbarian’ invasions from the north and, at the same time, secure a better supply of grain and material resources from China’s economic centre, the south-east, known also as the lower Yangtze region or Jiangnan (Figure 1.1). Song China was no longer comparable to the Tang empire in military strength and territorial expanse. Being more defensive, the Song now faced ‘barbarian’ powers that, taking the advantage of the turmoil at the fall of the Tang, had made their incursions into northern regions of central China. The strongest of them was the Liao (937–1125), which rose to power from a nomadic tribe known as Khitan in Manchuria in the north-east. In the early twelfth century, another power rose to prominence from the tribes of Jurchen (later known as Manchu) in the same region. It first conquered the Liao with an alliance of the Northern Song, then turned against the Song, sacked the Song capital Bianliang, conquered much of the North China Plain in 1126, and established a Jin dynasty. The Chinese then had to retreat to the south and 17

A SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY

Figure 1.1 Location of principle capitals in Chinese dynastic history.

established there a smaller country, the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279). This time the capital was Linan (modern-day Hangzhou), which was situated in the lower Yangtze region. Political centre now converged with economic centre, although with a weak defensive posture towards the north. At the same time, central and northern regions were under the control of the Jin until the early thirteenth century. By then a Mongolian empire rose to great prominence in the vast stretch of the Eurasian continent. It conquered the northern powers and the Jin and, in 1279, Southern Song China. The Mongols now occupied the whole of the Chinese land and established the Yuan dynasty, which lasted for nearly a century (1260/1279–1368). In this gradual shift of Chinese political centre towards the east and southeast, a new locus of power emerged: the site of Beijing. Situated on the northern edge of the North China Plain (that is, central China), it was flanked on the north, north-east and north-west by large and continuous mountain ranges, with only a few passes such as Shanhaiguan, Gubeikou and Nankou.1 For centuries people from central China had to pass these few gates to reach the north18

A GEO-POLITICAL PROJECT

east plain of Manchuria, and the vast Mongolian steppes. Similarly, northern tribes had to pass these few points, within the vicinity of Beijing, before they could reach central China. Well known expeditions towards the north-east in the Han and Tang dynasties all used the site of Beijing as their foremost military base. Since the fall of the Tang in the early tenth century, several northern tribes had grown to major powers and had successively conquered the place and the northern regions, then central China, and finally the whole of China (Liao, Jin and Yuan). All of them selected the site of Beijing for their capital cities. The Liao built Nanjing, ‘the southern capital’ (not to be confused with the early Ming capital and modern-day Nanjing shown in Figure 1.1); the Jin, Zhongdu, ‘the central capital’; and the Yuan, Dadu, ‘the grand capital’. For them, this was the strategic point on which their primary political centre was based, which facilitated an easy retreat to home base in the north and north-east, and a direct advance to central and southern China. The site of Beijing, with its natural geographical configuration, turned out to be a strategic centre for contest and control, for both southern and northern forces in the past and, after the midtenth century, for northern powers for their southbound conquest. This situation changed in the mid-fourteenth century, when a new Chinese power rose to dominance from the Yangtze region under the leadership of Zhu Yuanzhang; it expanded in all directions and, in 1368, proclaimed the Ming (‘bright’) dynasty.2 Zhu was now titled ‘the Hongwu Emperor’ (‘vast military power’). In the same year his army captured the Yuan capital Dadu, and much of the northern steppes and Manchuria in the following years, which brought the Yuan empire to an end. This marked a new era in Chinese history. It lasted for more than 500 years until the early twentieth century, with relative stability and unity, under two successive dynasties: the Ming (1368–1644), and then the Qing (1644–1911) which originated from Manchuria and inherited many institutions from the Ming. In a broad historical perspective, after the Qin-Han empire and Sui-TangSong dynasties, the Ming and Qing have been regarded as the ‘Third Empire’.3 The historical significance of the third era, and of the Ming especially, has attracted much attention and discussion.4 Most observe that the Chinese, after centuries of defeat, retreat and gradual loss of their land, had a strong aspiration for a recovery of the territory and a restoration of powerful Chinese rule, as embodied in the thoughts and actions of earlier Ming emperors. Along with this desire to reconstruct a strong empire was a criticism of the laxity and leniency of the Song dynasties, which were culturally liberal and sophisticated but politically and militarily weak. With a strong desire for recovery and selfstrengthening, an absolutist political centralism and a cultural chauvinism surfaced as key characteristics of the Ming and thereafter. In 1380, the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang abolished a 1,500 year-old Chinese tradition of ‘prime-ministership’ (zaixiang zhi), the top level of authority in the entire state office, and thus assumed direct rule over all governmental affairs of the empire, a practice that was followed in the rest of the Ming and Qing history. It produced the most centralized political system the world had ever seen.5 The governing of this empire by one emperor was ‘a vast 19

A SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY

undertaking, grand in its assumptions, and lofty in its professional ideals’.6 It reflected a rather distinctive approach of the Ming in Chinese history. When Zhu Yuanzhang died in 1398, according to the principles of primogeniture, the throne went to Zhu Yunwen, the surviving grandson of the first born. Within a year, Zhu Yuanzhang’s fourth son Zhu Di rebelled. A 3-year war followed (the ‘Jingnan Incident’). In 1402, Zhu Di emerged victorious.7 In the following two decades, Zhu Di, now titled ‘the Yongle Emperor’ (‘perpetual happiness’), proved to be a second strong ruler and a visionary in the building of the Ming empire. He undertook new initiatives in expanding the empire, and projected a China-centric world order in much of inner and maritime Asia.8 He conducted five northern expeditions into the Mongolian steppes, directed southern expeditions into Annam, established diplomatic relations with Inner Asian states and regularized trade with Japan and other maritime neighbours. He initiated seven great maritime expeditions between 1405 and 1433 which, led by a court eunuch Zheng He, reached Ceylon, India, the Persian Gulf and the east coast of Africa (Figure 1.2). They were the greatest maritime explorations in world history at that time, prior to the European voyages of discovery at the end of the fifteenth century.9 The first fleet sailed in 1405–1407, comprising sixty-two large and 255 smaller vessels, carrying 27,870 men, with the use of compass and detailed sailing directions. In an effort to build an orthodox ideology and a cultural leadership, Zhu Di also supervised many projects of classical and literary compilation. The Yongle Dadian, the Great Encyclopaedia of the Yongle Reign, compiled by 2,000 scholars and completed in 1407, included 11,095 volumes with 370 million printed characters, which covered all principle works inherited from previous ages.10 There is a Ming psychology in the projects led by the early Ming emperors: ambitious, visionary and projective, with a coordination of vast social and natural resources, with discipline, rigour and concerns for detail. When Zhu Yuanzhang proclaimed the Ming dynasty in 1368, he selected his Yintian prefecture on the southern bank of the Yangtze River, the military base of his expansion, as the ‘southern capital’: Nanjing (Figure 1.1).11 A ‘northern capital’ was to be built in Bianliang (Kaifeng), which was soon abandoned in favour of another city, Fengyang, Zhu’s home town. The building of a ‘central capital’ in Fengyang also came to a stop in 1375, when the emperor realized that Nanjing was superior to Fengyang in many aspects. Defensive posture of local topography, regional economic prosperity, historical fame and, most importantly, the geo-political centrality of Nanjing as the power base of the Ming court, were the major considerations.12 In 1378, Nanjing was formally declared ‘the capital’, Jingshi.13 This completed the geographical movement of Chinese capitals towards the east and south-east, to converge with the economic centre in the lower Yangtze region. Located on the southern edge of central China, Nanjing now secured the best access to grain and other resources of the south-east, but was distant from the northern border and thus maintained a difficult defensive posture towards the Mongolian steppes and Manchuria beyond the point of Beijing. Zhu Yuanzhang 20

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Source: Frederick W. Mote and Denis Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7, Part 1, 1988, Map 11, p. 234, by permission of Cambridge University Press.

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Figure 1.2 Ming China’s maritime expeditions between 1405 and 1433.

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A SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY

had been concerned about this potential weakness of Nanjing, but felt that in his old age he could do little about it.14 However, a power based on the site of Beijing was growing and, after Zhu’s reign (1398), it reached a point beyond the control of Nanjing, and finally remedied the weakness in Ming’s geographical configuration.15 Thirty years previously, Zhu’s chief general Xu Da sacked the Yuan capital Dadu and led a major offensive against the Mongols in the steppes. As a Ming city, Dadu was named Beiping (‘northern peace’) and was given to Zhu Di to rule and defend. Zhu Di now became the prince of the city and the surrounding region. Aided with strong generals sent from Nanjing, Zhu Di’s attacks on the Mongols were successful. Through this, Zhu Di, with his base in Beiping, became a powerful force at the Ming court. After defeating Zhu Yunwen in 1402, he established his reign Yongle in Nanjing in 1403, and immediately changed the name of his northern city ‘Beiping’ to ‘Beijing’, the ‘northern capital’, and established branch offices of all government ministries there. It was now elevated to the status of the second capital. The prefecture of the city was also changed to Shuntian (‘obedient to heaven’) to echo the prefecture name of Nanjing, Yingtian (‘responsive to heaven’), which gave the northern capital a great symbolic significance. In the following 20 years, Zhu Di slowly and gradually transformed his earlier fief of Beijing into a new and principal capital of the Ming empire, shifted the whole Ming bureaucracy to the north, and reduced Nanjing to the status of secondary capital (Figure 1.1). As the emperor residing in Nanjing, Zhu Di in 1403 sent his crown prince to Beijing to oversee the new branch offices.16 In 1404, he moved 10,000 households from nine prefectures in Shanxi to Beijing to increase the population there. Two years later, 120,000 landless households from the south were resettled in Beijing and the vicinity.17 In 1406 and 1407, preparation for rebuilding city walls and constructing new palaces began; and a great work force of artisans, soldiers and common labourers was recruited from all over the empire. In 1409, he himself moved back to the north and ordered all memorials and documents sent to Beijing, turning it effectively into an administrative centre. He started to oversee the construction closely. In 1411, the northern section of the Grand Canal was reopened. In 1415, the southern section was thoroughly repaired. By now the world’s largest artificial waterway, already constructed during the Yuan dynasty, was thoroughly renovated, which facilitated a direct and efficient transportation of men and materials from the south-east, crossing the whole North China Plain, to the outskirts of Beijing. Massive construction started in 1416. By this time, Zhu Di went back to Nanjing for a full court debate on the construction of a new capital at Beijing, and received a petition reviewing the virtues of Beijing and suggesting him to make it a capital. With this, Zhu went back to Beijing in 1417 and closely supervised the construction of palace compounds, altars, city gates and city walls, which were completed in 1420. On 28 October 1420, Beijing was formally designated the principle capital of the empire.18 Zhu Di thus completed another of his grand projects. Acting effectively as the second founder of the Ming dynasty, he moved the entire central adminis22

A GEO-POLITICAL PROJECT

tration to the other end of central China, and thus redirected the historical geographical trajectory of the Chinese political centre, from south-east to north-east (Figure 1.1). For the first time in history, the capital of a large Chinese empire was constructed on this site, bringing its political centre onto this strategic focal point. It embodied the zenith of the Ming ambition to achieve a strong hegemony within and without central China. Based on several resources, it is possible to trace Zhu Di’s motives and coordination of forces behind this project.19 To select this site for the capital, local conditions were considered to an extent. Mountain ranges to the north and streams of water to the south linking to the Grand Canal were ideal in fengshui terms. The site had ‘a good form of mountains and waters’ (shanchuan xingshen) where ‘the dragon rose to power’ (longxing zidi).20 Despite this appreciation of the form of landscape and its assumed potency (qi), it was in reality a defensive outpost, not a naturally prosperous land that produced grains and attracted population.21 The power of this location resided in its position in a geo-political configuration larger than the local environment. The central mechanism of Zhu Di’s project lies in a link between the person and the state, more specifically, between the personal power interest of Zhu Di and the overall geographical configuration of the Ming state. That the two coincided was really the fortune of Ming China. Beijing was Zhu Di’s personal power base. At the same time it had been the frontier of the Ming for expeditions against the Mongols, the largest external threat to the Chinese empire. By moving the capital to Beijing, Zhu Di could consolidate his own reign much better than in Nanjing and, at the same time, fulfil what his father could not achieve in his old age, and remedy the weakness of the southern capital, a largescale problem in the overall configuration of the empire. By stationing the political centre of the empire onto this strategic site of Beijing, he was able to move outward and attack the north, the north-east and the north-west, and defend the south with the mountain ranges, the few passes and the boundaries of the Great Wall. To the south, with the large plain lying open, he could reach and control with ease the whole of central China and the southern regions. Most importantly, the reopening of the Grand Canal facilitated his direct access to the material resources of China’s economic centre, the south-east. The geo-political posture of the Ming reversed that of the Liao, Jin and Yuan in a spatial direction: while the nomadic powers used Beijing as a springboard for their southward conquest, the Chinese Ming used it for its northward offence and expansion. Both, however, confirmed the same strategic importance of the site of Beijing in an abstract diagram of power relations: a focal point upon which northern and southern spaces may be balanced under one authority. Considering what Zhu Di had been pursuing in other surrounding and distant inland states and maritime neighbours, this Beijing-centred geopolitical configuration of the empire also attained a global dimension beyond that of the earlier dynasties. From here, as Zhu Di said, ‘the monarch rules Chinese and barbarians’ (junzhu huayi) and ‘supervises peoples all under heaven’ (kongshiyi yi zi tianxia).22 There was however a change from expansive to defensive policy in Ming’s 23

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military approach to the Mongols.23 Zhu Di’s expeditions, although gaining temporary victories, did not destroy the Mongol hordes nor restrain their incursions over the northern borders. On the other hand, the expeditions accumulated a high cost to the Ming. Its army was also demoralized and exhausted. After Zhu Di’s death in 1424, no more punitive expeditions were launched. In the following decades, Ming defence relied more on army units stationed on strategic points along the Great Wall and the natural defensive mountain ranges to the north, north-east and mostly the north-west of Beijing.24 Sections of the Great Wall were repaired and made wider and higher. Passes were carefully guarded. Garrisons were stationed on the walls at regular intervals and communications maintained by a system of signal towers that used fire and explosive charges to relay alarms. A new section of wall were built west of Beijing which created two lines of defence, with army units stationed between them and in the vicinity of Beijing (Figures 1.3 and 1.4). The exposure of the Beijing region to the southward attacks by the Mongols, which intensified after Zhu Di’s reign, and the construction and expansion of the Great Wall between the mid-fifteenth and mid-sixteenth centuries, further testified the strategic importance of this location for central China.25 The reopening and the continuing use of the Grand Canal, on the other hand, in supplying material resources to support the defence and the functioning of the capital, also confirmed this strategic importance (Figure 1.5). In responding and confirming the potency of the site of Beijing, these two man-made constructions, a northern boundary and a southern artery, enhanced the strategic

Figure 1.3 Sections of the Great Wall constructed after the 1420s. Source: Lin Zhu (comp.) Zhongguo Jianzhushi Ziliaoji, 1986, Tsinghua University, Beijing.

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Shanxi Administrative centre of border garrisons, with dates of their official assignment to border garrison status Great Wall sections, with dates indicating general period of construction Early Ming frontier (approximate line)

Figure 1.4 Northern border garrisons and sections of the Great Wall built after the 1420s. Source: Frederick W. Mote and Denis Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7, Part 1, 1988, Map 19, p. 390, by permission of Cambridge University Press.

centrality of the site, depicting a map of relations among military, political and economic forces of the site. This political and economic geography of Beijing remained largely intact for the following five centuries, under the Ming and the Qing. In 1644, the Manchurian Qing court inherited and maintained the same capital, and the same government institutions. Although its military posture was southbound in orientation like the earlier northern powers, the Qing employed and reinforced the same geo-political centrality of Beijing. Based on the history of early Ming China, and of the rise of Beijing through the Yongle Emperor Zhu Di from 1402 to 1420, we can now make these observations. 1

2

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As embodied in the thoughts and actions of the emperor, the development of the capital city reflected a priority of the political and strategic interest of the state. This projection of the interest of the state was part of a Chinese resurgence in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century after centuries of weakness and retreat towards the south-east. This resurgence involved the rise of the most centralized state in Chinese history, a reclaiming of central China, and a northward projection of its political centre. The siting of the capital on the northern border was a result of a large-scale geo-political deployment, in the formation of a better configuration of the empire. In 25

Figure 1.5 The Grand Canal reopened by 1415. Source: Frederick W. Mote and Denis Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7, Part 1, 1988, Map 14, p. 2513, by permission of Cambridge University Press.

A GEO-POLITICAL PROJECT

4

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this process, local positioning was linked to an overall dispositioning. The city became a constitutive part of a larger political and strategic map of the state. The genesis of the Chinese capital city therefore contained a strong artificial intention, imposed from a total and totalitarian designation of the state. In this process of selecting and forming the city, primary consideration was given not to the local conditions of the site, but to the structural superiority of the site in the larger configuration of the state. In constructing the site into the capital city, massive social and material resources were coordinated under the unified and systematic command of the state, which was capable of reforming the site and its local conditions: expanding the demography, strengthening the defensive form of the mountains with the walls, and compensating the weakness of the local economy by opening up the waterway. A new topography, a geo-architecture, was created. It involved the Wall, the Canal, the capital city, and its social, economic and demographic components. Spatial geographical profile of a location, including local form and its position on the larger map, was a source of strategic power, which was identified and exploited by the state. In this process, the artificial re-construction of the site, with the new geo-architecture created, further enhanced the power of a spatial and geographical form.

27

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A classical tradition When the Ming forces sacked Dadu in 1368, general Xu Da measured and repaired parts of the old city wall. He abandoned a northern portion of the city by building a new wall some five li south of the old northern wall. This reduced the exposure of the wall to the north and helped strengthen his defences.1 Xu Da soon moved on to confront the Mongols in the north and west, and left to his subordinate general Hua Yuanlong the task of defending and rebuilding the city. In the following years, Hua modified the Yuan palace and turned it into a new residence for Zhu Di. In 1403, when the city was named ‘Beijing’, preparation for a massive construction started. From 1416 onwards, the building of the palace complex and sub-urban altars was directed by the court eunuch Cheng Gui and the chief builder Ruan An, with emperor Zhu Di himself overlooking the project closely.2 Centring on the same axis of Yuan Dadu, but modelled on the design of Ming Nanjing, the new palace complex was more organized in a symmetrical manner, and was larger, with extensions towards north, east and south. The southern city wall was extended one li for a longer approach to the palace on an axial way. Two large sub-urban altars were constructed to the south of the city, on the two sides of the axis. Although these projects were completed in 1420 and the city formally assumed the status and the functioning of a capital, significant construction work continued. A few months after their initial use, a fire destroyed three audience halls in the palace complex, and a debate soon followed on the merit of the city as a capital. The issue was not settled until 1436, when Emperor Zhengtong (Zhu Qizhen) decided to adhere to Zhu Di’s original intention.3 That year, he delegated Ruan An and ministers Wu Zhong and Shen Qing to the task of rebuilding the entire city wall, which included the addition of gate towers and corner towers. After that, they rebuilt the three audience halls, and two residential palaces behind, in 1440 and 1441 (which were titled fengtian, huagai, jinshen, qianqing and kunning respectively). On 14 November 1441, Emperor Zhengtong declared Beijing the permanent capital. About 100 years later, under Emperor Jiajing (Zhu Houcong), new additions were made. After a court debate on the importance of discrete sacrifices to Heaven, the Earth, the Sun and the Moon, the emperor ordered to offer separ28

CITY PLAN AS IDEOLOGY

ate worship to the gods, and three new sub-urban altars were constructed in 1530.4 They were the Altar of the Earth, of the Son and of the Moon, located to the north, east and west of the city respectively, a pattern which added a new layer of formality and symbolic significance to the whole city plan. Jiajing also added other structures, including a new building Daxiang Dian, ‘temple of the greatest offering’, inside the Altar of Heaven complex, which was later rebuilt in the Qing dynasty by Emperor Qianlong (r. 1736–1795) and renamed Qinian Dian, ‘temple for yearly harvest’. In the face of increasing threat from the Mongols, new sections of the Great Wall west of Beijing were constructed in the 1540s and 1550s.5 A new city wall, encircling Beijing, was proposed. This was not materialized due to the lack of funds and labour force. Instead, only a section of the wall was built in 1553, encircling the southern outskirts of Beijing, which had by then developed into a densely populated area with streets of busy commercial life. This new southern city, now called the Outer City, also included in its territory the two large altar complexes built before. At this point, Beijing reached its final form. The remaining Ming and Qing emperors in the following 350 years made numerous contributions of individual buildings, but offered no significant change to the layout of the city as a whole. What emerged from the effort of Emperors Yongle (Zhu Di), Zhengtong and Jiajing, from 1420 to 1553, was one of the largest and most rigidly planned capital cities in Chinese history. It was also the last attempt to build such a city in imperial China. In the resurgence of a vigorous Ming China in the late fourteen and early fifteenth centuries, the city layout reflected a grand and ambitious design, and a renewal of a classical tradition originated from antiquity. Beijing displays a centrality and a symmetry in its overall composition (Figure 2.1).6 A 7,500 metre-long axis, running from north to south through the city, is the strongest organizing element of the whole plan. An east–west axis intersects this main axis, defining the centre of Beijing. This centre is further defined locally by a rigidly symmetrical layout of palaces and, at a larger scale, by a concentric layout of orthogonal ‘cities’ of Beijing. They were, from inside out, Palace City (or Purple Forbidden City), Imperial City and Capital City (i.e. gongcheng or zijincheng, huangcheng and ducheng). The first was a city of palaces for the emperor and the royal family. The second was an extension of the first, and included royal gardens, altars, palaces for princes, eunuch offices, workshops and warehouses. The third, the largest enclosure in a square shape, measuring 5,350 by 6,650 metres, was the capital city proper. It enclosed government ministries, residences of royal nobles and high officials, and all other urban population and urban functions. Attached to the southern wall of the Capital City was the Outer City, which enclosed the most vibrant commercial area of the capital, with a large population of merchants and artisans. Spaces reserved for the emperor, the court and the government dominated the city and together defined a symmetrical pattern of key structures. The large palace ensemble, included in the Palace and Imperial City, claimed not only the centre of the city, but also its southern, frontal areas, extending its axial way to the central gate of the Capital City (Figures 2.1 and 2.2). Sacrificial sites for 29

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Figure 2.1 Plan of Beijing in the Ming and Qing dynasties (1553–1750). Source: Adapted from Liu Dunzhen, Zhongguo Gudai Jianzhushi, Beijing: Zhongguo Jianzhu Gongye Chubanshe, 1980, Fig. 153-2, p. 280.

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Figure 2.2 Plan of the Forbidden City and its immediate surroundings. Source: Adapted from Liu Dunzhen, Zhongguo Gudai Jianzhushi, Beijing: Zhongguo Jianzhu Gongye Chubanshe, 1980, Fig. 153-5, pp. 282–3.

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the imperial court included, on the two sides of the axis in southern Imperial City, a Temple of Ancestors (taimiao) to the east and an Altar of Land and Grain (shejitan) to the west. Following the axis southward, in the Outer City, there were to the east and west two large sacrificial enclosures, Altar of Heaven (tiantan) and Altar of Mountains and Rivers (shanchuantan, which was later changed to Altar of Agriculture, xiannongtan). Other sacrificial sites, added by Emperor Jiajing, as mentioned, were the Altar of the Earth, the Son and the Moon, to the north, east and west of the Capital City. Most government offices, including the ministries and major boards and bureaus, were located on the two sides of the axis in the southern-central areas in the Capital City. There were however more such state offices in the east. These government offices were kept close to, although outside, the Palace and Imperial City. Scholars in Chinese planning history have pointed out that this grand construction in early Ming China was an attempt, for the last time in history, to continue a long planning tradition, which was based on a classical cosmology and a symbolic layout outlined in Zhou Li, ‘The rites of Zhou dynasty’.7 Although the origin of this classic is still unclear, it is agreed that the text as we know it now was rediscovered and rearranged in the late Western Han dynasty (202 BC–AD 9).8 Since the content of the book was in full support of a new Confucian ideology developed by the Han emperors and scholars, one would look at the text in its re-structured form, as a Han synthesis of the earlier traditions.9 In other words, Zhou Li can be analysed, for its ideological content, as a product of the intellectual endeavour of Han dynasty. The section of Zhou Li architectural historians have all referred to is Kaogongji, ‘Records of construction’, in which one finds the earliest articulation of a city planning theory in the Chinese classics (Figure 2.3). It says: The capital city shall be a square with each side nine li long and containing three gates. In the city, there shall be nine north-south and nine east–west streets. The north–south streets shall accommodate nine chariot-ways. Together they form a chessboard street pattern. On the left (east) of the city there shall be a Temple of Ancestors and on the right (west) an Altar of Land and Grain. In the front (south) there shall stand the emperor’s audience halls and government ministries, in the rear (north) markets shall be located.10 There are debates on how much actual capital cities were influenced by this theory.11 Some read and analysed the text closely, offered detailed geometrical plans, and argued that capital cities did follow the description. Some disagreed: they pointed out discrepancies between this model and the real cities, and suggested that in reality new capital cities were built on specific land and social conditions, without dogmatic application of the ancient model. Although both offered valuable insights to the problem, the question as to how close the cities were to the exact descriptions of this text seems misleading. Similarity and difference is a relative issue and the argument may not lead much further. A new approach is needed which views the text in terms of: 32

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Figure 2.3 An interpretation of Kaogongji’s planning theory of an imperial capital.

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an abstract and relational pattern of disposition and configuration, not a precise, metrical, numerical and positional geometry; and intentions in an ideological and historical context.

If one adopts this approach, the model indeed appears pertinent. In this intentional configuration, the square-ness, the numerical series based on number three, the orthogonal structure in relation to the four cardinal points, the implied domination of the north–south over the east–west orientation, the relative positioning regarding front and back, left and right, the importance of the southern front for the emperor’s position, the implied two axes, the suggested but not specified centre, are the basic elements of an abstract pattern of this model. Other descriptions appear changeable and secondary: the length of the wall, the exact number of gates on each side, the number of streets in either 33

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direction, the width of the streets, the layers of walls, the disposition of zones and enclosures, and the specific position of certain functions, such as the market in relation to the palace. Beijing, although not following all the specific descriptions, does follow the abstract and relational configuration of the model. The square-ness, the three gates on the southern front of the Capital City and the symmetrical positioning of the gates and courtyards in this frontal area, the assertive orthogonal structure in relation to the four cardinal points, the use of axes, the domination of the north–south axis, the articulation of the centre, and the elaboration of the southern front of the centre, were eminent in Beijing. The positioning of sacrificial sites for Ancestors, and for Land and Grain, was the only specific prescription closely followed in Beijing, and in fact in most other capital cities.12 It represented a close application of one aspect of the ancient model. However, it was the abstract ordering of spatial relations of the city that projected the classical tradition in a totality.13 A new reading of Kaogongji should also consider intentions behind this configuration. This necessitates a search beyond the descriptions in that paragraph, to look for an underlying ideology and its relation to the configuration of the city plan. Elsewhere Zhou Li says: It is the sovereign alone who establishes the states of the empire, gives to the four quarters their proper positions, gives to the capital its form and to the fields their proper divisions. He creates the offices and apportions their functions in order to form a centre to which people may look.14 In other words, the emperor is the architect who shapes the human world in the form of an empire and an imperial system, and defines a spatial order with the two cardinal axes and a hierarchy of the offices, the capital and the fields, that is, a hierarchy of centre and periphery and, ultimately, the absolute centre. This is a spatial, physical design of the city and the land, which represents and sustains a social and political order. But, beyond that, it also attains a cosmological meaning. Zhou Li also says: Here, where Heaven and Earth are in perfect accord, where the four seasons come together, where the winds and the rains gather, where the forces of Yin and Yang are harmonized, one builds a royal capital. In other words, the capital of the empire is not only a social political centre but also a pivotal point that mediates and unifies the cosmos and the human world, sustaining a grand harmony of an entire universe. Zhou Li therefore offers not only a description of what a capital city should be, but also an ideology of kingship with a spatial diagram of the centre, the capital, the empire and the cosmos. Behind these ideas, if we look further, is a Confucian theory that, as imperial ideology, was promoted at the Han court.15 34

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Based on a synthesis of earlier philosophies, ideologues of the Han court (202 BC–AD 9) developed a theory of the universe, and of positions of heaven, humans and the Chinese imperial system in it. This was developed largely by a court academician Dong Zhongshu (c. 179–104 BC), an expert on the early Confucian classic Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn Annals), and whose work was supported and promoted by Emperor Wudi (r. 141–87 BC).16 Articulated in his book Chunqiu Fanlu or Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals, Dong’s theory was a synthesis of Yin-Yang cosmology and Confucianism, a universalist theory of nature and a moralist theory of human conduct and humanity: a synthesis based on an assumption of an interactive harmony between humans and nature. In this theory, tian (heaven, cosmos, nature) contains yin and yang forces, the interaction of which produces five agencies that are successively affirmative and negative: wood, fire, earth, metal, water. Yin-yang interaction and the continuous alternation of the five agencies produce a circulating, temporal and spatial order (the four seasons, the four orientations and the centre), and all other events and entities of the universe. The endless flow of nature gives birth to and nurtures humans. Humans are part of nature and follow, in a fundamental sense, the ways (dao) of heaven. As suggested by early Confucian teaching, these ways of heaven in humanity include: ren (love and humane-ness), yi (moral imperative and righteousness), li (ritual and culture) and yue (musical harmony). Human nature contains basic goodness, but that does not bring about good conduct and a good society in itself. Cultivation and education are therefore important, and the king is there to ensure this, to fulfil the natural goodness and the ways of heaven. Dong says: Heaven has established mankind with natures containing basic goodness but unable to be good in themselves. Therefore it has established kingship to make them good. This is heaven’s intention.17 Heaven therefore passes its mandate to the king to rule humans: The king respectfully carries forward the purpose of heaven above, and conforms to its decree and mandate.18 With this the king also models himself on the ways and principles of heaven. The king governs humans just like heaven coordinates the universe. The king’s imperial system resembles the cosmos, and his centrality on earth mirrors that of heaven above. He uses four approaches (beneficence, rewards, punishments and executions) just like heaven’s deployment of four seasons and four orientations. His social world is composed of Yin-Yang differentiation manifested in the three archetypal hierarchies, that of king–minister, husband–wife, father–son. His moral order is based on five agencies, as reflected in the five ways of human virtues: ren (humane-ness), yi (righteousness), li (ritual and culture), zhi (wisdom), xin (faith). (Human virtues had been articulated in many different ways, although ren is always the central theme). When Zhou Li and Dong Zhongshu’s Confucian philosophy are read 35

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together as one theoretical development of the Han dynasty, one can identify the following characteristics. 1

2 3

4

5

6

This Han theory represents a holistic worldview of man and nature in their mutual interaction. With this interaction, the theory of a good human society attains an organic, naturalist and cosmological basis. In this basis is a universal moralism which sanctions a moral rightness for the kingship and the hierarchical order the king establishes. Following this way of theorization, the holistic worldview gives rise to a sense of totality of everything, including that of the imperial system: in other words, it leads to a political absolutism. There is a centralism in this theory of the throne, the capital and the empire. The monarch not only resides and rules at the centre, he establishes and embodies the centre: he is the centre, the ultimate contact point between humans and nature, the earth and heaven. This ideological centralism is then embodied in a spatial centralism, a spatial hierarchical order based on an articulated centrality, marked and constructed in the form of the palace and the capital city. In this embodiment of theory in spatial construction, a theoretical diagram plays a pivotal role. In abstract terms, the theory already involves a diagram, a conceptual-spatial disposition of heaven, the earth and humans, with the sovereign as the centre. In mapping this onto a geographical surface, a clearer configuration arises. The centre, the two axes, the four quarters and the hierarchical order emerge as basic constitutive elements of the archetypal configuration, the core of the ideal city described in Kaogongji.

Translating the Confucian ideology into the form of a capital city, this theoretical diagram implies three totalities. The holistic world is the first totality. Under one sovereign, the human social world, in the form of the imperial system, is another totality. When humans are following the ways of the universe, the first totality necessitates the second. There is then a third totality: the form of the city. As the seat of the sovereign at the centre of the empire, who builds the total imperial system under the totality of heaven, the spatial form of the capital also requires a grand and complete totality. ‘Heaven’, ‘Earth’, and the sovereign’s capital city: their orders naturally accord to each other, and the totalitarian composition of one implies that of the other. A Chinese capital city therefore should adopt a thorough and complete spatial order, with one centre and one hierarchical disposition. As later history testifies, Han Confucian theory was followed closely and became the predominant imperial ideology of all subsequent dynasties. Their capitals, although different from each other in specific form and in positioning of certain functions, shared an underlying configuration, which can be traced to the theoretical diagram of Han Confucianism. In the early fifteenth century, with the resurgence of political power and a revival of classical culture, the Ming court built a new Chinese empire amidst the development of a NeoConfucianism initiated in the Song dynasty. The Ming orthodox ideology, 36

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consciously developed by Emperor Yongle (Zhu Di), closely followed a rationalist development of Confucian learning.19 Beijing, in this historical context, assumes not only a representation of the classical tradition, but also a new layer of ideological discourse.

Neo-Confucianism Initiated by scholars in the late Tang dynasty (618–906) and thoroughly developed in the Song (960–1279), Neo-Confucianism combined disparate philosophical traditions including Yin-Yang cosmology and Buddhism into Confucian learning, and developed a metaphysical theory of ethics, human nature and personal cultivation. The concrete and eminent result of the new learning was a promotion of four ancient texts as Confucian classics (the Four Books, including Great Learning, Doctrine of the Mean, Analects of Confucius and Works of Mencius), and a development of comprehensive commentaries on them. Zhu Xi (1130–1200) was the main figure who contributed most to this, and he was revered as the intellectual authority of the new Confucian learning. Since the Han dynasty, the promotion of Confucianism as imperial ideology and moral orthodoxy involved a nomination of Confucian texts as the basis of a nation-wide examination for recruiting officials, and as primary material for education at schools. Following this tradition, the Yuan court (1260–1368) in 1313 canonized Zhu Xi’s compilation of the Four Books as standard texts for the examination.20 In the same vein, the first Ming emperor Zhu Yuanzhang in 1384 restored the examination system and the status of Zhu Xi’s Four Books.21 The next emperor Zhu Di was more active in promoting Neo-Confucianism. An ambitious emperor who altered the geo-political map of the empire, Zhu Di was also concerned with his role and image as a Confucian ruler, and a patron and teacher of Confucian learning. In the twenty busy years of his reign, between many of his grand projects including the building of Beijing, Zhu Di actively promoted Song Confucianism as orthodox ideology.22 He prescribed the commentaries of Zhu Xi and other Song scholars as standard texts for the examination in 1404. He wrote in 1409 a famous essay Shengxue Xinfa (On the cultivation of mind-heart in the sage’s learning), articulating his vision of a sage ruler and of moral cultivation for all his subjects. In 1414 he ordered the compilation of Zhu Xi and other Song scholars’ commentaries and writings on human nature, which was published in 1417 as Wujing Sishu Daquan (Great compendium of the five classics and the four books) and Xingli Daquan (Great compendium of the philosophy of human nature). To secure his position as a Confucian ruler concerned with scholarship, he had also ordered many largescale compilations, which resulted in the production of some of the largest books in Chinese history, such as the eminent Yongle Dadian (Great encyclopaedia of the Yongle reign), as completed in 1407. As an ‘author’ of all these projects in the two critical decades of his reign, Zhu Di inserted his intention and personal character in these projects. There was above all an ambitious vision of a new and restored Chinese empire. There was a resolute determination, and a dynamic approach that coordinated resources, to 37

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realize these grand projects. Underlying all that, there was also a rigour, a rationalism, in political affairs and in the ideas promoted in theoretical and moral discourses. One can identify two sides to his overall effort: an ‘external’ work in strategic expansion, geo-political repositioning and bureaucratic centralization; and an ‘internal’ work in cultivating an intellectual culture and an imperial ideology, in his own writings and the compilation of classics, Song treatises and encyclopaedias. The political rationalism of the first and the rigorous moralist Confucian values promoted in the second were mutually supportive, and correlated with each other. They represented the vision of the emperor and an overall outlook in the historical and intellectual framework of the early fifteenth century. Beijing as one of Zhu Di’s products stood between the ‘external’ political work and the ‘internal’ ideological effort. Being a complex product, it exists simultaneously in several of the emperor’s endeavours. It was part of the geopolitical effort, part of the centralist state institution and, in terms of formal, symbolic representation, part of the ideological effort. All these, in turn, were inevitably reflected and accommodated in the capital city. This overall imperial system, political as well as theoretical, developed in early Ming and crystallized in Beijing in 1420 (with some additions up to 1553), was maintained for the rest of imperial history until 1911. Song Neo-Confucianism was always upheld as imperial orthodoxy for moral teaching and theoretical discourse.23 In fact, Zhu Xi’s commentaries were enshrined as standard texts for examinations for the entire history of late imperial China, from 1313 to 1905.24 At the same time, parallel to this ideological stability was the stability of state institution, patterns of social life and the physical spatial form of Beijing. Over such a long historical time, the relations between them must have grown stronger, forming a consolidated web that strengthened the overall fabric of the city. The argument is that Neo-Confucianism, a new form of imperial ideology upheld by the founding emperor of Beijing, and by all the subsequent emperors of the Ming and Qing, must have left significant traces in the form and the use of Beijing.25 Before looking more closely at the interrelationship between ideology and the layout of Beijing, let us review briefly this ideology. The word ‘Neo-Confucianism’ is in fact a modern Western invention. It refers broadly to the whole orthodox intellectual development of late imperial China, but also specifically to the initial and central stream of this development, the Learning of the Way or Daoxue as it was originated from the Song. Daoxue concerned itself with a comprehensive and systematic reinterpretation of classical Confucian moral philosophy as in the works of Confucius, Mencius and other masters.26 Its major work was a metaphysical theorization of Mencius’ idealist interpretation of human nature. The metaphysical notions in Neo-Confucianism, on the other hand, were derived from the classical Yin-Yang cosmology and Confucian scholars’ interpretations attached to the book Yi Jing (Book of Changes), which offered ideas of universal principle and notions of reason. Neo-Confucianism was also influenced by Mahayana Buddhism and its Madhyamika and Chan (Zen) schools, bringing into the new learning a rich stream of notions on ‘mind’ and ‘nature’, and methods of metaphysical abstraction. NeoConfucianism’s relation with Dong Zhongshu’s work at the Han court was not 38

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clear: without borrowing directly from Dong Zhongshu, it nevertheless redeveloped a cosmological ethics that supported the position of the sage ruler, in a more sophisticated form of articulation. Neo-Confucianism inherited the essentials of the moral teachings of Confucius and Mencius, and Dong’s ethical political theory, although its framework was more broadly based, and its conceptualization more subtle and abstract. Early Confucian scholars used notions of dao (the way) in expanding the principles displayed in the diagrams of Yin-Yang cosmology in the Yi Jing. Referring to a rational and nameable principle in natural and human realities, this Confucian dao is different from that in Daoism in the works of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi (who employed this word for an unnameable oneness and nothingness). In the Confucian tradition, rectification of name, that is, assuring correct behaviour according to one’s position, is essential. To rectify morality and conduct is to ensure the Confucian way be properly established and followed. In the late Tang dynasty, scholars complained of the loss of the Tradition of the Way (daotong) and called for a new study of Confucianism, a new Learning of the Way or Daoxue. In the following Song dynasty, Daoxue finally achieved a substantial development in the works of Chen Hao (1032–1085) and Chen Yi (1033–1108), who each respectively initiated an idealist and a rationalist line of thought in the following centuries. Along the idealist line, Chen Hou developed the crucial Confucian notion ren (love and humane-ness) into a metaphysical concept, suggesting that ren is a union of man with the universe, which also implies that there is a humane-ness in all things in the universe. This was followed by Lu Jiuyuan’s (1139–1193) proposition that the universe is my mind and my mind is the universe. In the late Ming dynasty, Wang Shouren (Wang Yangming, 1473–1529) arrived at an extreme point of this line of thinking, in his thesis that mind is nature and reason, and in his summary of the whole teaching of human cultivation (for the person, the family, the state and the world as expressed in the classic Great Learning), in terms of ‘reaching the inner moral conscientiousness’ (zhi liang zhi), which exists in all individuals. On the rationalist line, Chen Yi worked on the notion of dao as laws and principles of the universe, and developed the notion of li as metaphysical reason or principle, at an abstract level above matter and substance of all things. Zhu Xi, following Chen Yi’s concept of li, established a comprehensive interpretation of Confucian moral philosophy and offered substantial commentaries on Confucian classics. In the late Song dynasty, it was the Chen-Zhu school of thought that was most influential in academic circles, and was promoted in the following Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties as imperial orthodoxy (known as Chen Zhu Lixue or Song Ming Lixue). In the late Ming, when Zhu Xi’s rationalist school was firmly established in the official circle, the idealist and intuitive thought of Wang Shouren became influential among scholars, who often used this as a basis to critique the rationalist orthodoxy. However, for the imperial court and the standard examination, the position of Zhu Xi remained unchallenged. Zhu Xi’s central concept is li, often translated as ‘principle’ and ‘reason’.27 Li is metaphysical, above the world of matter. Li is also concrete, existing in all specific 39

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things and events. The totality of li is a ‘supreme ultimate’ (taiji), which is also an ‘ultimate nothingness’(wuji). Li or reason exists in all things in their concrete form, but also exists in the supreme ultimate, just as the moon exists in all infinite reflections in lakes, rivers and oceans but also exists out there in itself (yuyin wanchuan). Li as reason is also referred to as dao (in the Confucian sense). While there is li in the metaphysical world, there is also qi (air, ether, energy, flow) in the physical world. While li informs the metaphysical world with xing (nature, properties), qi informs the physical world with concrete shapes and forms. The relationship between li and qi, between abstract principle and material flow, is a focus of attention and debate. Zhu Xi emphasized the interdependence between the two: one cannot exist without the other. On the process of cosmogony, Zhu Xi says that active principles inform active material flow which creates Yang, while passive principles inform passive flow which creates Yin. Yin and Yang interact and create Five Agencies which in turn produce the ten thousand things. On human nature, Zhu Xi says there is also li (principle) and xing (nature and properties) in human beings. Human nature, or li and xing within humans, is fundamentally good. The endowment of qi (air, flow, material qualities), however, is different, which makes difference in character and conduct in actual persons. The sage is one who has pure endowment which reveals inner xing and the fundamental good. The unwise and unkind are those that have impure endowment which covers the inner good. This inner xing, as the fundamental and metaphysical good, is ren, love, kindness and humane-ness, the central concept of Confucian teaching. In saying that li and xing in humanity is ren, Zhu Xi’s theory reaches an absolute definition of his outlook: human nature is kindness, is humane-ness. On political theory, Zhu Xi says that there is also li in governing the state. This is li of the sage ruler, the Way of the Sage Ruler, which is rulership based on the inner good, humane-ness and benevolence. Zhu Xi here follows Mencius’ moral idealism on the inner good, and on separation between the Way of the Sage Ruler and that of the Powerful Ruler, between wangdao and badao. Mencius says that the former uses virtue to exercise kindness whereas the latter uses power to exercise false kindness. Song scholars including Zhu Xi all suggested that, during their time, the Way of the Sage Ruler was lost, as was the tradition of the Confucian Way, and, it was time to re-establish the tradition. What Zhu Xi and other Song scholars had created in effect was a metaphysical and ontological articulation of Mencius’ classical thesis. The consequence of this argument, for the theory of human nature and that of political philosophy, is an approach to cultivation for everyone and for the emperor. In Zhu Xi’s system, cultivation is a process of purifying qi (air and material qualities), to reveal the inner good and humane-ness, so as to become a sage, whether as an ordinary person or as an emperor. Zhu Xi advocates two inseparable paths of cultivation: ‘investigation of things’ and ‘exercise of reverence’, the first for knowing the reasons and principles of things, the second for an enlightenment to see inner nature as good and humane. With them, a human being will be able to see the supreme ultimate, the rational and the humane. For the emperor, this is the way of cultivation that will enable him to become a sage ruler. 40

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Moral idealism in Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucian theory, for the sage’s rulership at the court, had a certain difficulty in conceptual articulation as well as in practical reality. This difficulty centred on a tension between moral idealism and political realism, between the aspiration to uphold the ideal of humane-ness and the need to use resources and power in reality. In Chinese philosophical terms, it was a question of a relationship between li (principle) and shi (propensity in the flow of reality), which was regarded as an extension of the relationship between li (principle) and qi (material flow). Later Neo-Confucian scholars such as Wang Fuzhi (1619–1690) offered a subtle and complex articulation on the inextricable relations between li and shi, between moral idealism and political realism.28 In Zhu Xi’s theory, the li-qi dialectic already opened a path to this later development. In reality, and in political practice of the imperial court especially, this was always a problem and had been dealt with in a difficult synthesis of the two approaches, as manifested in the simultaneous use of Confucianism and Legalism, an expressive moral idealism and a latent theory of power practice (we will explore Legalist ideas and the practice of power later in the book). How is this theory, as imperial ideology, related to the spatial arrangement and formal layout of Beijing? Two aspects can be identified: an intentional projection of the ideal of a sage rulership (wangdao) on the formal plan of the city; and an inevitable synthesis of sage and powerful rulership (wangdao and badao), of li and shi, of a formal representation and an actual spatial practice. A formal representation of wangdao That the emperor should be a sage ruler, and all humans should follow him and follow the ways of Heaven and cultivate themselves as sages, were the core content of Han and Song Confucianism. Its implications for Beijing was pervasive in all spheres of social life in real space and ideological discourse in formal representation. For social practice in space, the most eminent systems included the nation-wide examination based on Confucian classics. A twice-monthly reciting of Sacred Edicts on Confucian ethics in all cities, towns and villages, was another significant practice for imparting orthodox values to the population. The formation of neighbourhood-units across the cities and countryside, for moral supervision and practical control, was another most eminent system (which will be explored in the next chapter). For the emperor, there was also an institutionalization of Confucian values at the court, which helped cultivate an ideal sage ruler in every emperor. The complex rules and codes at the court imposed a frame of correct behaviour for all including the emperor himself. His daily life was closely observed and recorded, and systematically compiled in the imperial archive (qijuzhu). There was a system of remonstration by officials and scholars to the emperor (jinjian). There was also a programme of regular lectures on Confucian classics delivered by scholars to the emperor. The emperors themselves, on the other hand, participated in these discursive practices. They were, at least superficially, active in cultivating their own role and image as a Confucian sage ruler, through their own Imperial Edicts and other writings, as well as their own studies. Qing emperor Kangxi is often revered as a sage 41

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ruler. He is certainly among the most eminent in pursuing a disciplined self-cultivation and in his life-long enquiry on Song Confucianism (Figure 2.4).29 These practices, however, were already programmed into social institutions. They were no longer ideology in an internal or semantic sense. Their spatial patterns were also scattered and dispersed. A direct relationship between ideology and the city resides most directly and clearly, as explored above, in a symbolic representation on the plan of the city as a whole. As said, Beijing, as a product of the early Ming emperors, represented the core values of Confucian ideology developed from the Han, in the intellectual milieu of Neo-Confucian discourse strongly promoted by the emperors. The new and the old Confucian ideologies overlapped closely at this juncture, on the layout of the city. Zhu Di’s projection of Neo-Confucian ideas was in the frame of the classical planning model. However, beyond that, elements developed in the new historical context were also added. The new contribution resides, one could argue, in the particular articulation of the Chen-Zhu school of Song Confucianism. Ideas of universal reason, and a rigorous rationalism in moral cultivation and political governance, lend a particular emphasis on a total and totalitarian composition of the whole city. If this tendency was already there in the classical tradition, then in the ideological climate of the early fifteenth century, it was pushed much further. A stronger determination, to project the sacred position of the sage ruler and a total domination of this position in the city, was very obvious on the city plan, and was carried out to an extreme point previously unseen in Chinese history. The large complex at the centre, the uncompromising assertion of the axis over almost the entire city, and, in association with that, the relentless projection of an imposing image of a gate and a palace along the axial way, testify to this rather clearly. The ideal image of the sage ruler, sacred and dignified, is well represented, and embodied, in this symbolic form (Figures 2.1, 2.2 and 8.4, 8.5). A synthesis of wangdao and badao, of li and shi, of a formal representation and a spatial practice Zhu Di in his Shengxue Xinfa made it clear that as he was to follow strict disciplines of moral cultivation as a sage ruler, his ministers were also expected to follow, and to assist the emperor loyally, and all his subjects were to follow the Confucian teaching of proper conduct according to their proper position.30 In making himself a sage ruler, Zhu Di was asserting a perfect hierarchy where he was, and ought to be, at the top, which affirmed the totalitarian and authoritarian system of the state. Moral idealism offered a rationalization of the state, which leads to a political realism. Further, the idea of li as principle and reason, lent a spirit and attitude of rigour to all things carried out by the imperial court, which added a quality of severity to the exercise of authority, as best manifested in the first Ming emperor Hongwu (Zhu Yuanzhang) and the Qing Emperor Yongzheng and Qianlong. In this process, the idealistic theory of Confucianism came to associate with the realistic theory of power and authority in Legalism, a situation which required the 42

Figure 2.4 A portrait of Emperor Kangxi in his library, by an artist of the Qing dynasty. Source: From and by permission of the Palace Museum, Beijing, People’s Republic of China.

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imperial court to follow both Confucianism and Legalism, in order to maintain and operate the imperial system. On the one hand, there was a need to uphold the Confucian ideal of the good and the humane and the justified hierarchy of the imperial system. On the other, there was a need to operate the system and to exercise power and authority as advised in Legalism. The difficulty in this synthesis was fully appreciated and reflected upon by Wang Fuzhi, the Neo-Confucian scholar in late Ming and early Qing. Wang contemplated the problem in terms of the relationship between li and shi, between moral reason and political propensity. He strove to maintain a balance and synthesis between them, and suggested that there is no moral reason above reality and no political superiority without moral reason.31 Wang is dealing with a real problem facing the imperial court in all times, and his contrived argument reflects a deep and acute reading of the problem among the elite and officials in late imperial China. In relation to that, and probably under the influence of these debates and conscious efforts as well, there was a new historical development that integrated the two principles more closely. A latent thread in both Neo-Confucian moralism and Legalist realism became more apparent. Since the opening of the Ming court in the late fourteenth century, the two approaches came to relate more closely in the rise of a generic rationalism in all aspects of the life and work of the court. The abolishing of prime-ministership in 1380 by the first Ming emperor Hongwu (Zhu Yuanzhang) which provided the emperor with direct and absolute power over the entire bureaucracy, and the subsequent strengthening of central authority in the reign of Yongle (Zhu Di) in the Ming and of Yongzheng in the Qing, were the key moments of this development. The on-going Legalist practice, the rise of rationalist thought in Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism, and the ascendancy of absolutism in the structure of imperial authority in Ming Qing China were inevitably related and became aspects of one development. In formal and spatial embodiment, this extension from li to shi, from Confucian moral theory to the operation of power, leads us to consider the political functioning of the sage ruler at the centre of the capital, above the government and the empire. It leads us to consider not only the symbolic representation of Confucian ideals, but also the functional exercise of Legalist principles. Beijing has to be examined both as a symbolic form and a functional space, as a representation of li and as an accommodation of the exercise of shi. Conceiving Beijing as a form of sage leadership (wangdao) and a space of political domination (badao), a central argument in this research can be outlined. While the formal layout of the whole city plan represented the idealist Confucian ideology, actual space in reality, centring on the palace and extending outward to the city and the provinces of the empire, acted as a latent and constitutive realm for the exercise of imperial power and domination. Corresponding to the duality of li and shi, wangdao and badao, Confucianism and Legalism, is that of symbolic representation and functional practice, of a formal plan and an actual space. In the following chapters, we will examine this layer of space beneath the city plan, and ask how Legalist principles were applied to the city as a whole and, more closely, how it contributed to the internal workings of the throne and the state at the centre of the city. 44

3 SOCIAL SPACE OF THE CITY

A city of cities We have made a distinction between a formal plan and an actual space, between a representation of ideology in the first, and a constitution of social practice in the second. We have examined in the last chapter how the formal plan of Beijing represents imperial ideology. In this chapter we will examine how an actual space constitutes social practice. ‘Actual’ space is understood as a layer of space accommodating, as well as being embedded in, daily life and social practice. It is a layer of space unfolding in real social operations. It tends to be invisible on the surface of the city plan. It lies beneath that surface. If the surface symbolizes or represents a theoretical discourse, this actual space frames and accommodates a field of messy and ‘dark’ transactions that are not essentially symbolic or representational. To open up this layer of space, we will conduct a preliminary archaeological excavation first, to expose a tectonics of this space at a physical level. We will then move on to look at it socially, that is, examine it as a space of the state imposed from above, and as a space of society developed from within the social body. Naturally, both the formal plan and the actual space are ‘actual’: they are two levels of space compressed in one complex reality despite their systematic difference. A critical question is how the two are related and, perhaps, confirm or support each other. More specifically, one would ask: how a layout of symmetry, centrality and concentricity symbolizing the position of the throne, is in fact related to a space of hierarchical domination of the throne in social and political transactions. This question, as a central theme, runs through the inquiries in the sections of this chapter. We will also, from here onwards, focus on the Qing dynasty, especially the time of high Qing around the reign of Qianlong (r. 1735–1795), a stable time when many documents and maps can be found and correlated. The map of Beijing made in 1750, and other maps of central Beijing made afterwards, are the primary material used here.

Walls: dissecting, enclosing, dominating It is well known that the Chinese character cheng means both a city and a city wall. Scholars have suggested that the use of walls, of all types and sizes, is a 45

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pervasive phenomenon in the Chinese built environment.1 From individual buildings to courtyard compounds, to cities, to larger geographical constructions of the Great Wall, this element is always there. A wall is a key element in the formation of space in the Chinese conception. In the case of forming a city, the use of walls is constitutive: it defines the very idea of a city. Let us look at it, in the case of Beijing, from another point of view. In Beijing, one of the most challenging and problematic phenomena is the lack of a spatial continuity. Excluding the central areas reserved for the emperor, his family and high officials, there is no place where one feels one has finally ‘arrived’ in Beijing. There is no open and collective spatial field where a society can congregate in a central area. An open space, with its fluidity and continuity and its tendency to gather and to form a centrality, is missing in imperial Beijing. This space, instead, is dissected and fragmented, by city walls. In the absence of an open space, of a natural urbanity with continuity and centrality, is a world of walls dissecting and enclosing spaces (Figure 3.1). Beijing is a city of cities. Its fundamental constitutive element is not an open space but material walls. That is, at a structural level, it is constructed by a system of walls, not by a field of open spaces that are naturally related and congregated to each other. At this level, Beijing was comprised of four enclosures: Palace (Forbidden) City, Imperial City, Capital (Inner) City and Outer City. High stone walls encircled each of them, defining them each as a city or cheng, and relating them together in a particular way to form an overall structure of Beijing. This overall structure of Beijing, this architecture of city walls, was vertical or hierarchical. From inside out, the Palace, Imperial, Capital and Outer Cities, and an open rural space further away, formed one sequence of descending order in social status and spatial positioning. This can be reviewed in social terms first, and analysed spatially. The Forbidden City, a city of palaces for the emperor, was heavily guarded and was not accessible to the commoners. Only high-rank officials, servants and ladies of the imperial household, and princes and aristocrats, could reach this deep centre of Beijing. The next city outside, the Imperial City, was an extension of the central palaces. It enclosed gardens, with hills and lakes, and temples, palaces of princes and some officials, and offices, workshops and warehouses of the imperial household. It was heavily guarded and was not accessible to the public. In the Qing dynasty, however, open markets were held monthly inside the northern, eastern and western gates, and some households were allowed to settled inside the gates. The next city outside, the Capital City, was a realm that accommodated most urban functions and a class of urban population. It accommodated government ministries and bureaus, imperial institutions, prefecture and county offices and their schools, royal altars and local temples, and residences of royal aristocrats and high-rank officials. The city wall was also heavily guarded with large security forces. The nine city gates were open in daytime and closed at night. Security and military forces at these gates played a critical role in maintaining public security and defence. In the early Qing, ethnic Chinese, being a race conquered by the Manchus, were not permitted to reside in the Capital City. When 46

Figure 3.1 City wall and city gate in Beijing. This photograph shows the outer tower of the western gate on the northern wall, the Deshengmen Gate, c.1900. Source: Osvald Siren, The Walls and Gates of Peking, 1924, in the plates section with no pagination.

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Chinese moved upward in Qing society and bureaucracy, this rule was no longer enforced. Some functions belonging to a ‘Chinese’ way of life, regarded as decadent by the Manchurian court, especially urban life around the theatre in the evenings, were banned repeatedly in the Capital City in the late Qing dynasty. The next city, on this descending order of status and distance from the centre, was the Outer City, known also as the Southern City. When ethnic Chinese were excluded from the Capital City in early Qing, most settled here. It was therefore also called the Chinese City. Originally a sub-urban and rural area, but enclosed by a city wall in 1553, it accommodated functions regarded as of lower social or moral status: street markets, shops, shop houses, tea houses, restaurants, theatres, hostels, brothels, small temples and rural monasteries. Its population was composed mostly of merchants, artisans, sojourners, visiting students and officials. This city was also guarded and the city gates opened and closed at the same time as that of the Capital City. Beyond the walls of the Capital and Outer Cities are the sub-urban and rural areas. Some urban functions similar to that in the Outer City, such as shops and shop houses, can be found around the city gates and along the main roads, and dispersed only very gradually into the large open space of the countryside. In sub-urban and rural communities, we can encounter a percentage of merchants and artisans although, when we move further away, the majority would be farmers, with a small group of local elite including landlords, rural scholargentry and local officials. In this dispersion of space from centre to periphery, there is a clear hierarchy in social and political terms. On the one hand, the smaller enclosures closer to the centre claim a higher social and political status. On the other hand, with this scaling of superiority of inner spaces, there is a relative height, and therefore a relative domination, of an inner and more central space upon outer and more distant areas. There are two diagrams here (Figure 3.2). On the one hand, there is a concentric layout of enclosures from centre to periphery. On the other, there is a composition of a high ground or a pyramid where the inner points claim higher positions and, at the end, the innermost point claims the highest position. Naturally the two diagrams belong to the same reality. However, as diagrams, they reveal two levels of space and social function, being different and yet correlated to each other. If the first captures a formal layout on the city plan symbolically representing the sacred position of the emperor, the second reveals an inner section of relative domination and hierarchical positioning from centre to periphery. If the first indicates an ideology of concentricity, the second suggests a politics of domination. Subsequent sections and chapters will gradually reveal the workings of this high ground or pyramid as a real space of social and political practice. At a spatial level, the city walls are the only material and constitutive element that defines this overall concentric, hierarchical composition. Looking more closely, there are two critical elements here: the wall itself, and the threshold, the city gate, that is attached to the wall. Seemingly a simple device in themselves, they assert critical effects in the exercise of power on the two sides of the 48

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A 'formal' plan

A 'real' space

A concentric layout on the surface representing a sacred imperial ideology.

An inner section of a hierarchical disposition revealing an effective politics of domination.

A centre of the universe.

A high ground / a pyramid.

Figure 3.2 Two levels of space and their social functions in Beijing.

wall. The threshold is a point at which space and humans move across, or overcome, the wall. Naturally, it is a point at which control and defence are reinforced. This is also done operationally, with the security force checking the flow of human movement, and the use of opening and closing, granting and denying the flow, as two basic means of control. Furthermore, if the inner side is above the outer side in social and political status, then this control and defensive posture are targeted more to the outside than to the inside, and more to the incoming movement than the outgoing one. An asymmetry between inside and outside is established, managed and maintained by the operational device of the city gate. This threshold is effective only if the wall completely encloses the space inside. In this situation, we observe a general asymmetry not only at the threshold but also on all points of the wall, between inside and outside. A relative domination of inside above outside is established. A right of control and of access, from inside to outside, can be assigned to, and also supported by, the threshold and the wall. The wall with the gate, furthermore, also asserts an effect of distancing. A wall fabricates a distance.2 It distances, or pushes away, outside from inside. When inside is above outside in social and political terms, the distancing effect further strengthens, and magnifies, the inequality. When these effects are accumulated in reality, along a complete boundary, a continuous wall with operative gates attached to it, the overall result is an effective domination of inside over outside. When layers of complete boundaries are 49

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vertically overlapped, one fully inside another, the effect of relative domination, and of building a height or superiority above outside, is accumulated most efficiently along the single dimension of inner-ness or depth pointing to the centre. The result is an overall hierarchy resolutely constructed, with a concentric layout and a pyramid of internal power relations, of domination of inside over outside on all city walls. Such a system of walls in Beijing, as a basic structure of social space of the imperial capital, can be described in a diagram (Figure 3.3).3 Only city walls and city gates of Beijing are recorded here. Spatial relations between each city, articulated by the walls and the gates, are revealed and clarified in the graph on the left in which depth into the centre is represented by height.4 The vertical rise, that is, the hierarchical composition of the whole city, becomes self-evident. A figure-ground map As said earlier, Beijing is constituted primarily by a system of walls, not a field of open space. It is the walls that provide a basic structure that frames and contains patches of open space. How is open space fragmented and contained as patches of space within the walls? An attempt to describe Beijing in a figureground map reveals a lot. The first difficulty one encounters in making such a map is to find that ‘ground’ in Beijing, that urban space at a zero-degree level, being truly open to all, circulating and containing all walls and blocks, and extending to external open field beyond. In Beijing, this space is already dissected, fragmented and enclosed by walls: it does not exist anymore. Apart from the countryside outside that may be regarded as a zero-degree ‘ground’, all spaces in Beijing are internalized and are higher in hierarchy. Within each

Palace City

Imperial City

Outer City

Capital City

Outside

Figure 3.3 A structure of the city walls of Beijing: a development of hierarchical depth.

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enclosed city, if any open urban space is identified as a zero-level ground, it is so only relatively. Other difficulties are related. Any urban space in Beijing is localized and closed by walls and gates. Any such space in Beijing can never be truly open, at all times, to the infinite open space of the countryside. Being dissected, an ‘open’ space in Beijing is always already enclosed, localized and relativized. Given these restrictions, one can only develop a figure-ground map of Beijing with certain conditions. Let us single out one layer of space as a zerolevel ground space: that open space accessible to the public in daytime in Beijing, that is, when the sixteen gates of the Capital and Outer Cities were open. This is an open urban space in the Capital City and the Outer City, which also extends to open space in the countryside, but is limited to the outer walls of the Imperial City (Figure 3.4).

Figure 3.4 Open urban space of Beijing.

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The map displays interesting characteristics of Beijing. The first quality of the map is its fragmental shape or configuration. The black space, the open urban space, never quite interrelates and congregates into a self-centred mass of its own. Dissected by walls, it is also dominated by a super-large forbidden block at the centre, and is forcefully pushed aside and dispersed to periphery. The centric and vertical domination of the throne and the state, embodied by this central block, the Palace and Imperial Cities, is only too obvious. As said, it is both a symbolic gesture on the concentric plan, and a real political domination in the spatial disposition of a hierarchy or a pyramid. In terms of effective hierarchical domination, the claiming of the centre of such a large size certainly facilitates an easy access and control to external space in all directions. Furthermore, given its particular shape and topographic features nearby, the posture of control and domination is rather excessive. In the south, the central axial path of the forbidden palace extends all the way to the south-central gate of the Capital City. In the north, large lakes extend from the Imperial City upward, blocking connections between eastern and western quarters. The central block, with its southern and northern extensions, renders the link between eastern and western parts of the city weak. It effectively breaks it into two halves. Open space as a network Another important feature on this figure-ground map can be detected. There is a lack of central and congregated spaces, those that are described as ‘agora’, ‘piazza’ and ‘square’ in Western languages. It is well known that urban space in the Chinese tradition lacks such a space being defined, open and urban, as one finds in Europe. There are, however, key nodes in open urban space that act as domains for public and communal gathering. They include street intersections, front spaces of official, civic and religious structures (such as county offices and local temples), spaces around city gates, spaces around bridges and along river banks, and other spaces at the edges of the city. These nodes acted as foci of a local social life and assumed a role comparable to that of the squares in front of markets, churches and city halls in the West. What constitutes the figure-ground map, at an abstract level, are not only nodes, but also lines, of avenues, streets and alleyways. These lines, defined and compressed by blocks, criss-crossed the city, constituting a net-like fabric of urban space. Linear streets, together with nodal areas, dominated the landscape. While streets facilitated linear flow of movement, nodal areas accommodated the commercial, cultural and religious life of the local population. The two overlapped significantly, creating a spectacle of congestion and vitality. Urban civic life overpowered the setting in the Chinese context, which may be contrasted to the European situation in which the setting was dominating and architecturally elaborate on the high, large façades. One could even speculate that, at the level of spatial layout, a generative path of Chinese urbanity was based on a web of lines and nodes, whereas that in Europe was based on the core of an agora. While the first had an origin in total planning and an emphasis on efficacy, the second had a tradition of local growth, local auto52

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nomy and competition, and an emphasis on frontal display and formal, architectural spectacle. An ‘axial’ map can be developed from the figure-ground map.5 It captures the fabric of lines and intersecting nodes of the lines (Figure 3.5). More information about Beijing can be found. The long lines or avenues followed the orthogonal shape and the cardinal orientation of the whole city. The two longest lines in the Capital City were north–south ones, parallel to the central axis. The long lines were also linked directly to the city gates. The intersections of these lines often formed significant nodes, for local urban life, especially commercial activities. In the eastern half of the Capital City, the southern gate (chongwenmen) and the central eastern gate (chaoyangmen) ‘projected’ the two

Figure 3.5 A network of open urban space of Beijing: Capital City and Outer City.

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largest avenues (north–south and east–west), which formed an intersection that was the major commercial node in eastern Beijing, a point around which shops and street markets gathered (known as dongshi or ‘eastern market’). The northern gate on the eastern wall (dongzhimen), and the northern central gate of the Imperial City (dianmen) also extended two large avenues and defined a major intersection. It contained a drum tower (gulou) and a bell tower (zhonglou) behind, together forming a strong terminus of the central axis of Beijing. It was also a key node around which shops and markets gathered. In the western half of the Capital City, the southern gate (xuanwumen) and the central western gate (fuchengmen) also projected the two largest avenues which formed an intersection defining another commercial node (xishi or ‘western market’), being symmetrical to that in eastern Beijing. Many other nodes with commercial, cultural and religious activities can be found at a more local level. In the Outer City, the three northern gates (leading into the Capital City) projected three main north–south streets. All of them intersected with an undulating east–west street (linking the eastern and the western gates). These three lines each connected a northern and a southern node. In each of them, between and around the two ends, shops and stalls gathered and spread along the linear streets. They also extended further onto the surrounding web of lines and points. Restaurants, teahouses, hostels, temples, and shops of various kinds can be found along these lines and the adjacent nodes. The largest concentration of shops and commercial life centred on the central north–south street, on a section of the central axis, in front of the most elaborate city gate (zhengyangmen). It was the renowned commercial centre of Beijing. Open-space networks in a hierarchical structure Let us now treat each city as a separate system, a separate network of axial lines. Let us compare them and situate them in the overall hierarchy of Beijing. We will observe the Outer, the Capital and the Imperial Cities (the Forbidden City is regarded as an inner part of the Imperial City, and will be examined in the following chapters) (Figures 3.5 and 3.6). We will make three measurements and compare them across these cities. 1

There are two kinds of lines in every city: the ‘dead-end’ and the ‘through’ lines, that is, the cul-de-sac alleyways and the larger lanes and streets that can link back to the outside. The first have only one point, whereas the second at least two points, to link back to the system. The ratios of the first versus the second in the three cities are as follows: Outer City 0.205 (140/683); Capital City 0.350 (666/1903); Imperial City 0.965 (362/375). This ratio reveals a degree of ‘distributed-ness’, or spatial ‘freedom’, of each particular layout. Naturally, the higher the ratio, the more the whole system is restricted by the dead-end lines, that is, less distributed and less 54

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Figure 3.6 A network of open urban space of Beijing: Imperial City.

2

free for movement. Following this order, it is clear that when one moves into an inner and more central enclosure, space is more restricted and controlled. The second measurement tests a similar property at a deeper level of the system. If one drops all local cul-de-sac alleys, one arrives at a more basic web of the whole system. Upon this basic web, one can measure a ratio between all connecting (intersecting) points and all lines. The ratio reveals a degree of connectivity of lines in average in the basic global web of the system. Naturally, the higher the ratio, the more the web is connected, and is freer for movement. 55

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Practically, a high ratio reveals a high ‘ringy-ness’ of the web: it has more alternative or ‘escape routes’. The ratios of the three cities are as follows: Outer City 2.075 (1417/683); Capital City 1.863 (3546/1903); Imperial City 1.611 (604/375).

3

It is clear that the more internal and central enclosures have a higher level of restriction on connectivity. The two measurements produce the same ordering of the cities. They confirm one observation: as one moves into a more internal and central city, space is more controlled, with more deadend lines and less connecting points. They certainly correspond to the ascendancy of social, political status of the cities in this order. They are properties of internal spatial differentiation that inevitably contribute to, and become part of, the overall hierarchy of the cities in Beijing. Another measurement explores a more global and structural property of the web. Developed in ‘space syntax’ theory, it is referred to as a value of ‘integration’.6 It measures the degree of accessibility from one particular line to all other lines, based solely on the relations within that abstract web. In other words, it measures the degree of integration of this line to the whole system. Different lines have different integration values, which reveal spatial inequality among these lines. For the whole system, an average of all values of all lines represents an overall degree of integration of that system. Again, different systems have different overall integration values, suggesting difference in inner spatial structure among the systems. For the actual measurement, a lower value indicates a higher degree of integration. In Beijing, the rising order of the value, that is, the declining order of integration is as follows: Capital City 0.745; Outer City 0.810; Imperial City 1.400 This means that, comparatively, the Capital City is internally well integrated in its spatial distribution. The Outer City is less well integrated. The rather long avenues in the Capital City must have contributed to its internal integration. Its overall connection in a shape of a large loop, surrounding the hole in the middle (the Imperial City), may have supported this as well. On the other hand, the long and narrow shape of the Outer City must have restricted its internal integration. The difference between these two cities, however, is not significant, when compared with the Imperial City, whose integration drops significantly, that is, its degree of segregation, as the value suggests, rises to double that of the other two cities. It means that the Imperial City is internally very segregated. The dense ‘packing’ of large blocks and palaces must have contributed to this segregation or limitation on spatial connection and integration. In social and political practice, the need to limit and control human movement in space must have also contributed to this. The integration values of the cities certainly correspond to our historical knowledge of the actual positioning and functioning of them in the overall social hierarchy. 56

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At this point, an overall positioning of the three cities can be made, with twoaxis coordinates using the measurements made above. The horizontal axis represents the degree of distribution and non-distribution, using the first ratio (which also represents the second ratio as they follow the same order closely). The vertical axis represents the degree of integration and segregation, using the last measurement (Figure 3.7). Along the horizontal axis, the order of the three cities follows their social, political differentiation in the hierarchy. Along the vertical axis, the Outer and Capital Cities share a close positioning, and contrast radically with the Imperial City, which also corresponds to the rise of political importance of the latter. In fact, in this overall positioning of the three cities, in both dimensions, the significant differentiation lies in a polarization of the imperial and the public domain, the Imperial City and the other two cities. It indicates a vertical differentiation and a dichotomy between the ‘emperor’ and the ‘subjects’. What one sees in this coordinate is a spatial arrangement more internal than our earlier observations of the walls. It reveals a layer of physical spatial disposition that correlates to and is inevitably part of the practical exercise of control within the cities. It reveals a pattern of spatial distribution and social control that conforms the overall hierarchy. In the case of the walls, one sees a making of differentiation and hierarchy between the cities. In the case of spatial disposition of the networks, one sees a making of internal control and restriction upon distribution and integration within the cities. In both cases, patterns of physical space correlate to and support social functioning, and the making and sustaining of the overall hierarchy. The last measurement, the integration value, can be developed further. As

INTEGRATION

Capital City

0.745 0.810

DISTRIBUTION

0.205 0.350

0.965

Outer City

NONDISTRIBUTION 1.400

Imperial City

SEGREGATION Figure 3.7 A polarizing tendency among the cities of Beijing: ‘free’ versus ‘controlled’ space.

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each line has its own integration value, there is then a distribution of integration of all the lines in one system. If one places them in an ascending order, one is able to see which line is more integrated than others. While this may lead to a very minute reading of the system, one can in the first step pick up the key lines. If one picks up the first group of lines (the 1 per cent or 10 per cent most integrated lines), and mark them on the network map, one is able to see a basic integration ‘core’ of the system, as the lines form a small and central web, holding primary integrating power for the whole system.7 The 1 per cent most integrated lines in the Outer City, Capital City and Imperial City are marked in Figures 3.8, 3.9 and 3.10.

Figure 3.8 The 1 per cent most integrated lines, forming an integration core, in the Imperial City.

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3rd.

6th.

8th.

1st. 9th. 10th. 2nd.

4th. 5th.

7th.

KEY 1st. Dianmen Wai Dajie 2nd. Xianmen Wai Dajie 3rd. Andingmen Nei Dajie 4th. Donganmen Wai Dajie 5th.KEY Shaojui Hutong - Lumichang Hutong (Dengshikou)

6th. 7th. 8th. 9th. 10th.

Deshengmen Nei Dajie Changan Zuomen Wai Dongjie (Changan Dong Jie) Dongzhimen Nei Dajie Bingmasi Hutong - Taijichang (Wangfujin) Longfusi Jie (Gongxuan Hutong - Toutiao Hutong)

Figure 3.9 The 1 per cent most integrated lines, forming an integration core, in the Capital City.

One can read the core lines as a global pattern as well as a local phenomenon. As a global pattern, the shape of the core largely follows the shape of the city, revealing and confirming a centrality of the core in holding up the system together. At this level, the distribution of the core lines reveals another important structural property. In all cases, a city offers its core lines to the next city in a higher social and political position in the overall hierarchy. In the Outer City, the core lines are related to the central gate leading to the Capital City (and more so in the 10 per cent core lines). In the Capital City, the trend is clearer: the core lines ‘hug’ tightly the next city of higher importance, the Imperial City in the centre. The lines literally run along the streets immediately adjacent to the walls and gates of the Imperial City. In the next case, the Imperial City also provides its most integrated lines to the Palace City. The immediate reason behind this pattern is physical and spatial. The Capital City extended outward and developed the Outer City: the first gave rise to the second and naturally 59

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Figure 3.10 The 1 per cent most integrated lines, forming an integration core, in the Outer City.

offered integrating power to those lines that extended from the first to the second. That is, the core lines were naturally close to the ‘mother city’. In a more radical fashion, although not in terms of historical descent, the Imperial City and the lower outer Capital City maintain the same hierarchical relationship. Here the absolute centrality of the first in the second ensures a direct occupation of the first in the core areas of the second. In the next case, the Palace and Imperial Cities maintain the same hierarchical pattern. This form of disposition clearly correlates with and is inevitably employed for social and political practice of domination by the authority. It is a result of the overall composition of the cities identified earlier: an efficient and vertical accumulation of a higher and more internal city in the middle of a lower and more external city. What we are witnessing here is a more abstract property of a global spatial distribution, a function of that overall construction of internal centrality and verticality, in making the overall hierarchy. At a local level, one can uncover a lot of specific information about Beijing. In the Imperial City, for example, the core lines are the avenue between Perspective Hill and the Palace City (which is the most integrated line), and the eastern edge of the Palace City (as well as a northern avenue on the west of Perspective Hill), which were known as jingshan qianjie and beichizi-nanchizi (and beichangjie). This pattern reveals a critical connection of the Palace to its northern gardens and its north-western access to other facilities of the imperial household. It also reveals a strong bias in favour of the eastern side of the Palace City, which is a crucial aspect of an overall bias to the east in Beijing 60

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(a phenomenon that should be clearer when the Palace City is studied in the following chapters). In the Capital City, the most integrated line is a street known as dianmen dajie, on the northern edge of the Imperial City, the only long and straight avenue that links the eastern and western halves of the city together. Other most integrated lines also surround the Imperial City closely: the second, the fourth and the seventh most integrated lines are those on the western, eastern and south-eastern edges. The core lines are also divided into an eastern and western group. The eastern group has more lines and is better integrated than the western half in the whole city (the 10 per cent most integrated lines reveal the same pattern more clearly). In other words, eastern Beijing is more privileged and favoured in terms of spatial distribution. If one observes social, functional use, this pattern does make sense: more functions and institutions of significance are found in the east than in the west. Large temples (such as longfusi temple), the national examination hall (gongyuan in the south-east), government ministries and offices (in the south-east, close to the axis), the royal academy (guozijian in the north-east), prefecture and county offices (in the north and north-east), and many large residences for aristocrats and high-rank officials, occupied much of eastern Beijing. The relationship between this physical spatial integration and social use of ‘good’ locations, one would argue, is inevitably a circular one: the two mutually transform and correlate with each other over a long historical development. In the northern area, the most integrated street (dianmen dajie) linking the two halves together also accommodated the site of the head office of the local prefecture of Beijing (shuntianfu), which will be further discussed later. The core lines also picked up key avenues leading to or from city gates: andingmen, dongzhimen, chongwenmen, xuanwumen and fuchengmen were linked to the 1 per cent core lines; and all other gates were linked to the 10 per cent lines. These core lines further developed a series of core nodes, many of which acted as centres of local urban life. In the Outer City, the 1 per cent most integrated lines are the central, eastwest street (from caishikou, through xiaoshijie, to sanlihe), as well as the central, north–south street (zhengyang menwai dajie) and another one parallel to it (liangshi jiadao). The 10 per cent core lines develop this core outward, forming a dense web at the centre, and linking the other two city gates of the Capital City (chongwenmen and xuanwumen). The core lines captured a ‘good’ location, and made it over time the busiest commercial area of Beijing.

Space of the state When the first Ming emperor abolished the prime-ministership in 1380 and assumed the most autocratic rule in Chinese history, a board of secretaries had to be established, to handle the flow of memorials from government ministries to the emperor, and to draft imperial edicts in reply. It was soon institutionalized as the Grand Secretariat (neige or ‘the inner cabinet’) which acted as a mediating point between the emperor above and the government below, an 61

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arrangement that lasted till the end of Qing in 1911. The government itself, in Ming and Qing, involved a standard three-fold structure inherent from the past: a civil bureaucracy, a military hierarchy, and a separate hierarchy of censors.8 The civil bureaucracy assumed the main function of the government. It included the famous Six Ministries (liubu) which divided all administrative work into six categories: Personnel, Revenue, Rites, War, Punishments and Public works. This six-fold framework of civil bureaucracy was repeated at all lower levels of administration across the country. Another hierarchy parallel to the civil bureaucracy was the military system. In the Ming dynasty, it was coordinated under the Ministry of War and was organized in the units and sub-units (wei and suo) stationed in strategic locations across the country. In the Qing dynasty, it was coordinated between the Ministry of War and the Manchu Banners. The remnants of the Ming forces were absorbed into a constabulary, the ‘Army of Green Standard’, as a local police force for public security. As a real military force the Manchu added their own garrisons of banner troops. Long before the seizure of north China, the Manchu nation-in-arms had been organized in combined civil and military units known as ‘banners’. There were eight banners, each being identified by a coloured flag (yellow, white, blue or red), plain or bordered. By the time the Qing court was established, each of the banners had expanded to include three components for ethnic Manchurian, Mongolian and Chinese. Together the 24 banners produced striking forces directly royal to the Qing court, and were deployed in strategic locations and population centres all over the country. The third hierarchy parallel to the civil and military systems was the supervisory organs headed by the Censorate (duchayuan or ‘the yard of censors’). Censors were based at the capital and some of them were attached to the Six Ministries. They were regularly sent to the provinces, to investigate the conduct of all offices and to collect complaints from the local population. With a direct access to the throne, their primary function was to impeach officials and to remonstrate with the emperor. In reality this practice might be restricted by many and varying factors. On a vertical dimension, the imperial government had a large hierarchy represented in the spatial and geographical organization of the civil bureaucratic structure. The Qing empire was divided into eighteen provinces (sheng), three more than during the Ming.9 In each province, under the governor and the governor-general based at the province capital (shenghui), there were seven to thirteen prefectures (fu) on average, which produced more than 180 prefectures in total. In each prefecture, and under the prefect and the intendants of circuit based at the prefecture capital, there were seven to eight counties (xian) and sometimes several departments of the same level. Together there were about 1,600 local counties and departments.10 As administrative units of the lowest level, each of them, under the leadership of the magistrate, was in charge of a few hundred surrounding villages with a population of about 200,000 (at the end of the eighteenth century).11 At each of these levels, the six functions of the civil government were supervised in the six sections of the office. The military forces followed a separate vertical chain of command. The censors followed 62

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yet another vertical hierarchy. The structure and the functioning of the three systems, at the end, converged at the top of the empire. The emperor, with the assistance of the Grand Secretariat, coordinated the functioning of all of them at this point. This hierarchy of the state was clearly mapped on the geographic surface. The 1,600 counties covered all territories and formed the largest and lowest base of the system, the final and the most expansive network of mediating points between the state and the vast rural society. Above that were the three levels of administrations, the prefecture, the province and the imperial state or that ‘all under heaven’, each had its own plane of geographical layout defined by borders and administrative capitals. At each of the four levels, an administrative capital also contained within itself administrative units of lower levels.12 For example, a prefecture capital contained within its own territory two counties, in addition to other subordinate counties lying outside. In the same manner, a provincial capital contained offices at prefecture and county levels. One can view this spatial hierarchy of the state in two ways. On the one hand, it involved a material and horizontal composition, which was a large-scale demarcation of the land and the population. On the other hand, it involved an abstract and vertical construction, which was the governmental hierarchy marked by the ascending levels of the central cities and the rising positions of the offices all the way to the top, the imperial government and the sovereign of the empire. With this distribution, an abstract topography of the state can be visualized. The imperial state as a whole can be described as, to continue the use of geographic metaphors, a large mountain, which involves and is also sustained by high grounds of different levels. In the logic of this framework, every administrative capital is a high ground, and the higher the level of the city in the whole hierarchy, the more vertical the topography becomes as it involves more hierarchical levels. In this way, the imperial capital Beijing becomes the highest or the most vertical of all cities. Here, the four administrative levels overlap onto one geographical locale. The throne and the central government directly control the province in which the capital is located, as well as a prefecture and two counties located in the capital (in addition to other counties further away). Although the provincial capital is elsewhere, the prefecture and the two counties’ offices are all located within the city, not far from the palace and government ministries.13 The overlapping of the four levels, and the adjacency and the compression of spatial political distances, necessitate a highly differentiating and hierarchical treatment of urban space of Beijing. In other words, Beijing has to install and compress many spatial divisions to achieve a steep hierarchical differentiation, so as to make and to sustain, in a relatively small area, the height and the span of the whole hierarchy of the empire. A social spatial analysis of Beijing, one would argue, has to take into account of its logical position within the hierarchy of the state, and this image of the city as a high ground, reflecting and sustaining the mountain of the empire. Within the boundary of the wall, Beijing contained the sites of imperial palaces, imperial government ministries and boards, prefecture offices 63

A SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY

(Shuntianfu) and two counties’ head offices (Daxinxian and Wanpingxian) (Figure 3.11).14 As the site and the symbol of the sovereign of the empire, the throne hall was within the large palace at the centre, the Palace City. The Imperial City, encircling the Palace City, housed various structures of the imperial household as explained earlier. The next enclosure, the Capital City, housed in central-southern areas the Six Ministries with major civil and military offices, and the Censorate, and all other subordinate and associate offices. The head office of Shuntianfu prefecture and its associate structures (eminently the Confucian school-temple) were located in the north of the Capital City. The head offices of Daxinxian and Wanpingxian counties were located nearby, to the south-east and south-west of the prefecture office respectively. The Shuntianfu prefecture governed the two counties whose population was mostly urban, in and around the Capital City. It also governed another seventeen counties in areas outside the capital. In both Royal Altar

Shuntianfu Prefecture Military Command (after 1766) Wanpingxian County

Daxinxian County Confucian School-temple of Shuntianfu Prefecture

Imperial City

Palace City

Royal Altar

Royal Altar

Military Command (before 1766) Examination Hall

Security Office Ministries

Gongsuo Royal Altar

Royal Altar

Figure 3.11 The body of the state: location of imperial palaces, state ministries, prefecture offices and country offices and the associated functions in Beijing of the Qing dynasty.

64

SOCIAL SPACE OF THE CITY

Ming and Qing dynasties, nobles, ministers and a large body of officials resided in the Capital City. Despite the shift of ethnic composition (the non-banner Chinese were excluded from and later came back to this city), the Capital City remained a place with a population of higher social status. The Ming dynasty divided this city into twenty-eight urban wards, each containing smaller neighbourhood units. In the Qing, it was divided into eight zones for the eight banners, in a standard formation of the eight army units as they were on the move in military campaigns. Each of the zones was further divided into three sub-zones, for the Manchurian, Mongolian and Chinese banner population, which made up twenty-four urban units in all. Outside the Capital City were sub-urban and rural areas, which had a concentration of population and commercial activities near the wall and the gates of the Capital City. This area was also under the administration of the two counties of the Shuntianfu prefecture. Being neither the city nor the countryside, this area acquired a special position between, and a mixture of qualities of, the urban and the rural. When population increased and commercial activities further developed, as happened in the south, which was enclosed in 1553 by a wall and was since called Outer City, this intermediate quality was magnified. With the intermediate quality magnified, a social spatial distance between the urban and the rural was also expanded. One finds in this area a concentration of artisans and sojourners, and commoners of all walks of life, many of whom were involved in commerce and the handicraft industry, which made this area the largest commercial centre of Beijing. Under the administration of the two counties, it was divided into eight wards in the Ming, and five wards for the non-banner population in the Qing. In either case, it was classified as an outer region of the capital, and resumed a lower status both in terms of socio-economic status of the population and moral-cultural position of its functions. On the other hand, it offered important urban functions, that of commerce especially, for the capital Beijing, and acquired a level of administration and security control at a level above that of the countryside. William Skinner has suggested that there was a bi-nuclei urban structure in Beijing and other Chinese cities.15 He suggested that in many cities as in Beijing, there was a centre of gentry and official activity as concentrated in the Capital City (and more eminently in the eastern half), and a centre of merchants and artisans’ activity as concentrated in the Outer City (especially in the central area). The first assumed a higher status with significant power and resource, and claimed much space and used a clearer geometric form in their settlement layout. The second represented a lower position, and developed within the imposed limits a dense settlement with a casual spatial layout. The two nuclei marked a hierarchy, and a structural polarization in terms of social function and spatial morphology. Although this model fits well into local cities with fewer levels of hierarchy, it encounters difficulties in explaining higher level cities like Beijing, when many levels of hierarchy were involved. The binuclei structure could not easily encompass the higher urban areas above that of the gentry and the lower sub-urban areas outside the Capital City, which 65

A SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY

cannot be ignored as they formed part of the whole composition. Furthermore, the concept of ‘nucleus’ also requires discussion. Most Chinese administrative cities at the higher levels, and more so in the case of Beijing, were imposed as one project comprising one hierarchy, rather than organically developed from some independent centres or nuclei. To follow Skinner’s idea of social spatial differentiation, and to expand further his scheme in the case of Beijing, I would suggest a five-level hierarchy. These levels cannot be reduced into two centres, and each of the five needs to be identified and differentiated from the others. Each had its own social political position, its own spatial location, and its own characteristics in formal layout. They were: the imperial level centred at the palace; the government and ministerial level centred in the south and southeast; the gentry level located in the rest of the Capital City (with a concentration in the east); a merchant and artisan level located in the Outer City; and a rural level as dispersed into the countryside. Corresponding to a declining order of social, political position of each of them was a quasi-concentric sprawling of spatial locations, and a descending order from formality to informality in spatial layout. Together they formed a grand hierarchy, a large and steep high ground. Research from here onwards will examine critical aspects of this hierarchical composition. Beijing was governed through three separate organs: a civil government, a security office and a military command.16 The first was the Shuntianfu prefecture, which was under the civil government of Six Ministries, and was responsible for all civil and administrative affairs of the capital. The second belonged to the Censorate, and was responsible for public security and some civil affairs as well (which did not correspond exactly to the censors’ function, but nevertheless attained a degree of independence of the civil and military systems when it was placed under this autonomous department). The third was coordinated under another hierarchy, the military command of the Manchu Banners, and was responsible for armed security and defence of the capital and the surrounding areas. In terms of territory of their responsibility, the first directly covered the whole capital as included by the two counties, and other seventeen counties nearby. The second focused on the Outer City but also extended its space of responsibility into other areas in assistance to other offices. The third focused on the Capital City but had full access to all other outer areas for security deployment and defence for the capital. In terms of function, the first and the third were polarized: civil affairs versus armed security control. The three, however, did overlap significantly in areas of responsibility, especially in the broad area of security work, which required cooperation among them. Let us now look at each of their functions more closely. The Shuntianfu prefecture This prefecture office managed two counties in the capital region, and seventeen other counties in areas outside Beijing.17 For the two counties, this office supervised the Wanpingxian county which covered the western section of the city and its surrounding areas; and directly managed the Daxinxian county 66

SOCIAL SPACE OF THE CITY

which covered the eastern section and its outer surrounding areas. The prefecture and the county offices all had six sections following the Six Ministries of the central government. They practically covered all responsibilities for managing the local communities except the work of armed security and defence for the capital. Their main functions included: maintaining public security; supervising household and population registration; regulating taxes and labour services; hearing and adjudicating legal suits; regulating cultural and religious customs; supporting Confucian studies and promoting moral teaching. These functions have spatial foci. To maintain security, conduct census and collect tax, the critical device, spatial and demographic, was the famous baojia system. The Qing perfected the system inherited from the Ming and Song (as it was initiated from the Han) dynasties: every one hundred neighbouring households were designated a jia, and every ten jia formed one bao.18 In addition to population registration and taxation, this system was used to ensure mutual responsibility among families of the same unit for moral conduct and public security. Spatially, it covered the whole geographical surface and demographic masses of the country, although the majority of baojia were in rural areas and were in the form of village units. In cities like Beijing, it was contained in the urban wards in both the Ming and Qing time, although in the Capital City in the Qing dynasty, the same function was carried out in the form of banners. In terms of social spatial practice, this system meticulously divided a large and continuous urban–rural space, and the large body of the population. It horizontally dissected a spatial surface and an expansive social body into minute pieces, and enclosed them carefully with administrative and spatial boundaries. Through this horizontal division, fragmentation and compartmentalization, the social body could thus be supervised and managed closely. It certainly invites comparison with practices in early modern Europe, in the making of ‘quarantine cities’ in the late seventeenth century, and subsequent developments of the so-called ‘disciplinary society’.19 Perhaps, in China, such a disciplinary society, so characteristic of a problematic modernity in the works of Michel Foucault, was more systematic and thorough, more culturally internalized, and developed much earlier than in Europe. This comparison with developments in Europe will be explored at the level of imperial authority, in a historical context, in Chapter 7. In Beijing, in this expansive and disciplinary space, one could identify key nodes and centres, upon which practical and moral management was enacted. The office compounds (yamen) were the key nodes (Figure 3.11). As head office of local administration, the symmetrical compound typically had a major administration hall and a courtyard in the centre for formal reception and for use as a law court; an office hall and a courtyard with rooms for clerks behind; a temple for the earth god to the east; a prison for temporary detention to the west; and an archive, granaries and warehouses, and a private quarter for the prefect or the magistrate in the inner section.20 All functions of the head office one way or another were enacted through this building complex, although some of them involved direct interface between the officials and the public (mostly through their senior representatives), as in the trial in the central hall and the sacrificial rites at the temple. 67

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These interactions extended to other points in space as well. Officials’ lectures on Confucian classics to local scholars, gentry and senior village members, were conducted at Confucian school-temples, attached to or separate from the office compound. In front of the gate of the compound, and in many local Buddhist and Daoist temples, officials regularly led or joined important ceremonies, and were responsible for supporting and promoting good religions and customs.21 The ‘Opening of the Spring’ (yaochun) was a most noted public ritual conducted in front of the Shuntianfu prefecture office compound, and was led by the prefect, other prefecture officials, and senior representatives from local communities and surrounding villages.22 Other focal nodes were the examination halls, located at the prefecture and province capitals all over the country and, in Beijing, in the south-east corner of the Capital City and at the rear audience hall inside the Palace City (Figure 3.11).23 Initiated by the Han and expanded in the Tang, China developed a nation-wide examination system, open to all the population, for selecting civil servants, high-rank officials and imperial scholars. It had a hierarchy of examinations at three levels, that of Prefecture, Province and Imperial; and was conducted every 3 years in the Ming and Qing. The examination halls in the surrounding county cities, in the Capital City, and inside the Palace City, formed a hierarchy of key nodes, through which an upward entry into the official-gentry class for the population, and a downward control on moral and cultural discourse based on official Confucianism, intersected. Other important nodes included central public spaces in villages and in administrative cities, in which the public gathered to attend ceremonial recitation of Sacred Edict (shengyu) on the 1st and the 15th of every month.24 Developed from a xianyue system of the Song and Ming as a moral agency to regulate the conduct of the population, it now became a public ritual in which officials or senior public figures led the recitation and also lectured on the edict. The edict was the maxims on moral conduct and ethics written by the Kangxi Emperor (r. 1662–1722) and amplified by his successor Emperor Yongzheng (r. 1723–1735), which were based on Confucian classics. In Beijing, this place was gongsuo (which may be translated as ‘a public place’) and was located in the Outer City, to the south-west of the central gate of the Capital City (zhengyangmen). It was an open space enclosed by surrounding buildings in an urban block, which was originally a disused factory courtyard often referred to as liulichang (Figure 3.11).25 These locales were the critical nodes for the interface between the horizontal society and the vertical state, at which an upward conformity to the canons and moral examples and a downward dissemination of moral teaching were mediated. The security office (wuchengyushi) There is an ambiguity regarding the territory and the function of this office.26 Spatially it was directly responsible for public security of the so-called ‘five cities’ (wucheng), that is, the five wards of the Outer City, together with the surrounding sub-urban areas. On the other hand, it was required to assist the Shuntianfu 68

SOCIAL SPACE OF THE CITY

prefecture and the military office, in all urban and sub-urban areas of the capital region, for public security and law enforcement. In terms of function, it assumed a role similar to that of a police force, acting between the civilian and the military offices; in many cases it had to cooperate with both of them. Its assigned work included: supervising all baojia units in the Outer City and suburban areas; hearing legal cases at the level of these areas; maintaining public order in these areas; controlling the price of rice; offering food to the poor; rehabilitating beggars and tramps; investigating on suspects and arresting criminals. Another function was to organize population of these areas to attend the twice monthly recitation of the Sacred Edict in gongsuo of the Outer City. Although these rituals were organized by all counties in their different territories outside (and all over the country), it was specifically organized by this office in Beijing. The peculiar position of this office can be appreciated when the unique situation of the Outer City (and the sub-urban areas outside the walls of the Capital City) is taken into account. First, this area was well developed in population density and in commercial activity, and created a large and intermediate zone between the city proper and the countryside. It expanded a hierarchical distance between the two, and acquired a significant position for itself. Second, with a large population and a vibrant commercial culture close to the city proper, it performed important functions for the latter, but also raised problems for control. Third, it was the place in the capital region that was not occupied by the banner population in the Qing, a factor that was potentially dangerous to the Qing court in terms of racial confrontation. These situations necessitated special care and security control of this area, as well as its surroundings. For Beijing as a whole, this office marked one level in the layered and differentiated hierarchy, which increased the overall height of the metaphorical high ground. Within this level, overlapping with the function and the territory of the Shuntianfu prefecture, it also maintained a horizontal division, fragmentation and compartmentalization (in the baojia administration), and a vertical node (gongsuo) for disseminating moral teaching and imperial ideology. On the other hand, as a police force, it acquired a dynamic and mobile practice in investigating cases and arresting criminals and in surveillance upon a dispersed social terrain. The military command (jiumentidu) This constituted the systematic use of armed forces for the security and defence of the capital. As one of the most important tasks of the troops of the Manchu Banners, the whole operation was carefully arranged; it was coordinated by a few ministers of Manchu origin selected by the emperor and was, finally, supervised by the emperor himself.27 In collaboration with the above two offices, it covered many responsibilities: keeping public order, guarding the palace and the city gates, and deployment of combat forces for the defence of the capital in times of real threat. The arrangement was as follows. The Forbidden City was protected by the elite army units of the Manchu sections of the three superior 69

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banners (that of Plain Yellow, Bordered Yellow and Plain White). The Imperial City was guarded by the units of the Manchu sections of the eight banners. The Capital City and the surrounding region, furthermore, were guarded by all the sections of the eight banners.28 There were many units gradually added to this basic framework overtime, especially cavalry troops and special armament units, on the two sides of these urban enclosures, outside the Imperial City and outside the Capital City, which overlapped with the forces already deployed there. Apart from the arrangement at the palace (which will be explained in Chapter 6), the deployment of major forces in the capital region in the middle Qing dynasty, from the mid-seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries, can be described as follows.29 The city gates were the sites of heavy deployment (Figures 3.12 and 3.13). 105 barrracks + 84 lookout posts on the Capital City Wall

5 Battalions (Central, Left, Right, Northern, Southern) around the Capital City: 23 Garrisons (each consists of: 16 officiers + 340~444 soldiers + check points / fences)

55/91 18/30 18/41 M1 M2 C

53/94 22/29 15/15 M1 M2 C

+ YELLOW - YELLOW 38/79 14/36 10/14 M2 M1 C

+ RED - RED 48/96 13/23 17/27 M1 C M2

50/97 15/24 10/34 M1 C M2

+/- YELLOW +/- WHITE +/- BLUE +/- RED

51/90 20/35 14/31 M2 M1 C

90/116 M1

+ WHITE

10/18 M1

- WHITE

+ YELLOW - YELLOW + WHITE

- BLUE

On every Capital City gate: 6 officers + 30 guards + 40 soldiers + 5 cannons + 5 signal masts

46/80 13/35 12/18 M1 C M2

+ BLUE

3616 barracks attached to the Capital City wall

45/87 19/45 10/39 M2 M1 C

Southern Battallion: 6 Garrisons (16 officers + 433 soldiers each) 342/397

On every Outer City gate: 4 officers + 10 guards + 40 soldiers + 5 cannons + 5 signal masts

80 barrracks + 43 lookout posts on the Outer City wall KEY: + YELLOW: - YELLOW: 55/91: M1 : M2 : C:

Plain Yellow Banner (Zone) Bordered Yellow Banner (Zone) Number of check points / fences in a sub-zone (each with 12 and 3 guards respectively) Manchurian sub-zone Mongolian sub-zone Chinese sub-zone

Figure 3.12 The war-machine of the state: a disposition of security and military forces in Beijing in the mid-Qing dynasty (late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries).

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On each gate of the Capital City, there were 2 coordinating officials, 2 attendants, 2 officers, 30 guards and 40 armed soldiers; and each was equipped with 10 signal cannons and 5 signal posts. On each gate of the Outer City, there were stationed 1 coordinating official, 1 attendant, 2 officers, 10 guards and 40 armed soldiers, and each was equipped with 5 cannons and 5 posts.30 They were responsible for public order at the gate and the surrounding areas, and specially for closing the gates at 7.00 in the evening and opening at 5.00 in the morning.31 Other rules were strictly followed as well, such as the opening of the gate at night for special messengers to pass through, and for officials to enter the Capital City for early morning audience inside the palace. In the face of any security threat at a gate or nearby, the guards at the gate were to relay alarms to all other gates, and to the palace and troops stationed around the capital, by firing the signal cannons and raising signal flags (or lanterns at night) on the posts, which was to be repeated at all other gates, and on the top of the hill in the Imperial City behind the palace (where 5 signal cannons were also located).32 Guards and soldiers were deployed on and around the city walls. There were 3,616 barrack units attached to the outside of the wall of the Capital City. There were 105 and 80 units, and 84 and 43 lookout posts, stationed respectively on the walls of the Capital City and the Outer City (Figures 3.12 and 3.13).33 They extended security and defensive functions at the gates to the whole, continuous and enclosing, city walls. The forces at the gates and those on the walls together formed one strong fortification of the urban boundaries, which reinforced the division of inside and outside, and the hierarchical domination of the former over the latter. There was also a systematic deployment of forces on open urban spaces. Within the complex fabric of streets, numerous check points (xun) and wooden fences (shan) were placed at key intersections, to maintain public order and to impose a system of supervision and control upon the urban landscape (Figures 3.12 and 3.13). There were 10 and 90 check points, and 18 and 116 fences, in the Forbidden City and the Imperial City respectively.34 The system was most elaborate in the Capital City. The check points and intersection fences were organized into twenty-four sub-zones, each belonging to the Manchurian, Mongolian and Chinese sections of the eight banner zones laying out in a standard military formation. For example, in the south-east zone belonging to the Plain Blue banner, there were 45, 19 and 10 check points, and 80, 45 and 39 fences, respectively in the Manchurian, Mongolian and Chinese sub-zones (Figure 3.12). In the late eighteenth century (by 1885), for the whole Capital City, there were 626 check points and 1,190 wooden fences in all.35 As a standard practice, there were twelve security guards assigned to each check point and three guards to each fence.36 Their primary function was to close the fences and stop human movement between 7.00 in the evening and 5.00 the next morning, that is, to impose a night curfew (yejing) during this time.37 Although limited movements were permitted (such as visiting the doctor, attending funerals, weddings and other parties, and officials’ special visits to offices), the whole city was ‘cleansed’ (jingjie) and no one was allowed to move around in the streets, with many street intersections and all city gates 71

(a) Figure 3.13 Two areas of the Capital City of Beijing in 1750: covering (a) Andingmen (the eastern gate on the northern wall) and (b) Dongzimen (the northern gate on the eastern wall), showing the barrack units on the city gate and on the wall, and check points and fences at street intersections. Source: Xinyayuan Institute (comp.) Qianlong Jingcheng Quantu, 1940, Beijing.

(b)

A SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY

closed. Within each sub-zone, the guards were responsible for security of the surrounding area: they patrolled in this area, and passed a baton to the guards at the next check point, to ensure a relay of patrolling function, until the opening of the fences and the city gates next morning. Controlled and coordinated by the Banners, these units, as stationed inside the city, on the city gates, and on the city walls, shared responsibility for maintaining security of the Capital City and the surrounding region. Apart from the functions they performed above which were spatially fixed on their assigned locations, they also exercised functions of a mobile nature involving cooperation of different units. When the emperor was travelling with his entourage through gates and streets, into or out of the palace, and often to visit royal temples outside the Capital City, the units were responsible for installing new check points on the route, and closing off all intersections on two sides of the route with wooden fences and newly added curtain fences (Figure 3.14).38 On the days of major court audience occurring every month, streets outside the Imperial City, and especially places in front of the southern gates to the Imperial City, were closely guarded.39 The troops were also responsible for suppressing crimes and disturbances to public order. In collaboration with other offices, they offered assistance in investigating baojia neighbourhood units, arresting bandits and criminals, helping and supervising refugees and beggars, maintaining the price of rice, and other related work. Outside the Capital City, the Banners had five battalions stationed in different locations in the vicinity. The Central Battalion had five major garrisons stationed at imperial gardens and retreat palaces in the distant countryside. The Left, Right and Northern Battalions each had four garrisons stationed in the immediate surrounding areas outside the Capital and Outer City. The Southern Battalion had six garrisons located inside the Outer City, that is, to the south of the Capital City (Figure 3.12). On average, there were 16 officers and 340 to 444 soldiers at each garrison.40 Stationed outside the capital proper and mostly in the sub-urban and rural areas, their function was purely defensive for the capital. The Outer City, and the immediate sub-urban areas outside the eastern, western and northern walls of the Capital City, however, were treated in both ways. On the one hand, large-scale garrisons were located for pure defensive purpose as in open countryside; on the other hand, small-scale barrack units, check points and wooden fences were placed among the streets, to maintain public security, as in an urban area. There were 62 and 82 check points or small-scale units, for foot soldiers and cavalry troops respectively, and 102 intersection fences, in the Outer City.41 In the whole surrounding area, there were 342 units and check points, and 397 fences in all.42 The mixed manner in which the forces were deployed in this area certainly reflected the intermediate quality of this city, being semi-urban and semi-rural. From a spatial point of view, this overall system of deployment upon the whole urban terrain created a large-scale security posture, a precise military formation. At this moment, urban space became a ‘battleground’, a dangerous terrain upon which military forces were carefully and systematically applied, to identify, contain and suppress all adversarial forces, real or potential. In this 74

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military suppression of an urban social terrain, three spatial forms were used in the deployment of forces: the boundary line, the threshold point and the base area. The first was the city walls and the boundaries of the sub-zones and smaller quarters which, at different levels, defined and enclosed pieces of space. The second was the city gates and the intersection entries marked by the check points and the fences, which controlled flows of movement within and between the enclosed fragments of space. The third was the barrack units and garrison bases stationed mostly in sub-urban and rural areas surrounding the Capital City, which formed large and heavily armed strongholds for strategic defence of the palace at the centre, and could also produce mobile forces for strikes elsewhere on demand. Within the Capital City, the first two forms were most important. In abstract terms, the boundary lines dissected space into fragments, and enclosed and insulated each of them with physical and human-military boundaries. The threshold points, on the other hand, by granting temporary access and by periodic locking and sealing the entries, asserted a degree of suppression upon continuous natural space and flows of human movement. Together they complemented and reinforced each other. At one level, city walls and city gates formed enclosures as ‘cities’. At another level, intersection entries and boundaries of the sub-zones and smaller areas formed thousands of pieces of space. With the dissectingenclosing function of the boundary, and the checking-locking function of the threshold, the whole military arrangement imposed a rigorous structure of suppression upon natural space and upon free human movement. The system effectively acted as an urbanised war-machine of the state. Its very logic or rationale was to destroy natural space and to suppress, as much as possible, urban social space and the lively contours of the social body, a practice which was periodically realized at night when the curfew was imposed. A space of the state In reality, the three governing systems, the Shuntianfu prefecture, the security office and the military command, overlapped and reinforced each other. All forms of control in the three systems can be summarized in terms of spatial division. There were vertical divisions: walls and gates created divisions of a higher inside and a lower outside, and of higher inner cities and lower outer cities and regions. There were also horizontal divisions: those between and within zones, sub-zones, urban wards and baojia units, which were equal or horizontal to each other in social, political status. While the first directly created a hierarchical spatial framework, the second imposed a meticulous process of fragmentation and compartmentalization, upon an expansive social space, a process which, in the end, also supported the overall vertical hierarchy. In other words, the divisions in both directions contributed to making one total pyramid of imperial Beijing. There is a natural logic to the two ways of making hierarchy. In vertical division, the more one inserts the dividing and differentiating walls, the more vertical levels one creates and the higher the centre becomes. In compressing all 75

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(a)

(c) Figure 3.14 A spectacle of the state: a scene of the emperor with his entourage entering Beijing from his tour to southern China. All intersections on the two sides of the street were closed with timber fences. All shops facing this street were closed as well. Section of a scroll painting Kangxi Nanxuntu (Emperor Kangxi’s tour to the South) by Wang Hui (1632–1717) and others. Source: From and by permission of the Palace Museum, Beijing, People’s Republic of China.

administrative levels of the state into one city, Beijing incorporated a high density of vertical divisions, creating a great height for the centre above the surrounding areas. In horizontal division, the more one fragments and compartmentalizes urban space and the social body, the more one disarms the masses and depresses its social, political status. That is, the more one horizontally divides, the more one increases the height of the top above the social base. The two forms of divisions together constructed an architecture of a high ground, a pyramid, of imperial Beijing. In this spatial–political logic of the state, there is a two-way flow of effects or forces. There is a downward flow of force on the slope of the high ground, in the form of administration and security practice, in moral, social and 76

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(b)

(d) Figure 3.14 continued.

material control of the population. There is also an upward support of the high ground that ensured the downward flow of force, which was in the form of horizontal and vertical divisions in a spatial, social, political tectonics of the city. These two movements, however, were mutually dependent. The imperial authority designed the tectonic of the whole hierarchy and issued order and force from the top to flow downward, which ensured a systematic structuring of social spatial divisions, which in turn developed an upward support for the heights of the hierarchical tectonic, the high ground of the capital and, with the same logic and in a larger scale, the mountain of the empire. 77

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Space of society Let us now turn to another side of the picture: the social cultural life of the urban population in Beijing as it was naturally developed and self-organized, without direct involvement of government institutions. In search of such a social urban life in Beijing, many questions can be raised. How did people encounter and interact with each other? What was the established spatial pattern for social encounter and interaction? Was there a ‘civic life’ and a ‘public domain’ in Beijing? How were they structured in social spatial terms? Taking Beijing as a whole, what was the relationship between the city as a domain of the state and the city as a terrain of the urban and civic society? Let us first make a few preliminary observations. There is a dialectic relationship between the closing and the opening of a wall, between dissecting space into fragments, and relating and integrating spatial fragments together again. Although Beijing was certainly a city of walls fragmenting and suppressing space, it was also, in daytime and in the urban and rural areas open to the public, a ‘smooth’, continuing and expanding space. As identified earlier, there were street networks in each city. Those in the Capital City, Outer City, and sub-urban and rural areas outside the city walls, in daytime, were interconnected to each other through city gates, and within themselves through street intersections, check points and fences. This space, now totally open, also extended further into a natural space of infinity beyond the walls and the immediate regions. It was a vast field of networks. It was a space used by all members of the population. All forms of social cultural life, in their transaction through human movement, were inevitably accommodated and channelled through in this space. It was the largest social space with the lowest level of differentiation and classification. Being intrinsically open and continuous, its underlying tendency was to relate and integrate, to allow random mixture of the population and their confusing flows of movement. It could be generative of new encounter and association, and uncertain conduct and activity. It could be potentially subversive. It could be chaotic at times, and could present a threat to social order and control imposed from the state. In such a situation, there was inevitably a dialectic tension, between opening and closing, between the need to release space for a free social life, and the need to impose divisions on space to frame and order social practice. Beijing apparently had both aspects of the operation. It was a space of division, but was also a space of relative openness at the same time. While a civic social life may be accommodated in the realm of this open space, the relationship between state and society may unfold along this critical dialectic. In this field of networks, one can identify three spatial forms that accommodated urban social life: streets, nodes and nodal areas, and shop fronts. The first is self-evident in its ability to accommodate social life. Streets were naturally the most pervasive form of social space which formed the global pattern of the network and accommodated all movements for urban social life. Nodes, either as intersecting points of streets or as areas around public structures such as temples, were another spatial form of urban life. Nodes formed a unique spatial 78

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pattern that can be compared and contrasted with that in Europe. As we discussed earlier, the European and Chinese followed different paths of urban development: an agora-centred pattern of growth for the first and a networkbased pattern of planning for the second. As a result, one witnesses a typology of street-and-square in the European setting, and a typology of street-and-node in the Chinese setting. In the first, one sees large stone façades of public institutions, such as churches and city halls, defining the agora-based central spaces. In the second, one sees lower timber structures, such as free-standing arches and street fences, as well as surfaces of urban blocks such as brick walls and timber gates, that together define a more ambiguous node or nodal area. In the case of nodal areas that contained focused urban life, in front of some public institutions such as temples, one can identify a ‘recess space’. It was a nodal area defined by the gate leading to this institution, its recessed walls, the surrounding timber fences, and some symmetrically placed arches along the streets in front of this gate. Recess space was a joint between the institutional compound behind and the open urban streets in front. It assumed an important role in forming a public space and an urban spectacle, which became dramatic and lively during a market fair or a religious festival periodically held in and around this point (Figure 3.16). Another spatial form of urban life was the continuous edge of shop fronts on the two sides of streets (Figures 3.17 and 3.18). All streets, whether large avenues or small alleyways, were defined on the two sides by three primary elements: walls, gates and shop fronts. Walls and gates covered compounds behind, which were mostly houses and sometimes temples and government offices. The third element was the long and continuous surface of many shops, one next to the other, found mostly along large streets and avenues. They tended to cluster in central areas in the eastern, western and northern parts of the Capital City. In the Outer City, they covered most streets, and concentrated densely on the central area of this city. The shops offered goods and services of various kinds, and were often linked to some workshops and warehouses at the back. In front of them, on the main commercial street every day, and near or inside recess spaces during periodical fairs and religious festivals, temporary stalls and vendors were placed on one or two sides of the road, adding more layers along linear streets and around nodal areas. These shop fronts, with workshops behind and mobile stalls in front, constituted a large urban social space in which commercial exchange and social interaction could be facilitated. Although watched by the prefecture and magistrate offices, they constituted a large space with a relative freedom for random mixture of the population. Observing the scene more carefully, we find that there were centres for focused and specialized social interactions, centres that were located next to or behind shop fronts on the streets. Dotted on the large urban field of networks, in close relations with streets, nodal areas and commercial fronts, these centres formed critical foci in the economic, social and cultural life of the city. Three types of such centres can be identified: 1) guilds and guildhalls; 2) theatres and theatre-restaurants; 3) temples, with fairs and festivals. 79

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Guilds and guildhalls Outside the domain of government institutions and their direct state control, there were three civic associations established by the relevant members of the population. They were religious, professional-commercial and provincial associations.43 Groups of the first kind (often referred to as hui) were organized for worshipping certain gods and for support of others to follow the same worship.44 Associations of the second and third type, both regarded as guilds, were secular groups established on a basis different from each other. Professional-commercial associations (referred as hui, hang, hanghui, gonghui) were those guilds whose members pursued the same professional work, mostly in craft industry and commerce. Provincial associations (huiguan), on the other hand, were those whose members shared the same native province, which were often organized by senior merchants and officials who came from that province.45 Some of the provincial guilds, however, were also professional-commercial guilds, as people from certain regions monopolized certain professions.46 The last two types of associations were also different in terms of function. Professional-commercial guilds were primarily to help members in their business and to control the price and to maintain a monopoly of the profession in the market. The provincial guilds, on the other hand, were essentially a social club, with services of a hostel, for both visitors from that region and for fellow countrymen living in Beijing. Both types also shared some common functions. Both involved a religious culture and regularly worshipped certain gods deemed as guardians of the profession or the earth god and the city god of that native country. Both held regular meetings for the worship and for business deliberations, which were also an occasion for casual communication and socialization. Both also offered charity service to local communities, and both discussed and sometimes confronted prefecture and magistrate officials on problems such as taxation and public welfare.47 There were, by the late nineteenth century, more than 100 professional-commercial guilds and about 400 provincial guilds in Beijing.48 In the 400 provincial guilds, there were at least close to twenty that were clearly professional-commercial guilds as well.49 Considering that Beijing was the capital that attracted officials, students, merchants and artisans from all over the country, this large number is understandable. The majority of the guild offices of both types were located in the Outer City (Figure 3.15). However they took different forms of localization. Most provincial guilds had their own building compounds in the Outer City, to offer lodgings to visitors and rooms for business transaction and religious worship. For professional-commercial guilds, the form was more diverse. Large and wealthy guilds had their own specially built guildhalls, which were courtyard compounds with main halls and side chambers. Many other guilds established their offices in a side hall within a temple, which enabled them to hold meetings and perform worship to the gods enshrined in the hall. Smaller guilds set up their offices in a workshop in one of the senior members of the guilds. Other smaller guilds did not have a permanent office 80

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Hesi (1st) Beiding (4th)

Dazhongsi (1st) Wanshousi (4th) Xialing (4th) Miaofengshen (4th) Badachu (9th)

Huangsi (1st)

Caolaogongguan (1st) Yonghegong (1st) Huguoshi [7, 8, 17, 18, 27, 28]

Qianhai (Shishahai) (6th)

Shuntianfu (outside) (1st)

Yaowang Miao [1, 15]

Longfusi [9, 10, 19, 20, 29, 30]

Diaoyutai (9th) Baitasi [5, 6, 16, 25, 26]

Dongding (4th) Chunchang (1st)

Dongyuemiao (3rd) [1, 15]

Dengshikou (1st)

Baiyunguan (1st) Tianningsi (9th)

Duchenghuang Miao (5th) Er Zha (7th) Zaojunmiao (8th)

Liulichang (1st) Tudimiao [3. 13. 23]

Caishenmiao (9th)

Huaershi [4, 14, 24]

Pantaogong (3rd)

Guandimiao (5th)

Jiangnan Cheng Huang Miao (7th) Tianqiao [11, 21]

Longqiao Hui (9th)

Yaotai (5th) Taoranting (9th)

Zhongding (6th)

Nanding (5th)

KEY Temple and fair sites opened monthly [with the date of the fairs]. Temple, fair and pilgrim sites opened for annual worship (with the month in which they were visited). Areas of concentration of guildhalls, theatres and theatre-restaurants.

Figure 3.15 Nodes of a civic social space: a distribution of major temple, fair and pilgrim sites, and the areas of guildhalls, theatres and theatre-restaurants in Beijing in the nineteenth century.

and organized meetings in a rented room in a temple or in a restaurant or a teahouse.50 All these 500 locales, mobile or fixed, small or large, independent or part of other settings, were somewhere behind the commercial fronts, and were embedded in the street networks of Beijing, with a preference for the peripheral and sub-urban Outer City. They cast a wide net of points and centres, for numerous but focused encounters and interactions in the form of guild associations, and especially at religious and business meetings organized at different times at these locales. Although they were specialized social groups, and registered at and watched by the prefecture and magistrate offices, they offered a large net of localities for interaction and formation of solidarity among 81

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members of the population on a broad horizontal surface. They suspended and eroded, to an extent, horizontal divisions imposed from above, and thus posed a degree of challenge to the overall hierarchical domination of the state. Theatres and theatre-restaurants Chinese drama developed gradually over centuries and as late as the Northern and Southern Song dynasties (960–1279), structured plays for secular entertainment were developed, and permanent theatre buildings open to the public were established in large cities.51 In the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century, many local styles flourished, competed with each other in the capital and other large cities, and were absorbed into a few major streams. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, in Beijing where the strongest troupes (mostly from Anhui province) had been competing for dominance and absorbing actively new elements of the streams and many other styles, a major genre of performance emerged, which was referred as pihuangju and jingju, and later recognized internationally as ‘Peking Opera’.52 In the capital region, troupes of various types and qualities flourished in their own circles; venues for performance diversified and proliferated; and theatre buildings became ever more popular with an enthusiastic audience.53 All plays were performed by mobile troupes. There was however a huge difference in reputation and artistry among them, and therefore in the venue and the occasion for their performance. The more country-based and informal troupes offered different kinds of performance ranging from celebrating dance (such as lion dance and acrobatics) to formal plays, and often performed in village grain yards, dry river beds, open fields, street corners, local temples, and sometimes in restaurants and guildhalls.54 The strong troupes that performed special styles of plays were often acting in urban settings, including temples, guildhalls, different types of restaurants and in specially built theatres. The strongest troupes shared and rotated among the best known theatres, and sometimes in mansions of high officials and in the imperial palace.55 Apart from casual and temporary locations in the countryside and in street corners, formal sites included the following: stages in private gardens in officials’ mansions and imperial palace; stages inside many temple compounds; platforms in guildhalls and restaurants; and stages in the formal and purposebuilt halls and theatres. These purpose-built structures involved three types of establishment: ‘halls for assorted plays’ (zashuaguan), ‘theatre-mansions’ (xizhuang), and ‘theatre-courts’ (xiyuan). The first were restaurants in which plays were regularly acted and story-telling was also performed. There were many of them in both the Capital and Outer City.56 The second was a type of theatre-restaurant, which was used often by merchants, scholars and officials, who rented the place and held parties and banquets, in which occasionally proper dramas were played by good troupes. In the early nineteenth century, there were about ten of them, all located in the Outer City, which included the famous Wenchang Huiguan and Changsheng Huiguan.57 The third type may be 82

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regarded as the theatre proper, which did not offer food other than tea, and was open to the public who came to watch plays acted by famous troupes. Inevitably, it was also a place for meeting friends and for conversation over cups of tea, amidst the music and the noise of the place. In 1816, there were twentyone such theatres, all located in the Outer City (Figure 3.15), and clustered in the central area along the two sides of the north–south streets in front of the central gate to the Capital City (zhengyangmen). They included theatres well known to everyone in Beijing, such as Guanghelou (Chalou), Guangdelou, Sanqingyuan and Qingleyuan.58 From the exclusive to the inclusive, from formal settings to semi-formal locations, to the most casual and mobile localities, these spatial foci provided time and place for the population to watch the play, which enabled them to gather, encounter and associate with each other. Street corners, temples and theatres, in particular became some of the most open venues for the casual mixing of the population in Beijing. The danger they presented to social order and stability, to the maintenance of Confucian ethics, to the austere life-style of the banner population, including Manchu officials, living inside the Capital City and Imperial City, was a constant worry to the imperial court.59 In the face of the increasing popularity of dramatic plays among many, including Manchu aristocrats and officials, and of the spread of theatres into the Capital City, the imperial court issued edicts in 1671, 1781, 1799, 1802 and 1811, to ban repeatedly the building of theatres inside the Capital City.60 Other edicts imposed further restrictions, such as banning Manchu officials watching plays in the Outer City, banning women entering theatres and plays at night, limiting the building of new theatres in the Outer City and placing restrictions on aristocrats and officials housing private actors and actresses. Despite all these restrictions, dramatic play and theatre-going not only survived but thrived, culminating in the formation of ‘Peking Opera’ and in its increasing popularity among the population in the nineteenth century. With this development, theatres and the other venues maintained an active public space, and sustained a most vibrant stage of urban public life. Temples, fairs and festivals Chinese popular religion was a most eclectic and heterogeneous body of doctrines that included objects of worship of diverse origins. They included heroes and saints from history and historical legends; ancestors of all households and of imperial courts; the Sage Confucius and other masters in the Confucian tradition; gods and deities of the Buddhist pantheon; universal agents and powers in Yin-Yang cosmology; natural gods and guardians in the Daoist religion; and other deities, spirits and ghosts covered simultaneously by many of these canons. While scholars and official-gentry read and discoursed on classics in some of these traditions (such as Confucian and Yin-Yang classics), the population at large worshipped and utilized all spiritual powers and agents from these traditions, in a most ‘lateral’ and ‘heterotopic’ (that is, ‘post-modern’) frame of coexistence. One often finds a shrine of gods of a doctrine different 83

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from that in the main halls in the same temple. Buddhist bodhisattvas (such as guanyin), naturalist spirits of mountains and rivers, and historical heroes and saints (such as guandi or guangong) can often be found in one temple.61 Temples in the shape of a building compound were the major sites for popular religion. They were referred as si, guan and miao. In Beijing, they can be found in the Capital City, the Outer City and the surrounding areas and in distant countryside (Figure 3.15). They dotted the urban, the sub-urban and, significantly, the rural landscape, with some of the largest Daoist and Buddhist temples located on the mountains, to the east and the west of the capital (such as Dongyuemiao in the east and Baiyunguan in the west). As foci of religious worship, they also attracted social and commercial gatherings of varying sizes. Temple markets, fairs and festivals were regularly organized at these locations, on monthly and annual cycles with key dates specified on the calendar. There was a temporal framework in the popular life of the temple. For almost everyday, most temples were open for anyone to come in, to consult one’s fortune and to pay tribute to gods individually. Every month, fairs were organized on different dates at different temples. Vendors, artisans, acting troupes and the general public visited them in rotation. In the late nineteenth century, the well known temple fairs were organized in this schedule: Tudimiao and Hua’er Shi in the west and east of the Outer City opened fairs every month, on the third, thirteenth and twenty-third, and on the fourth, fourteenth and twentyfourth days, respectively. In the Capital City, Huguosi in the west was open for fairs on the seventh and the eighth of every ten days of every month, whereas Longfusi in the east was open for temple fairs on the ninth and the tenth days of every ten days of every month. Other venues included Yaowangmiao in the north-east of the Capital City and Dongyuemiao to the east, both opening on the first and the fifteenth days monthly for temple markets.62 These times and places constituted some of the most exciting moments in the public life of the population of Beijing. Families and individuals went to these temples, to worship gods and, perhaps more importantly, to attend the fair, to buy things, meet people, see the crowd, watch dramatic plays and enjoy the whole festivity, which was described as kan re nao, literally, ‘to see the hot and noisy spectacle’. Other temples, many in rural settings, organized fairs and festivals annually, often for a time period covering the birthday of the main god, or a time with some other religious significance. The dates tended to range between the first to the ninth month in the Chinese calendar, that is, from early spring to late autumn. They tended to cluster in the first month for urban temples (in the spring festival season), the fourth month for many rural temples (early summer), the seventh month for Buddhist temples (early autumn) and the ninth month for rural temples (late autumn). The most fabled temple festivals included: the exorcism of evil spirits at Yonghegong (dagui) on the thirteenth day of the first month; the fair at Baiyunguan from the first to the nineteenth day of the first month; the festival at Dongyuemiao from the fifteenth to the thirtieth in the third month, and the temple fairs at Miaofengshan mountains from the first to the fifteenth of the fourth month.63 The annual calendar had an independent temporal framework of festivals. 84

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Only some of them were located at temples. Those that were located at temples fell mostly in the first and in the seventh month. From New Year’s day to the Lantern Festival (the fifteenth of the first month), many temples and some other locations were open for fairs and markets, including temples of Yonghegong, Huangsi, Heisi, Dazhongsi, Baiyunguan, and streets in Liulichang and Dengshikou areas.64 On the fifteenth of the seventh month, and in this month generally, Buddhist temples held their most important festival known as Yulanhui, the rites of Ullambana, in the halls, streets and in open space on river and canal banks.65 Temples had their own spatial articulations. On a larger scale, they marked focal points on the urban and rural landscape, with an emphasis on the latter for many larger Daoist and Buddhist temples, which were located often on a mountain endowed with historical or mythological significance. Within the city walls, and at a smaller scale, temples had a specific layout. They each had a few main halls on the central axis, smaller halls and rooms on the two sides, and a series of courtyards linking them together (Figure 3.16). In the very front of the

Figure 3.16 A key node of a civic social space: Longfusi temple with its urban surroundings in 1750, showing the temple, a front courtyard, an external recess space, and streets and avenues nearby. Source: Xinyayuan Institute (comp.) Qianlong Jingcheng Quantu, 1940, Beijing.

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complex, there was usually a front courtyard open for the temple market and religious performance. Outside the gate, there was usually some form of urban ‘recess spaces’, defined by the gate, walls, fences and arches, which related the temple further into streets nearby, or some open space in a rural area. Although this set of spatial relations between inside and outside can be found in many other building types, such as guildhalls and theatres (as well as mansions and imperial institutions, offices and palaces), temple compounds, among all open public buildings, revealed the most explicit and elaborate articulation of this kind. In a larger urban context, these temples also tended to occupy a location with a strong sometimes direct link to the main avenues of the city, which secured good integration with the rest of the urban network. (The avenues in front of the temples in Figure 3.16 were all in the 1 per cent most integrated streets of the Inner City. See Figure 3.9 and Figure 3.15.) This strong integration with the larger structure of the network, together with the articulation of the joint between inside and outside, formed a critical node in the urban spatial layout of a Chinese city (Figures 3.17 and 3.18). At the time of temple festivals, the boundaries in the nodal area were thrown open. Crowds of people flowed in and out, through the gate and the nodal area linking the inner halls and the public space of the streets. Together these spaces formed one continuous field, containing the crowds, their busy and confusing activities, and the ‘hot and noisy spectacle’. At the temple Longfusi,

Figure 3.17 A spectacle of a civic society: scenes of a festival at an intersecting node, in relation to streets, a recess space, a front courtyard (of a small temple), other fringe spaces, and defining elements such as walls and gates (of an imperial palace), shop fronts, fences and a free-standing arch. Section of a scroll painting Qingming Shanghetu (Up along a river at Qingming festival) by Chen Mei and others, 1736. Source: From and by permission of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China.

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opening on the last two days of every ten days every month, the fair spilled from the inner courtyard to the front courtyard, the front recess space, the streets nearby and further onto the sides of large avenues nearby (Figure 3.16).66 At Yonghegong temple, when there was a performance of exorcism of evil spirits in the first month, the crowd gathered in the front courtyard and on the streets. The elaborate devil dance started in the courtyards and then turned into a procession and moved onto the streets. Stalls and vendors, on the other hand, filled in the streets nearby and later on moved into the courtyard as well.67 The fair and the spectacle extended further into larger spaces nearby. In the famous Yulanhui festivals, in front of many Buddhist temples and in open space on river or canal banks in Er Zha (Second Sluice on the canal to the east of the capital), large crowds gathered to watch ‘entertainment such as stilt walking, or dressing up as lions’. ‘During the evening, lanterns are lighted along the canal, this being called the “setting out of river lanterns”.’ ‘Hundreds of small candles fastened to floats are set adrift on the waters, . . . to guide the spirits of those who have been drowned, while adults and children walk along the banks carrying the lotus-leaf lanterns . . . one of the most beautiful of Chinese festivals.’68 Temples were the most vibrant and spectacular sites of public life for the population. They constituted the most significant hubs of a civic and public domain of Chinese society. Although there were official involvement and control in temple maintenance and in worship practice, as well as official restrictions on public gatherings, temples and temple fairs remained the most open venues and times, for interactions among the population, for the dynamic flows of a public life.69 A space of society The three types of foci for social interaction, the guilds, the theatres and the temples with fairs and festivals, were not separated from each other in reality. They overlapped in terms of function. Guild meetings involved worshipping gods, often with plays acted by theatre troupes. The troupes, on the other hand, travelled to temples and other venues to perform in the gatherings of various groups and associations. Religious worship was a more popular practice. In household, in palace, in office, in guildhalls and in temples, worship of gods was performed on different scales. In terms of location, the focused and formal venue of the three kinds of interaction also overlapped to an extent. Many guildhalls were inside the temples; many theatre troupes performed on fixed stages inside guildhalls, restaurants and temple compounds; the temples, on the other hand, accommodated the two types of events and other associated functions such as marketing for the guilds and social visibility for the troupes. With these three basic forms of social interaction were related other encounters, such as formal and casual meetings in teahouses, wine shops, restaurants and in open spaces. There was a fluid, overlapping and organic relationship among the three basic forms of social interaction. There was also a dispersion of social practice of encountering and interacting onto an entire urban–rural space. 87

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In spatial terms, the three foci had many fixed locations. However, they were all situated somewhere inside, and in a certain relation to, the whole street network. Being behind, next to, and in front of the commercial front of the streets, all venues and events of these encounters and interactions were accommodated in the field of street networks (Figures 3.17 and 3.18). A framework for the social space of Beijing can be proposed. It involved the three major foci as structural poles for social encounter and interaction, with overlapping relations among them, and with the temple assuming the most important role, the primary centre for the civic and public realm of society. These three foci were then situated in an extensive pattern of commercial fronts, made up mostly of shop fronts. All of them, in turn, were embedded in the most extensive social space, the streets and the field of street networks, extending from the urban into the rural.

Society versus the state If one observes the practice of the state and that of society carefully, one finds two very different, in fact, opposite lines of operation. The state horizontally fragmented and compartmentalized the population and urban space, and vertically differentiated between parts of the population and spatial enclosures; it thus created an overall vertical hierarchy, the political high ground, which enabled the downward flow of force and control which, in turn, reinforced the

Figure 3.18 A spectacle of a civic society: scenes of a market fair in the suburb, showing a node, a main commercial street across a bridge, and two temples on the two sides of a river. Section of a scroll painting Qingming Shanghetu (Up along a river at Qingming festival) by Chen Mei and others, 1736. Source: From and by permission of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China.

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horizontal and vertical divisions, and the overall tectonic of the high ground. The urban society, on the other hand, unfolding on a large open field of networks, fostered lateral encounters and associations across the divided parts of the population and space, and thus confused social order and classification, horizontalizing the overall vertical hierarchy. The state divided and controlled society, whereas society reintegrated the divided compartments, polluted the classification, and endangered the hierarchy of the state. The compartmentalization of the population on the land with the baojia system, and the imposition of security rules and the deployment of armed forces, among other things, were to bring the crowds and their potentially dangerous mixture under control. The curfew imposed on the streets at night, the restrictions upon theatres, and on temple fairs and street performances, were the cases in which the two operations came to confront each other, with the state asserting its power, repeatedly, over social life and social space. The two, however, were also in need of each other. The state could not survive without a comprehensive and layered society as a base for production and reproduction. Society, on the other hand, could not function and perform without the security, stability and order constructed and guarded by the state. In a dialectic relationship of the two, the nature of the state and that of society, one would argue, offered a natural and ‘good’ configuration, for the two to fit into each other, in which the state is in domination at the top and society exists on a horizontal plane at the base. In this natural configuration, the domination was relative and had a crucial allowance for society to exist and to thrive, within a certain limit. Although the whole political high ground may be described as ‘absolutist’, it cannot be totally absolutist in its exercise of domination. The guildhalls, theatres, restaurants and temples were tolerated, and so were the fairs and festivals that spilled out onto the streets, and lingered on into the night, on certain limited dates.70 The normal curfew imposed on the streets at night was not applied in the first fifteen days of the first month, in the spring festival season, and on some other festival dates as well.71 There was deferment in time and space that opened a room between the state and society. On the temporal dimension, there was a deferring that occurred cyclically: a relative freedom was given periodically, in ‘another’ time. The city gates and street intersections were open in daytime everyday. The night curfew was lifted in the same daily cycle. The rules were also eased during the time of temple fairs and festivals, on a larger monthly and yearly cycle. There was then a deferring in a larger, linear and historical time. It was a deferring that occurred, unwillingly on the part of the state, in the mid- and late nineteenth century. Due to many factors, the overall power of the state was declining, allowing greater freedom for social life and social space in the late Qing dynasty, which witnessed the spread of theatre life and the rise of ‘Peking Opera’.72 On the spatial dimension, taking Beijing as a whole, there was a tendency to exclude, externalize and distance, that is, to defer in space, domains of social life. Theatres and theatre-restaurants for the public were deferred to ‘another’ place, that is, the Outer City and even further away beyond the city walls. Most guildhalls were also deferred to the Outer City. Temples were found in very dis89

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persed locations, with a tendency for larger temples and temple groups, offering large-scale annual fairs, to be found in sub-urban and rural places, and many in remote mountains. In this deferring and distancing domains of social space, one finds a critical use of sub-urban and rural space. In search for room between the state and society, and for an easy domain for social life to thrive without challenging the state head on, sub-urban and rural space was used as a supplement. The space of urban social life was deferred and relocated to sub-urban and rural areas. In this situation, the state–society relationship was replaced, and was mediated, by the urban–rural relationship. The Outer City in Beijing, therefore, assumed a unique position. As a sub-urban and semi-rural region, it played a significant role as a supplement and as a deferred space, as ‘another’ space, mediating the relationship, and also expanding the distance, between urban and rural, and state and society. In a similar way, and in a more distant and rural setting, the temples assumed the same function and represented the same relationships. Although there were religious reasons for the temples to be in remote rural areas, there were also political roles for them to play there, where the life of the urban was found and perhaps best situated in the rural. Despite the deferment and the allowance given to social life in this relative domination of the state, the domination was nevertheless clear. One should acknowledge the existence of a rich and significant space of society in Beijing. However, placed in the overall configuration and in the larger geo-political context in which the city was an imperial capital, one would have to acknowledge the control and domination by the state and by imperial authority as a basic, defining structure. In other words, Beijing was primarily a space of the state.

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CONCLUDING NOTES TO PART I Architecture of the city and the land

Beijing, emerging in 1420, represents a turning point in the evolving trajectory of China’s capitals. Moving east, then south-east over a long history, this trajectory is now turned north suddenly, as marked by Beijing. At a global scale, this move, together with military expeditions towards the north and north-west, and maritime expeditions to South-east Asia, then South Asia and finally the east coast of Africa, defined a new political geography in much of Asia. It reestablished a central position for China in the region. Within the mainland, Beijing came into being as the new capital of the Ming empire in a large geoarchitectural construction: a project that involved re-opening the Grand Canal and significant extensions to the Great Wall. A composite diagram emerges in this design: Beijing is a key point between a northern arc of the Wall and a southern curve of the Canal extending to South-east China. This composition was made in strategic response to the threat from nomadic forces from the north and northwest, as well as the rich resources available in the south-east. A large geographic map of relations, not the local conditions of the place (such as local economy, population growth, access to water, physical urban condition) determined the site to be chosen as the national capital. With social and natural resources mobilized under a centralized authority, local conditions were transformed, to make a new locality that conformed to the ideas of the overall design. There is a preference for a large and total disposition over a locally based arrangement, in order to secure a strategic control over a large geographic space. There is also an artificial and a constructive approach in the making of a new topography and a new physical-social locality. In the ambitious vision of Emperor Hongwu (Zhu Yuanzhang) and Emperor Yongle (Zhu Di), one sees also an excessiveness in the projects dreamt and ruthlessly carried out. The long-range expeditions, the new topography and the geo-architecture of Beijing revealed this vision rather clearly. The city itself can be studied at two levels: that of a formal plan and of an actual space. At the first level, there was a symbolic representation of imperial ideology. Imperial ideology in early China included a planning theory and a Confucianism developed in the Han and pre-Han dynasties. Yin-Yang cosmology and moral doctrines of Confucianism were synthesized. A central position of the sovereign as a mediating point between Heaven and humans was proposed. The central position of the sovereign necessitates a centrality of the 91

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palace in the city and of the capital in the empire. The planning theory thus prescribed a centric and symmetric model. Imperial ideology developed in the Song and Ming time, Neo-Confucianism, proposed a more sophisticated argument. It says that the rational and the moral are essentially the same, that there is goodness in all humans and in ‘heaven’, that all humans can become sages, and that the sovereign should become a ‘sage ruler’. The rationalist and moralist tendencies of Neo-Confucianism informed the formal plan of Beijing, making it total and totalitarian, rigid and highly ceremonial. There was an intentional projection of a symbolic space of wangdao, that is, of an idealist Confucian model of a sage ruler, and an inevitable synthesis of wangdao and badao, of a sage rulership and a powerful rulership, a Confucianism and a Legalism, a symbolism and a realism. The simultaneous use of a manifest Confucianism and a practical Legalism, in fact, had always been the tradition at the imperial court. However, there was a more acute perception and complex argument for the inevitable and inextricable connection between moral reason (li), practical condition (qi) and the use of power (shi) in Neo-Confucianism. Furthermore, as reflected in Beijing, this duality in imperial rule corresponds to the duality of formal plan and actual space. While the form on the plan represents clearly the Confucian discourse of the sage ruler under heaven, actual spatial disposition in reality reflects a more complex picture of social and political relations. At this second level in Beijing, one finds a spatial constitution of a dominating state but also, at the same time, a thriving society. There was above all an excessive use of boundaries and especially walls of different kinds. They fragmented space and created differentiation vertically and horizontally in terms of socio-political status. There was a persistent and uncompromising domination of higher central areas over lower outer regions. The control of the state, through its three systems (civil administration, public security, military defence), involved measures such as population registration based on neighbourhood units, and a rigorous deployment of security forces across urban space, using gates and fences to close off urban space and to check on human movement. On the other hand, despite this horizontal fragmentation and vertical control, there was an active urban social life unfolding, horizontally on the plane of urban space, linking streets, nodal areas and local quarters. Urban civic life grew between and around nodes of three types, dotted as they were across the street network: guild-houses, theatres and temples. The overlapping of traffic movement with commercial and religious life on streets, especially in nodal areas around temples, presents a most impressive street landscape in the Chinese setting. It reverses a European situation in which the physical stage set, the high façades, especially those around the agora and the square, dominated the landscape. In the Chinese setting, despite the active flow of social life, it was the state at the top that was in control of society at the base. Two diagrams can be used to describe the two dispositions. For the formal plan that represented an idealistic ideology, one would imagine a series of concentric circles, with the centre and symmetry defining the position of the sovereign. For the actual spatial disposition that accommodated socio-political 92

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practices, a high ground or a pyramid can be used to describe the hierarchical order as well as the downward extension of control asserted from the top. The first is an ‘external’ form that manifests a grand theory, whereas the second an ‘internal’ section that reveals a hidden structure and its functioning. Beijing is a combination of the two and can be understood in both ways. Beijing is both total and complex. Its complexity lies in two intended and structured integrations. At one level, the diagram of the new topography, of the Wall, the city and the Canal, structurally bind together a geographical totality with an urban, architectural totality, whereby a total vision of the first implies that of the second. At another level, through Neo-Confucian discourse and practice, two other totalities, those of a formal plan and a spatial layout, are bound together. Ideas of harmony of heaven and humanity, and of moral righteousness for a total and totalitarian order under the sovereign as Son of Heaven, bring together a formal representation of a cosmological sacredness on the plan and an actual constitution of a socio-political practice in space. Again, totality of the first implies and, in this case, necessitates that of the second. Besides this intended structural complexity, there is also an organic and historical complexity. This unfolds in the relationship between the state and society. Although there was a total and totalitarian hierarchy of the state, there was nevertheless a room for a civic social life to grow and prosper, a sphere that developed gradually for more than five centuries. This very substantial layer of complexity in Beijing, developed over such a long time, should not be ignored under the weight of the state. Regarding the forms of totality, a consistent rational disposition and a positioning of the human subject reside in this approach. At all three levels, geographical, formal-ideological and spatial-political, there is a persistent preference for a large and total design for an overall effect and achievement. The geo-architecture of Beijing is for a strategic composition of the empire as a whole, as conceived by the authority. The spatial-political pyramid of the city is for a domination of the authority. The formal-ideological representation, on the other hand, is to achieve an overall composition conceptually and symbolically: a harmony between humans and heaven. In all cases, the design is submissive and holistic, for a totality in relation either to authority or to heaven. The total design is political, symbolic and cosmological. Autonomous and individual human subjects are dissolved, re-emerging in a totality, but also in a complex relational social life.

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Part II A POLITICAL ARCHITECTURE

4 A SEA OF WALLS The Purple Forbidden Palace

The Palace City or the Purple Forbidden City was a large, horizontally expansive, architecture complex at the centre of Beijing. In a rectangular shape on a north–south axis, it measured 961 metres north to south and 753 metres east to west, covering an area of about 723,600 square metres. For five centuries, from 1420 to 1911, fourteen emperors of the Ming and ten of the Qing lived here, ruling the Chinese empire from within this deep centre. Viewed from above, it is challenging in many ways. It confronts us with an unusual sense of scale, and raises the question of the limit of human design as a coordinated, intentional project and construction. The Palace City is so large and yet so well organized. Is it an architecture? Is it a city? It challenges the conventional boundary between them. It presents a city of an architectural quality, a single and coordinated design. At the same time, it presents an architecture with the complexity of a city, a conglomerate of a large scale with a broad coexistence of multiple functions. The design of this architecture-city, on the other hand, is ambitious and rigorous. The north–south axis, 7.5 km long in itself, runs through the complex, organizing all central structures and courtyards in a symmetrical layout. The axis is then extended into secondary axes, to regulate all parts of this complex, defining and framing hundreds of symmetrical courtyards and smaller enclaves. A sea of roofs unfolds before us: about one thousand buildings line up in a regular fashion with the aid of axes, creating an astounding spectacle from the air (Figure 4.1).1 Within this sea of roofs is a vast underworld of walls. Walls not only encircled spaces from the whole city down to the smallest rooms and alleyways, but also, at an abstract level, dissected, internalized and deepened space. In the Palace City, this process was carried out intensively and systematically, to an extreme point. It created, in the early fifteenth century, one of the deepest and most segmented architecture-cities in the world. The use of walls, in the making of divided and deep spaces, is indeed a critical feature of this complex that awaits close observation and analysis (Figure 4.2). The Palace City is also resistant to historical change. There were certainly changes over time in this city. There were numerous local additions, and change of use of some parts of the city. Despite all these, the Palace City as a whole survived as one body of construction, stable and integrated as it was first built. Temporal change is less significant than spatial stability and its elaborate 97

Figure 4.1 The Forbidden City viewed from above. Source: Hou Renzhi et al. (comp.) Beijing Lishi Dituji, 1988, front cover, by permission of Beijing Chubanshe.

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Figure 4.2 A passage in the Forbidden City.

complexity as a whole. In the Palace City, space accommodates time: space compresses history into an architectural, urban and social geography. The Forbidden City in Beijing is more a space of histories than a history of spaces. The chapters that follow will investigate this space. We will review the map of the city and examine a spatial tectonic of the city here. Early and mid-Qing dynasty will be the focus and maps produced in 1750 and 1856 will be mostly used.2 After an ‘archaeological’ description of the spatial tectonic of the city, we will move on in the following chapters, to investigate the city as a social and political apparatus. The use of walls, their creation of deep spaces and their involvement in political practice will be explored. The problem of scale, and the use of a large and strategic composition, will surface from time to time in the following studies.

The Palace City Let us have an overview of the place first. The rectangular Palace City was enclosed on the four sides by a wall and a moat (Figure 4.3).3 There was a gate on each of the four sides. While the central north–south axis organized the city in a symmetrical layout, an east–west axis cuts the city into two halves: a northern and southern section, or neiting and waichao. The first term means ‘inner palace’ or ‘inner court’, whereas the second means ‘an area for outer audience’ or ‘outer court’. The first was a private residential quarter, whereas the second was a public area for formal audience, large ceremonies and some bureaucratic functions.4 99

KEY 1. Martial Spirit Gate 2. Palace of Earthly Tranquility 3. Hall of Union 4. Palace of Heavenly Purity (the Emperor’s formal residence) 5. Palace of Mental Cultivation (the Emperor’s real residence since the 1720s) 6. Gate of Heavenly Purity (a dividing point between the Inner Court and Outer Court) 7. Grand Council (since the 1720s) 8. Hall of Preserved Harmony 9. Hall of Middle Harmony 10. Hall of Supreme Harmony 11. Gate of Supreme Harmony 12. Meridian Gate 13. Western Flowery Gate 14. Eastern Flowery Gate 15. Hall of Martial Grace 16. Hall of Civil Glory 17. Grand Secretariat 18. Six Western Palaces 19. Six Eastern Palaces 20. Western Palace 21. Eastern Palace

Figure 4.3 A map of the Forbidden City (1750–1856). Source: Adapted from Hou Renzhi et al. (comp.) Beijing Lishi Dituji, 1988, p. 46, by permission of Beijing Chubanshe.

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On the north–south axis, there were three audience halls in the outer court and three residential palaces in the inner court. The last courtyard of the outer court was also a foreground of the gate into the inner court. This was a critical space, effectively a transitional area, between the inner and outer worlds of the Palace City. This gate, known as qian qing men, or Gate of Heavenly Purity, was a strategic joint between the two worlds of the palace. Critical communications occurred at this point and in this area. The ‘audience at the imperial gate’ (yumen tingzheng) refers to a system of holding audiences at and in front of this gate as effective meetings between the emperor and his ministers and other high-rank officials. The event, organized regularly, was a central moment in the process of communication between inside and outside, the emperor and his officials, in the overall operation of imperial rule over the government and the entire country. In the outer court, the three audience halls were, from north to south, Hall of Preserved Harmony (baohedian), Hall of Middle Harmony (zhonghedian) and Hall of Supreme Harmony (taihedian). The last one was the largest and tallest building inside the Palace City, measuring 60.01 metres wide, 33.33 metres deep and 35.05 metres high (including a large terrace 8.13 metres high).5 In front of it, that is, to its south, was the largest courtyard in the Palace City, covering an area of more than 30,000 square metres.6 The hall on the terrace, with this largest open space in front, constituted the most sacred and symbolically charged centre of the Forbidden City. Some of the most elaborate and spectacular ceremonies, such as the ‘grand audience’ (dachao), were held here. On these occasions, the emperor would arrive from the north, sit on the throne at the centre of the hall, face south, inspect the performance on the terrace and in the courtyard, and receive greetings presented by nobles, officials and guests coming from all over the empire. The axis extends further south, with an elaborate series of courtyards and gates on the central path. To the east and west of the axis, in the south of the Palace City, were a Hall of Civil Glory (wenhuadian) and a Hall of Martial Grace (wuyingdian) respectively. An imperial library was attached to the first, and a printing factory was housed in the second.7 Outside the Palace City, in the southern area of the Imperial City, there was a Temple of Ancestors (taimiao) to the east and an Altar of Land and Grain (shejitan) to the west. Further south, outside the Imperial but inside the Capital City, were state ministries and other government offices to the east and west of the axis. On this axis, the Meridian Gate (wumen) marked the southern entrance to the Palace City. Further south, the Gate of Heavenly Peace (tiananmen) and the Gate of Great Qing Empire (daqingmen) marked the two most southern entry points on a long northbound pilgrimage to the sacred centre of the empire. Back to the north, behind the gate of the inner court, there were three residential palaces. They were, from south to north, Palace of Heavenly Purity (qianqinggong), Hall of Union (jiaotaidian) and Palace of Earthly Tranquility (kunninggong). The first was formally assigned as the residence for the emperor, whereas the last, that for the empress. The middle one, on the other hand, was a store of imperial seals. A ring of chambers enclosed the three buildings, 101

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forming an intimate courtyard compound. It was the core of the inner court, the ‘great within’ (danei). Further behind the compound was a garden, defined further north by the last gate of the Palace City, the Gate of Martial Spirit (shenwumen). The five gates on the eastern side of the central compound, and the five on the west, respectively, led to the Six Eastern Palaces (dongliugong) and the Six Western Palaces (xiliugong). They were the two large complexes for the emperor’s consorts and concubines. To the south of the Six Western Palaces, and outside the south-western gate of the ‘great within’, was a palace compound known as Palace of Mental Cultivation (yangxindian). This was the second residence for the emperor and, since Emperor Yongzheng (r. 1723–1735), became the real residential palace for the Qing emperors, for the rest of the Qing history.8 The first one in the central compound then became an inner audience hall for receiving officials, princes and aristocrats. In this deep compound south-west of the ‘great within’, Qing emperors used various channels of communication, and processes of decision-making, to strengthen their direct rule over the government and the country. Spatial relations from here to that transitional area outside the gate of the inner court, and outer corridors and gates, and some offices inside and outside the Palace City, were the critical lines of operation for imperial rule, which will be observed in the following chapters. To the south of the Six Eastern Palaces, and outside the south-eastern gate of the ‘great within’, there were three compounds from east to west: a temple for ancestral worship, a palace for the crown prince, and an abstinence hall for the emperor. Behind the Six Eastern and Six Western Palaces, to the east, north and west, were hundreds of small compounds accommodating various daily functions of the imperial household: smaller residences, theatres, gardens, temples, offices and many large and small warehouses of the Imperial Household Department (neiwufu). The palaces described so far, from the great within outward, formed one giant symmetrical complex in the northern section of the Palace City. It was enclosed by one continuous wall, with four main gates to the south, north, east and west (qianqingmen, shunzhenmen, cangzhenmen and qixiangmen, respectively). In the north-east and north-west, there were two large complexes for the empress dowager and for consorts and concubines of earlier emperors. Most of the time, large parts of these palaces were used as gardens and warehouses. There were other functions scattered around: smaller palaces for princes in the south-east, a compound for the head office of the Imperial Household Department in the south-west, and workshops and warehouses of this department in many other places. There were a few but significant government offices located inside the Forbidden City. One was the Grand Secretariat (neige, or ‘inner cabinet’). Its head office and large archives of palace memorials were located in the south-east, against the southern wall, close to the eastern gate of the Palace City, the Eastern Glorious Gate (donghuamen). The other was the Grand Council (junjichu, or ‘office for military affairs’), which was located in the north-west corner of that strategic, transitional area between the inner and outer courts of the Palace City.9 102

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Formal plan and actual space There is a symbolic universe in the names of the palaces. The name ‘Purple Forbidden City’, zi jin cheng, refers to a ‘Ziwei Star, the Pole Star, in which the supreme deity lived in his abode, the Ziwei Palace, . . . at the apex of the vault of heaven, . . . other stars revolve around it in homage.’ Since the emperor, ‘known as the son of heaven, occupied the central and highest position amongst men, the analogy soon suggested itself’.10 Other names added more layers of mythological and cosmological meaning, creating a rich symbolic universe of the Palace City.11 They were related, one way or another, to imperial ideology as a synthesis of Yin-Yang cosmology and Confucianism, as first developed in the Han dynasty. In the new historical condition, they were also contained in the Neo-Confucian articulation of the emperor as a sage ruler under heaven. One can identify two ways in which semantic meaning was symbolically represented. The first was a formal layout in the planning of the palace. Geometrical configuration, including symmetry, centrality, concentricity and the use of the two cardinal axes, constitutes a basic level of formal articulation. Naming of the locations, with its rich lexical and semantic references, as we can see here, also adds a level of representation on the plan. The second way of representing ideology was through ceremonial and religious practices unfolding on key lines and points of the formal plan, such as the central axis and the central courtyard of the Palace City. The recursive enactment of these elaborate rituals and sacrifices signified the sacredness of the sage ruler under heaven: they represented the ideology of the imperial rule. Both of them were based on geometrical formality of the plan on the land surface viewed from above. Both of them, more importantly, belong to the order of symbolism and representation of the ‘formal plan’. We have already explored aspects of the plan, the first form of representation. Later in the book (in Chapter 8) we will examine aspects of the religious practice, the second form of representation. In this and the following three chapters, we shall explore a real space and its involvement with effective and practical transactions of the court as a political apparatus. Here, first, let us continue the archaeological review and examination of the spatial tectonic of the palace.

Walls and spaces: patterns of depth 1 There are many levels at which one can apply a thorough excavation, a horizontal section, through the Palace City. Arguably, one can always push the level of excavation deeper, revealing a more complex picture of all the pieces of space and fragments of material structures. To manage the excavation, one would choose to start from one particular level, a level that is not too shallow to miss out minute information and not too deep to confuse a global picture of the whole site. The Forbidden City was certainly constructed with all elements of material boundaries: columns, partitions and walls of all sizes and scales. Those boundaries, or ‘walls’ of all kinds, first articulate a single building, then groups 103

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of buildings, then a single courtyard, then groups of courtyard compounds, and finally, a total enclosed compound, the Palace City. It is a system of enclaves and courtyard compounds, articulated thoroughly with boundary walls of all kinds. To start the excavation, one would first choose this level of the city as a system of compounds defined by boundaries. Let us now cut the whole city at this level and peel off all the covers above. Let us then map this horizontal section in two analytical graphs. In the first, let us trace out all the boundaries which encircle and define all void spaces which were courtyard spaces but also other fragments of space. All the entries, that is, gates, are marked as well. Let us call it a ‘courtyard-boundary map’ of the Forbidden City (Figures 4.4 and 4.5). Based on that,

Figure 4.4 A ‘courtyard-boundary map’ of the Forbidden City (1750–1856).

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let us now represent all spaces as cells, and link them up if there was a real link, through a gate, across a wall, between any two adjacent spaces or cells. A ‘cell map’ of the Forbidden City is produced (Figure 4.6).12 There are 123 spaces or cells in the Forbidden City as depicted in both maps. The two maps in fact reflect the same spatial reality, although the second one, by excluding the information about size and shape, captures an abstract and topological structure of spatial relations. It presents a clearer picture of spaces as cells and spatial relations as links. The second map also represents clearly a

Figure 4.5 A ‘courtyard-boundary map’ of the Forbidden City (1750–1856), with the uspace (urban-space) represented in dark.

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Figure 4.6 A ‘cell map’ of the Forbidden City (1750–1856), with the u-space marked.

spatial reality defined and articulated completely and only by walls and entries. In transforming the first to the second, one can observe the behaviour and the effect of the boundary wall. Principally, a boundary wall with a gate in it creates a link, a step, a unit of spatial distance, in a journey that passes through the gate across the wall, from one space to the next. The link and the step constitute a basic unit in the making of an overall spatial depth and complexity. Looking at the cell map, one realizes that cells are related to each other as groups with limited accesses from outside: they form ‘islands’ or ‘urban blocks’. There is then another cell, a large, undefined open space that surrounds and encircles all these groups. It holds all the groups like a sea surrounding islands, or an urban ‘ground’ that contains urban blocks as ‘figures’ in a figure-ground map. In fact, checking with conventional maps, one realizes that this is the only such urban ground that contains all the blocks. Comparing with earlier and Ming maps, one also discovers that this space emerged only very gradually, when the dividing walls were torn down one by one, and became fully encircling in the mid-Qing dynasty, no later than 1750 (a pattern which survived the rest of the Qing dynasty and remains today).13 For its special quality and its importance for later research, let us call it ‘urban-space’ or ‘u-space’. To indicate its presence, it is marked as a black space in the courtyard-boundary map and as a star in the cell map. To reveal a pattern of depth, let us interrogate the cell map. Let us suppose all the four gates of the Palace City are open for inward movements and are zero-degree deep, and let us mark the inward progression of depth from the zero level up, by the shortest route, to reach and cover all cells. The result is a 106

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distribution of depth in the Palace City from the viewpoint of the four gates (Figure 4.7). The deepest cells are at the 6th level, that is, the deepest spaces are 6 steps away from the outside (of the four gates). To trace the distribution carefully, one discovers two patterns. Observation 1 The overall vertical progression of depth follows this linear order without exception: the outside (of the gates), the u-space, the first spaces inside the entries of the groups, and then all the inner spaces of the groups, which are 2 2

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respectively 0, 1, 2, 3 and 3 steps deep. In other words, the u-space plays a critical role: it is the transitional space one has to pass through to reach any inner spaces. Observation 2 Along the central axis one can divide the city into an eastern and western section. Similarly, at a central point on the axis (the point between the upper tree and the lower axis), one can also divide the city into a northern and southern section, this time each covering areas of ‘inner court’ and ‘outer audience’. If one compares depth of cells in the north and the south, it is evident that the northern section is on average deeper than the southern one. This distribution corresponds to the functions of the ‘inner’ private and the ‘outer’ public sections of the Palace City. When we compare the eastern and western sections, the difference is subtler but is also detectable. There are more deep cells (of steps 4, 5 and 6) in the west than the east, and at each level of 4, 5 and 6, there are always more in the west than the east (20  15, 9  3, 2  1 at each level respectively). In other words, the Forbidden City is shallower and more accessible in the east than the west. Given these two patterns, the deepest area of the palace city must be in the north-west whereas the shallowest is in the south-east. There is then a diagonal line from the south-east to the north-west, indicating an overall progression of depth in the Palace City (Figure 4.8). It reveals an asymmetrical pattern of the spatial structure, beneath the symmetrical layout of the plan on the surface. More importantly, it conforms to a general pattern in Beijing of the east being shallower and more accessible than the west. It gives priority to gates and routes on the eastern and south-eastern sides. It corresponds to a critical diagonal line, from south-east to north-west, climbing up towards the emperor’s place at the peak, in ministers and officials’ inward journeys and communications, for the operation of the imperial government (a process that will be investigated later). Let us now examine the cell map from another angle. In reality, only one of the four gates was open for a particular event. One can identify two inward routes, which officials often took, using two gates of the Forbidden City: 1) a south-to-north route on the central axis using the Meridian Gate, and 2) a south-east-to-north-west diagonal route using the Eastern Glorious Gate. The first leads the officials into the central courtyard for ‘grand audience’ (and other formal ceremonies). The second, on the other hand, leads them in through the u-space, the eastern gate of the last courtyard of the outer court, and to the front gate of the ‘great within’ (Gate of Heavenly Purity), for deliberation meetings, the ‘audience at the imperial gate’ (yumen tingzheng).14 Outside the Forbidden City, the first route started from the Gate of Great Qing Empire (daqingmen), or Left Gate of Heavenly Peace (changanzuomen), or Right Gate of Heavenly Peace (changanyoumen), depending on the occasion.15 Then one had to pass another two gates before reaching the Meridian Gate. For the second route, one had to start from the eastern gate of the Imperial City, the Eastern Gate of Peace (donganmen), then pass through one gate (sanzuomen), before arriving at the Eastern Glorious Gate of the Forbidden City. These two were the standard routes in the Qing dynasty for two very different kinds of audience. Due to this difference, the first can be described as a ‘cere108

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T ES EP DE

DEEP

DEEP SHALLOW

ST

WE

LO

AL

SH

SHALLOW

Figure 4.8 A diagonal progression of depth, towards the north-west, in the Forbidden City.

monial’ route, and the second as a ‘functional’ route. (In early Qing, under the reign of Kangxi, r. 1662–1722, officials were also asked to approach to the last courtyard for the functional audience on the central south-to-north route, passing two gates zhongzuomen and houzuomen, to reach the last courtyard.16 There were no records of this practice after this reign). Let us see how deep the palace is from the point of view of these gates on the two routes. In the first graph (Figure 4.9), depth is measured from the point of view of the Meridian Gate and of the Gate of the Great Qing. In the second (Figure 4.10), they are measured from the Eastern Glorious Gate and the Eastern Gate of Peace. 109

10 (7) 14 (11)

10

10 (7) 9 (6)

9 (6)

14 14 14 14 14 (11)

(7)

8 (5)

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10 (7) 9 (6) 8 (5)

7 (4) The transitional courtyard (Functional audience)

The central courtyard (Ceremonial audience) 5 (2)

(1)

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5 steps

3 (0)

1450 m

1750 m

1900 m

10 steps

4

7 steps

more than 2000 m

14 steps

6 (3)

2

1

0

Outside the Gate of Great Qing (Zero degree urban space)

Figure 4.9 The south-to-north route, and depth values of all spaces from the southern gate, on the cell map of the Forbidden City.

7 (5) 11 (9)

7 7 (5) 6 (4) 7 (5) (3) 5 6 (4)

6 (4)

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(5)

(3)

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4 (2) The last courtyard (Functional audience)

3 (1)

2

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Outside the Eastern Gate of Glory

1260 m 1410 m 1600 m

0 Outside the Eastern Gate of Peace

4 steps

7 steps

11 steps Zero degree Urban Space

Figure 4.10 The south-east diagonal route, and depth values of all spaces from the southeastern gates, on the cell map of the Forbidden City.

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Observation 3 Whereas the Palace City is 6 steps deep in the earlier assessment (when all the gates are open), now it is 11 steps deep from the Meridian Gate on the ceremonial route, or 9 steps deep from the Eastern Glorious Gate on the functional route. Approaching from further outside, from the zero-degree urban space in the Capital City, at the Gate of Great Qing Empire (on the first route) or the Eastern Gate of Peace (on the second route), it is 14 and 11 steps deep respectively. On the first route, to reach the central courtyard, the last courtyard, the emperor’s real inner residence, and the deepest compounds in the Palace City, one needs to overcome 1,450, 1,750, 1,900 and 2,000 metres, and 5, 7, 10 and 14 thresholds, respectively. On the second route, to reach the last courtyard, the emperor’s real residence and the deepest compounds of the Palace City, the distance and the number of thresholds one has to overcome are 1,260/4, 1,410/7 and 1,600/11 respectively. These measures indicate two patterns. On the one hand, the Forbidden City was indeed spatially ‘forbidden’. It was excessively deep and distant, demanding much effort and high discipline to reach and overcome. On the other hand, systematically, the eastern diagonal route was relatively easier than the central axial one. It was inevitably related to the nature of the two journeys: the ceremonial one had to be like a pilgrimage, distant and tortuous, to generate humility, reverence and respect; whereas the functional one, taken more often, should be more efficient and supportive for effective transactions of real business. Patterns of depth 2: internal relative depth and shallowness The measuring of integration of each line in relation to all other lines in the urban systems of Beijing can also be used here. Applied here, this value measures the degree of depth of a cell to all other cells within the system (with no reference to the outside as an absolute zero-degree point, it is therefore ‘internal’ and ‘relative’). Relative depth or shallowness is also referred to as relative segregation or integration. The lower the value, the more integrated it is in the whole system. Every cell has its own integration value. All cells can line up according to a distribution of the value, for example, from the lowest to the highest, that is, from the most integrated to the most segregated, which reveals a differentiated structure of the spatial system.17 Applying this to the cell map, one arrives at a general picture: There are 72 values for the 123 cells (some share equal values due to their identical positioning in relation to other cells). The range is between the lowest 0.29823 to the highest 1.27998. The average value is 0.741. Relating them back to the cell, boundary and conventional maps reveals important properties as patterns of depth. Observation 4 If all cells are lined up from the most integrated to the most segregated, one finds a clear progression of segregation or depth in this order: the u-space, inner entry cells, and inner cells inside the groups. In other words, the u-space is the most integrated and the shallowest. The following cells in the order, from the 2nd to the 16th values, are the 31 entry cells linking the u-space to the inner cells of the groups. Then in the third section, from the 17th to the 112

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72nd values, are the 91 inner cells within the groups. This in fact corresponds to the pure vertical progression of depth described in observation 1, and to a natural experience of an inward journey to the inner cells as well. In other words, the internal and relative pattern of depth mirrors closely the external and absolute pattern of depth. Most importantly, it confirms the paramount importance of the u-space as a critical ‘urban’ space holding the highest integrating power amongst all cells in the Palace City. It is a structural centre, even though it is a ‘backyard’ with no formal articulations. Observation 5 In the whole range of 72 values for the 123 cells from the integrated to the segregated, one may divide it into 10 segments, and pick the first section for a closer observation. The first section at the most integrated end covers 7 values for 7 cells. The more interesting cells are the first, second, third, fourth and sixth, which are, respectively: the u-space, the eastern entry cell to the central group (passing the cangzhenmen gate); the western entry cell to the central group (passing the qixiangmen gate); the transitional courtyard between the inner and outer courts; and the northern entry cell to the central group (passing the shunzhenmen gate) (Figure 4.11).18 It suggests that, in this internal structural distribution, the key integrating cells after the u-space are these few entry cells, on the four sides of the central group of the inner court, the core of which is the ‘great within’. It reflects particularly the importance of these gates, which were in fact guarded by selected security forces, specifically to control flows of movement at these key points. It also demonstrates the importance of the last courtyard of the outer court in front of the inner court: the transition point between the inner and outer worlds in the political life of the court. Observation 6 If one picks the last section of the range, the 10 per cent most segregated values and cells, one can discern a pattern in relative depth between eastern and western parts, confirming the earlier observation 2. Simply plotting all 9 cells in this section onto the map, one sees more of them in the west than in the east (Figure 4.11). In fact, if one continues to test this in the second, third and fourth sections from the segregation end backward, the pattern remains.19 In other words, the west is deeper or more segregated than the east. To compare the north with the south, it is clearer that the north is deeper than the south. Patterns of depth 3: four comparisons Let us now focus on a few critical cells. Four pairs of cells are intriguing in their spatial position and political function. Let us compare them first in spatial terms. Both the external depth based on the graph and the internal structural depth based on integration values are used here. Observation 7 ‘Ceremonial’ centre versus ‘functional’ centre (the central courtyard versus the u-space). It is well known that the Forbidden City has its largest 113

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6th

2nd

3rd

7th

4th 5th

U-Space 1st

KEY Top 10% most segregated cells. Top 10% most integrated cells.

Figure 4.11 The 10 per cent most integrated and 10 per cent most segregated spaces in the Forbidden City.

courtyard at the centre, a site for some of the most sacred ceremonies at the Chinese court. In an interesting contrast to this, a new centre emerges in this study: the u-space. In terms of spatial relations, it holds the highest integrating power in the entire system (while the u-space is the 1st, the central courtyard is the 14th, in the range from integration to segregation). The two claim their centrality in opposite ways: the courtyard was central because of its visible, formal and architectural qualities; the u-space was central because of its informal and almost invisible extensions into and around all blocks or inner cell groups. While the first was used in some of the most sacred and ceremonial 114

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occasions, the second was used in everyday life and in actual political transactions of the court. The second, hitherto unknown in conventional scholarship on the Forbidden City, invites particular attention. Observation 8 ‘Ceremonial’ audience versus ‘functional’ audience (changchao versus yumen tingzheng). The ‘ceremonial’ and ‘functional’ audiences were held respectively in the central courtyard and the last courtyard of the outer court (the transitional area) (Figures 4.12 and 4.13). The first is the 14th whereas the second the 4th in the range from integration to segregation. In other words, in terms of internal spatial relations, the last courtyard is in fact more integrated than the central courtyard. That gives a spatial privilege to this last courtyard over the central frontal one. In terms of metric distance and structural distance (steps), the last courtyard is closer to the inner court. For the visiting officials from outside, this site is also closer and easier to reach using the south-east-tonorth-west diagonal route, than the central courtyard using the central axial route, in both metrical and structural distance (see observation 3). It is in fact the only transitional space between the outer and inner court on the axis. It was a space most used for deliberation meetings between the emperor (from inner areas) and the officials (from outside): the functional ‘audience at the imperial gate’ (yumen tingzheng). Despite its apparent insignificance on the plan, this last courtyard is in fact better situated for practical transactions in real space. Observation 9 ‘Formal’ residence versus ‘real’ residence (qianqinggong palace versus yangxindian palace). The first was the Palace of Heavenly Purity in the compound of the ‘great within’. The second was the Palace of Mental Cultivation, in a compound south-west of the ‘great within’ (Figures 4.12 and 4.13). We know that Emperor Yongzheng (r. 1723–1735) moved to the second as his permanent residence, a practice that was followed in the rest of the Qing dynasty for about 200 years. Yongzheng was one of the most rigorous rulers of the Qing house and his actions constituted some of the most critical moments in the evolution of political practice in Qing history. We will come to that later. At the moment, let us look at this spatial shift. On the conventional map, one can see that the second palace is on the side of the central compound, and therefore somewhat deeper and more invisible. On the cell map, this second palace is 2 steps deeper than the first from the outside (in all the three ways of defining the ‘outside’: of the four gates together, of the southern gate, or of the south-east gate). On the distribution of internal structural depth, as on the range from integration to segregation (from 1st to 72nd), the first formal palace is the 17th (0.58164), whereas the second is the 67th (1.05955).20 The first formal palace is in the third whereas the second palace is in the last of the ten segments of the whole range: the second retreat palace is significantly deeper than the first formal palace. According to these assessments, Yongzheng retreated to a deep and segregated location, which is, on the other hand, not too far away from the central formal residence, and the transitional courtyard outside for the ‘audience at the imperial gate’. On the one hand, there is a significant rise of depth and secrecy, on the other an immediate access to the 115

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outside is maintained. Later research will demonstrate that this was part of Yongzheng’s improvement of the mechanism of imperial rule over the government and the country, by increasing spatial depth and political height, securing at the same time a direct and efficient control over the outside world. Observation 10 Grand Secretariat versus Grand Council (neige versus junjichu). These were the two critical government offices stationed within the Palace City (Figures 4.12 and 4.13). The second, translated also as ‘inner grand secretariat’, was an extension from, although becoming superior to, the first. Emperor

The Formal Residence The Real Residence

Grand Council

The Transitional Courtyard Grand Council

The Central Courtyard

U-Space Grand Secretariat

U-Space

Figure 4.12 Key spaces marked on the courtyard-boundary map: the central courtyard, the u-space, the transitional courtyard, the formal residence qianqinggong, the real residence yangxindian, the Grand Secretariat neige, the inner grand secretariat (Grand Council) junjichu.

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Yongzheng developed this office, as a smaller and higher level office closer to himself, to facilitate special and efficient transactions between him and lower offices across the country, bypassing the first office Grand Secretariat and its bureaucratic procedures. This superiority of the second over the first office in adjacency to the emperor was spatially constituted. While the first was the 16th the second was the 4th in the range from integration to segregation: the second was more integrated internally. The metrical conventional map shows a more interesting contrast and an intriguing pattern (Figures 4.12 and 4.13). While the first office was placed in the south-east corner of the city near the gate, the

The Formal Residence

The Real Residence

The Transitional Courtyard with the Grand Council

The Central Courtyard

U-Space

Grand Secretariat

Figure 4.13 Key spaces marked on the cell map: the central courtyard, the u-space, the transitional courtyard, the formal residence qianqinggong, the real residence yangxindian, the Grand Secretariat neige, the inner grand secretariat (Grand Council) junjichu.

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second was placed in the north-west corner in the last courtyard of the outer court, the site for the ‘audience at imperial gate’. This second office, located here, was much closer metrically and structurally to that retreat palace of Yongzheng inside. In relation to this retreat palace, the first office is 4 thresholds and 640 metres away, whereas the second is 3 thresholds and only 90 metres away. This spatial adjacency contributed to the making of an institutional, political adjacency. It facilitated, as later chapters will demonstrate, Yongzheng’s secret and efficient transactions from his residence inside, via this office, to the specific officials concerned within the provinces and at the frontier, bypassing formal channels of communication, a process which strengthened greatly the emperor’s rule. These critical locations, the south-east gate, the Grand Secretariat, the Grand Council, and the emperor’s retreat palace within the inner court, formed a line that overlapped with the diagonal route officials took to visit the palace and attend the working audiences. It also correlated with the diagonal line for the progression of depth of the Forbidden City as a whole. In contrast to the central axis with its symbolic content on the formal plan, this asymmetrical axis organized a practical world of effective transactions in a hidden real space. All the spatial properties described above are that of spatial depth one way or another. In summary, there are three related types of depth: a metric depth of a literal distance; a relational or structural depth created by boundaries and thresholds across the boundaries; and an overall, statistical depth in terms of integration and segregation of a space in relation to other spaces. Therefore, for example, the emperor’s real residence (yangxindian) is 1,900 metres deep, and also 10 ‘steps’ deep, from the Gate of Great Qing (or 1,410 metres and 7 ‘steps’ deep from the Gate of Eastern Peace (donganmen)), but is also one of the deepest or most segregated spaces within the closed Palace City (the sixth most segregated, measuring 1.05955, in a range between 0.29823 to 1.27998). The statistical value of segregation is based on relational, structural depth, which is in turn based on the layers of boundaries. All aspects of depth, in the end, come from the use of walls, and the sheer metric length or scale. In the Forbidden City, the excessive length of the journeys into the deep space as framed by the large scale, and the intensive use of walls to dissect and internalize space, contributed to the making of one of the deepest architecture-cities in the world (Figures 4.1 and 4.2).

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5 THE PALACE Framing a political landscape

Let us now observe scenes of political life unfolding at the imperial court in Beijing. We will focus on the early and mid-Qing dynasty, but will also make reference to the Ming and the late Qing. We will pay attention to sites and trajectories of all significant social agents that, as political forces, operated within and around the court at the centre of Beijing. We will search for spatial configurations of these forces, relations among them, structural patterns within the relations, and ways in which these forces and their relations were supported in the architecture of the Forbidden City and the urban fabric of the surrounding areas. In this chapter, we will observe the static ‘composition’ of the court: the inner court, the outer court and a composition of forces of the court as a whole. In the next, we will deal with dynamic ‘operations’ of the court: an informationcontrol mechanism, the deployment of defensive forces, and conditions that led to crises and historical decline.

The inner court as a corporeal space Who lived inside the Forbidden City? Who visited the place often? How did they interact with the emperor? Members of the imperial clan, as descendants or relatives of descendants of the emperors, lived in large residential compounds outside the Forbidden City, in the Capital City and in distant provinces as well.1 Closer members such as princes and princesses lived in the compounds in the Imperial City. Young princes, and certainly the eldest one who was to become crown prince, lived within the Forbidden City. While other princes moved out later on, the crown prince stayed and moved into the emperor’s compound when he ascended the throne. Close family members, especially the princes (or the uncles), however, continued to visit the court and influenced various affairs of the court from time to time. With their close blood relations with the emperor, they were physically outside the palace but maintained a proximity to the throne and occasionally became involved in the political life of the court. The emperor’s ladies and court maids lived within the Palace or Forbidden City. They formed a different group: they were either at a threshold or already inside the imperial family. Through sexual relations and the rite of marriage, court maids became emperor’s ladies, entered the royal family, and assumed a new relationship with the throne. All court maids were recruited from outside, 119

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mostly and deliberately from families of lower social status.2 At the age of thirteen, they entered the palace and served court ladies and empress dowagers. Many had no chance to catch the attention of the emperor, and were allowed to leave the palace at the age of twenty-five. Those that caught his eye and had sexual relations with him became his ladies through elaborate marriage ceremonies. They were then given a title with due status. There were eight such titles. It was an eight-level hierarchy with smaller numbers at the top: one empress (huanghou), one imperial consort (huangguifei), two high consorts (guifei), three to four consorts (fei), five to six imperial concubines (pin), and unlimited number of lesser concubines at the next three levels (guiren, changzai, and daying).3 This hierarchy was carefully maintained but the actual number of consorts and concubines was often much larger in practice. The empress, with the highest status, was in charge of a ‘rear palace’ (hougong) of the ladies and the maids, a harem of the Forbidden City. Corresponding to that, her formal residence was in the central compound, the ‘great within’, and was behind the emperor’s formal residence, whereas that of the consorts and concubines were inside the Six Eastern Palaces and Six Western Palaces, to the east and west of the central compound respectively. In the Qing dynasty, the empress often lived amongst these twelve palaces.4 The lesser concubines lived in the side chambers of these and other palaces. There were also elder ladies of the earlier emperors: mother of the present emperor was entitled empress dowager (huangtaihou), and grandmother of the emperor entitled grand empress dowager (tai huangtaihou). Sometimes a few imperial and high consorts of the earlier generations were also given these titles. They often lived in the western palace complex inside the Forbidden City. Associated with the harem were a few other females employed for miscellaneous functions, such as wet nurses, actresses and nuns, who usually lived in side rooms in diverse locations. The next group that lived inside the Palace City, and had proximity to the emperor, was the court eunuchs. Castrated young males were recruited from families of the lowest social status in the nearby provinces. In the early Qing, there were more than two thousand eunuchs in the Forbidden City and in resort palaces around Beijing.5 In the Ming, the number was higher.6 Eunuchs were employed to carry out practical tasks associated with daily life of the court. They were responsible for the care and cleaning of the palaces, delivering palace documents, assisting in the audience, keeping watches, opening and closing the gates, guarding the gates and other buildings, looking after seals, clothes and ceremonial props. Some had the more specialist tasks of preparing dinners and banquets, performing in the court theatre, and residing as monks in palace temples. Many were employed at specific compounds to serve directly the emperor, the princes, the ladies, the empress or the empress dowagers. There was a hierarchy among the eunuch staff. The younger ones apprenticed under the elder supervisors and masters, who were in turn directed by government officials. The officials and the senior eunuchs formed an Attendants’ Office (jingshifang) which was located at the back of the Six Eastern Palaces, and was responsible for administrating, deploying, rewarding and pun120

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ishing the eunuchs.7 The office was in turn administrated by the Imperial Household Department (neiwufu).8 Located in the south-west of the Palace City, and in branch offices and workshops in the Palace and Imperial City, this department managed the whole domestic business of the court, and led through the Attendants’ Office the large eunuch corps as its main workforce.9 There were also government officials posted inside the Forbidden City. Apart from those in the Attendants’ Office in the Imperial Household Department, there were senior officials from the Grand Council and the Grand Secretariat, who worked inside the Palace City. The first office, with a smaller number of staff, was located much closer to the inner palace. There was yet another group: a small number of scholar-officials from the Imperial Academy (hanlinyuan), who stayed most of the time within the inner palace, in the reading rooms on the southern side of the central compound (nanshufang in the west and shangshufang in the east).10 There was, of course, a large deployment of defence personnel inside the Palace City. Large units of elite troops stationed in and around the place. There was also a group of bodyguards, high-ranking officers and generals that stayed closely around the emperor in the two residential compounds, and followed him on his visits and excursions outside.11 These groups, staying in some proximity with the emperor inside the Palace City, were involved in political life of the court as a whole. However they belonged to different categories in their function and offered different spatiopolitical dimensions to the court. The defensive forces and the officials belonged to a larger deployment of the government outside the palace. The eunuchs, ladies and princes, on the other hand, belonged exclusively to the inner world of the palace. The eunuchs and ladies, being in large quantity and fully located inside the palace, contributed significantly to an intimate life of the palace surrounding the emperor. The harem By 1722, when the Kangxi Emperor died at the age of sixty-nine, he had established twenty-five empresses and consorts, and twenty-nine lesser concubines. The Qianlong Emperor, when he passed away in 1799 at eighty-nine, had twenty-four high ladies and sixteen lesser concubines. The size of the harem of these two emperors was among the largest in the Qing dynasty (but not so compared to the Ming emperors). The residential location for the ladies was relatively stable throughout the dynasty (as inherited from the Ming): the main palaces and the side chambers in the Six Eastern and Six Western Palaces. There were also side chambers for the ladies in the Palace of Mental Cultivation, emperors’ residence since Yongzheng’s reign (r. 1723–1735). The inner halls of resort palaces outside Beijing also had their sleeping quarters when they accompanied the emperor at these places. Inside the Palace City, the locations were marked in the courtyard-boundary and the cell maps (Figures 5.1 and 5.2). Their step distances from the emperor’s two residences are also marked on the cell map. One can identify these characteristics: 121

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KEY Emperor's residence Residence for the court ladies

Figure 5.1 Residence of the court ladies in relation to that of the emperor: on the courtyard-boundary map.

1

2

The location of the ladies was rather close to that of the emperor. It was inside the inner court. It occupied a large space with an orderly layout, and a systematic adjacency or proximity to the emperor’s two residences. However, there were distances that separated them from the emperor. There were metrical as well as structural, topological distances on the paths between them. The lanes that related the emperor’s to the ladies’ locations 122

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6/4 5/2 6/3

7/5

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3/0 6/3

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4/2

KEY X1/ X2 X1 = Distance from the emperor's real residence X2 = Distance from the emperor's formal residence

Figure 5.2 Residence of the court ladies in relation to that of the emperor: on the cell map.

3

involved metrical length, change of directions and layers of boundaries made by walls and gates. They created spatial distance of different kinds, generating an overall effect of distancing. They engineered a subtle ‘gap’ between the master and the women. They made the spatial relationship, paradoxically but effectively, both close and distant. In this distancing of spatial adjacency, there was a differentiation among the 123

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4

ladies of different levels. The formal residence for the empress was at the centre. It was larger and nearer to the emperor’s either locations than that of all other ladies. Some records suggest that the empress, often not staying in the formal residence in the Qing time, stayed in a compound known as changchungong (Palace of Lasting Spring) in the south-west of Six Western Palaces, which was among the nearest to the emperor’s real residence.12 The encounter at night between them suspended this hierarchy to an extent, bringing together the master and the maid or lady he liked. They were, at this moment only, ‘equalized’ and intersected, socially and spatially. This could happen in many locations although the centre of such encounter was the emperor’s residence (Figures 5.3 and 5.4). In the Palace

3

2 1 4

5

6

7 8 9

KEY 1. Palace of Mental Cultivation 2. Ti-shun-tang (Hall of Manifest Compliance / the eastern wing at the back) 3. Yan-xi-tang (Hall of Festive Joy / the western wing at the back) 4. The eastern side chambers 5. The western side chambers 6. Gate of the Palace of Mental Cultivation 7. 'Meal house' (kitchen) 8. Store house 9. Grand Council

Figure 5.3 A schematic plan of the Palace of Mental Cultivation (yangxindian): the ‘real’ residence for the emperor.

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Figure 5.4 A view into the front gate of the Palace of Mental Cultivation. Source: Yu Zhuoyun (comp.) Palaces of the Forbidden City, 1982, Fig. 71, p. 87, by permission of Allen Lane, Penguin Books.

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of Mental Cultivation there were resting-rooms for the empress and the ladies: the east wing at the back was for the empress, while the west wing at the back and eastern and western side chambers were for the consorts and concubines.13 This facilitated the personal life and defined a spatial locus for intimate encounters between them. It was however closely and discreetly observed. The arrival and departure of a certain lady was carefully noted on the court record (for later verification, among other things, of the child she may bear).14 An institution that looked after the personal life of the emperor was carefully structured around this compound. This spatial arrangement that facilitated intimate encounters between the emperor and his ladies was in reality used for a new relationship in late Qing. It was used for another kind of encounter between the child emperor and the mothers or empress dowagers, for the former to be looked after and supervised by the latter. It is well known that in late Qing, Empress Dowager Cixi staged a palace coup and instituted a deliberating system, the ‘audience behind the curtain’ (chuilian tingzheng). It allowed her to stay behind a screen curtain, behind the child emperor Tongzhi, to discuss and advise on state affairs with officials and ministers in front of the child.15 This happened in the eastern side room of the Palace of Mental Cultivation (Figure 5.5). Cixi also lived in the west wing at the back (while another Empress Dowager Cian lived in the east wing). When the emperor Tongzhi became adult, Cixi moved to a concubine palace (changchungong) outside but was immediately behind this compound, which provided an easy access to the emperor. 125

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Figure 5.5 Eastern side room in the Palace of Mental Cultivation where Empress Dowager held ‘audience behind the curtain’ (chuilian tingzheng) since 1861. Source: Yu Zhuoyun (comp.) Palaces of the Forbidden City, 1982, Fig. 79, p. 93, by permission of Allen Lane, Penguin Books.

The function of the harem was naturally centred or based on gender relations. The ladies’ potential or real sexual relations with the emperor defined a central point, which necessitated their earlier presence and initiated their progression into the imperial family. Naturally the imperial family needed them to extend its lineage. Sensual service, the bearing of children, and maternal care of the offspring, were inevitably the important work of the ladies. From the emperor’s point of view, the strongest seduction was from the sensual appeal of young maids and ladies, which became a problem in his life in a broad, political perspective. From the maids and ladies’ point of view, the strongest privilege they had was spatial and corporeal adjacency to the emperor, which might be exploited for political purpose. One way or another, sooner or later, the 126

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exploitation was carried out by the senior and more powerful figures of the group, such as the imperial consorts and the empresses. In the end, it was exploited by the most senior and powerful: the empress dowagers. Combined with other forces and based on circumstances, they developed from time to time serious challenges to the normal functioning of the throne and of officialdom. The eunuch servants According to court records compiled up to 1806, there were about 2,200 eunuchs employed at the Qing court, and about 1,300 of them in the Palace City.16 More precise numbers are difficult to obtain as the record did not specify certain positions. The actual locations of them are not entirely clear either. Some eunuchs were assigned to several locations simultaneously. Other locations cannot be identified on the maps available today. Despite all that, we can be certain that, among all those in the Palace City, there were about 760 eunuchs employed within the central block of the inner court. We can also plot many (though not all) of them on the sites on the courtyard-boundary map (Figure 5.6). The more localized deployment in the emperor’s two residential compounds was also marked (Figure 5.7). Step distances of these locations from the two compounds are noted on the map. One can also transfer the information onto the cell map (Figure 5.8). A few observations can be made: 1

2

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Eunuchs were ‘everywhere’. On average, for 1,300 eunuchs to be assigned to 123 spaces, there should be about 10 eunuchs in every space (1,300/123). If one excludes passage spaces such as corridors and undefined spaces, to which the eunuchs were not normally assigned, then there were 80 destination spaces or courtyards for the eunuchs. The average would be 16 eunuchs in each of these courtyards (1,300/80). The density was higher at the inner court. Within the central block at the inner court, there were 58 spaces and 32 courtyard spaces for 760 eunuchs to look after. In other words, on average, there were 13 eunuchs in every space (760/58), or 23 eunuchs in every courtyard (760/32). On either method of estimation, the central block at the inner court had a higher density of eunuchs than the average of the whole Palace City. The courtyards that had the highest number of eunuchs were the emperor’s two residential compounds, the ‘great within’ and the Palace of Mental Cultivation (with 174 and 104 eunuchs respectively). Observing their locations within the two compounds, and checking with the record, one realizes that the central residential building inside the Palace of Mental Cultivation had the highest number of eunuchs (56) for any single building in the entire Forbidden City. In fact, as in 1806, this site had already been the residence of the emperor for some 80 years and would continue to be the real centre of the Qing court for another 100 years. In terms of spatial deployment of eunuchs, one sees here a strong adjacency of eunuchs, and an overall pattern of ascending density, towards the inner centre. With these, an effect of ‘enclosure’ comes into being. When 127

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39

15 26

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Figure 5.6 Deployment of eunuchs in the central area of the inner court: on the courtyard-boundary map (the figures are the numbers of eunuchs assigned to the spot).

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eunuchs were ‘around’ and ‘about’ in some quantity and density all serving the emperor at the centre, they ‘enclosed’ and tended to ‘seal’ off the centre, the two compounds, from the outside world. All gates were looked after by eunuchs from nearby buildings. Some gates were, however, guarded by eunuchs specifically assigned to these gates. If we mark them in the central block, they turn out to be the gates that surrounded immediately the two most important compounds (Figures 5.6 and 128

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9 15

9 15 14

10 12 48

56

12 10 18 4

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Figure 5.7 Deployment of eunuchs inside the two residential compounds for the emperor: on the courtyard-boundary map (the figures are the numbers of eunuchs assigned to the spot).

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5.7). The tasks for them at these points were ‘opening and closing the gate’, ‘guarding the gate’, ‘checking the identity of people passing by and through’.17 They marked a layer of service and protection for the inner central space, which strengthened the general effect of enclosure in the overall deployment. Some eunuchs were given more specialized tasks. At the Gate of Heavenly Purity, the front gate to the central compound, 14 eunuchs were assigned 129

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6/4 5/2 6/3

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KEY X1/ X2 X1 = Distance from the emperor's real residence X2 = Distance from the emperor's formal residence

Figure 5.8 Deployment of eunuchs in the central area of the inner court: on the cell map.

for ‘arranging the throne for the audience’, ‘opening and closing the gate in the morning and the evening’, ‘checking the identity of all passing through the gate’, ‘registering the name of scholar-officials coming into the court on duty’, ‘arranging the name list of bodyguards and officers’, ‘cleaning’ and ‘keeping watches’.18 At this critical gate as the central link between the inner and outer court, and as a central stage for the ‘audience at the 130

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7

imperial gate’ (yumen tingzheng), these eunuchs were now performing significant tasks for the audience and for the security of the throne. This brought them closer to the political life of the emperor and the officialdom. Another group of eunuchs had a similar proximity to the political practice of the court. In the south-west corner inside the central compound, there was a Memorial Office (zoushichu) staffed with 18 eunuchs. They were responsible, together with an Outer Memorial Office staffed with officials (outside the inner court, to the east of the central gate), for delivering documents or ‘memorials’ between the emperor on the one hand and the Grand Secretariat and government offices on the other. At the Gate of Heavenly Purity, officials from the Outer Memorial Office passed the documents to these eunuchs, who then carried them to the emperor. They were also responsible for announcing the emperor’s edict at the gate to the officials (if the emperor chose to do so among other possible channels of communication), as well as introducing the officials to see the emperor (if this was arranged). The record thus says that their functions were ‘announcing the edict’, ‘showing the way for the visiting officials’, ‘receiving memorials and reports’ and ‘keeping watches’.19

These were the normative rules kept in normal times. The eunuchs, although close to the realm of political business at the court, were strictly forbidden to enter the realm and to interfere with political affairs of the throne and of the government. They were forbidden to leave the Palace City to meet and associate with officials and to conduct government business. In extreme cases (in the early Ming), many of them were kept illiterate.20 In general, the spatial domains and the functions assigned to them were severely restricted. However, despite all that, rules were ignored and normal practice degenerated in much of the Ming and in the late Qing. Since the 1420s and 1430s in the Ming, some eunuchs were entrusted to draft imperial edicts, which led to the rise of power of eunuchs. In the late Qing, a similar pattern resurfaced (although slower and with less strength). One way or another, eunuchs in the end entered the political realm, performed sensitive tasks, liaised with other groups inside the palace and with factions of officials outside, confronted the officialdom, and contributed to the corruption of the court and the ruling institution as a whole. One would suggest that spatial and bodily adjacency of eunuchs to the emperor, and the enclosing effect that sealed off the inner central space from the outside, facilitated eunuchs’ proximity to and interference with political affairs of the throne and the state. Specifically, the spatial mediation performed by the eunuchs between the emperor inside and the officials outside offered a natural privilege for them. On the whole, spatial and bodily adjacency also brought about a personal adjacency, that is, intimacy and trust, between the master and the servants. These spatial, corporeal and personal adjacencies, as political resources, provided a condition in which interference with formal politics can happen. 131

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A corporeal space In fact, all the three groups of the inner court, the eunuchs, the ladies and the princes, in different ways and in relation to each other, shared these spatial, corporeal, personal adjacencies. Together they contributed to the making of a corporeality of the emperor, and an inner space with corporeal qualities, and the associated political problem. 1

2

The eunuchs and the ladies should be viewed together. While the eunuchs’ male sexuality was castrated, the ladies’ feminine appeal and service were multiplied. Together they offered a large void for the male sexuality of the emperor. Together they cultivated a large and phallic body of the emperor. For close family members and especially the princes, adjacency to the palace and the throne was based on blood relations. On the one hand, they were biologically related to the body of the emperor: they were part of the body of the throne. On the other hand, this blood-based adjacency justified and necessitated the princes’ spatial and personal adjacencies to the emperor, which offered them a path to enter the realm of formal politics.

All three groups of people may be viewed as ‘corporeal’ agents serving the emperor at the centre, creating a synthesized corporeality of the emperor and, at the same time, conditions permitting, taking advantage of their adjacencies for their own political purposes. At a logical and structural level, they helped frame the inner court as a world of the body and of inner space, a world in which qualities of the body (sexual relations, personal affinity, trust, irrationality, blood lineage) and characteristics of spatial interiority (adjacency, enclosure, depth) were closely interrelated. These particular conditions, furthermore, weakened the emperor’s resistance to their advances, and strengthened for themselves the possibility of advancement to the political realm of the throne. At a historical level, there were ‘good’ times when the problem was contained and ‘bad’ times when it surfaced. While good and normal practices were kept as much as possible, deviant situations did surface from time to time. All these deviant situations, if observed closely, came into being one way or another in association with the behaviours of the three corporeal agents. At these times, combined in many different ways, they presented a serious challenge to the normal functioning of the throne, and of the officialdom outside the court. The Ming court was particularly troubled by eunuchs. But eunuchs lured the emperors with ladies. The corruption of the Zhengde Emperor (Zhu Houzhao, r. 1506–1521) is a case in point. Since childhood, he lived with eunuchs and had a personal attachment to them.21 He ascended the throne at the age of fifteen, and continued to live a casual life with eunuchs, indulged himself with maids and ladies in the abnormal way that he fancied, and ignored reading documents and holding audience with officials on state affairs. A group of eight eunuchs led by Liu Jin exploited the situation and provided girls and inner and distant locations (that is, spaces deep from outside) for the emperor to indulge 132

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himself.22 They gradually took over the power of the throne, and finally fragmented and suppressed the officialdom. This was the notorious ‘party of eight’ of the Ming whose behaviour marked a crucial point in the rise of eunuchs and the weakening of the officialdom. The Qing court was more troubled by the empress dowager and the imperial family. In the late Qing, the Xianfeng Emperor (r. 1851–1861) was a ‘weak’ and ‘introvert’ person who trusted his brothers, uncles and eunuchs rather than the unfamiliar and sharp-minded officials.23 At his death, his imperial consort Cixi, with the empress Cian, now both empress dowagers of the new child emperor Tongzhi (r. 1862–1874), staged a palace coup with the aid of eunuchs and Xianfeng’s brother (who was the ladies’ brother in law) in 1861. They then instituted the notorious rule by the ‘audience behind the curtain’.24 In the following 40 years, empress dowager Cixi established two other child emperors (Guangxu and Xuantong) selected from the imperial family with blood lineage with herself, which enabled her to hold ‘audience behind the curtain’ and control them in many ways. The empress dowagers, the uncles and other relatives, and the eunuchs collaborated in this ‘blood’ politics. Together they swarmed and suffocated the inner central space and contaminated the heart of imperial authority in the last decades of Qing China.

The outer court as an institutional space Both waichao and waiting can be translated as ‘outer court’. Waichao, ‘a locale for outer audience’, is a specific term referring to the southern part of the Palace City for public and ceremonial functions of the court. By implication although with some ambiguity, it can also cover some areas further outside the Palace City. Waiting, meaning ‘an outer palace’ or ‘a locale outside the palace’, is a more generic term referring to both the space and the institution of the whole government office located outside the palace, in the south and south-east areas of the Imperial and Capital Cities. Although this term did not indicate any precise physical line dividing the private and the public, it nevertheless denotes a socio-institutional division of the two spheres, and a generic spatial differentiation of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. One may use the generic term to cover the specific term and suggest that the outer court starts from the southern part of the Palace City and extends further to include whole areas in the south and southeast in the Imperial and Capital City. The issue here, however, as we intend to focus on, is not the location of a static line dividing the two spheres but the institutional functioning of the outer court vis-à-vis that of the inner court, and their respective locales and operative trajectories. In fact, with this socio-institutional approach to the problem, we shall be able to shed light at the end of this chapter on the issue of the division between the inner and the outer court. Since the Qin and Han dynasties, Chinese imperial government was composed of three independent parts: the administration (including the six ministries), a military hierarchy and a system of censors. One official led each of them. They were: the ‘prime minister’ (zaixiang), the chief military commander (taiwei), and the chief censorate (yushi dafu).25 Among the three, the prime 133

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minister was the central figure who coordinated most of the functions of the imperial government. Famously known as the ‘three dukes’ or ‘three prime ministers’ (sangong), they formed the highest echelon of the government under the emperor, and were the mediating point through which the monarch ruled the government and the country. In this structure of government, the prime minister became a major challenge to the position of the monarch as absolute ruler, a situation which led to many cases of usurpation and palace coup with fatal consequences in history.26 Throughout imperial history, the Chinese court was encumbered with this conflict between the emperor and his prime ministers. For many court historians and modern scholars, this emperor–minister (jun–chen) conflict was the central one among many others at the court. For the more analytical scholars, it was a conflict derived from an essential contradiction of two critical needs of the emperor in ruling the country, the need to delegate his power to the ministers and the need to limit their power at the same time.27 With this insight, one can trace the evolution of imperial government along the line of this conflict and the inner contradiction. As early as the Han dynasty, a ‘central court’ (zhongchao) staffed with lowrank officials was developed inside the palace to assist the emperor directly, which was independent of the ‘outer court’ (waichao) led by the three prime ministers. The central court, although not an official institution in name, was in reality above the outer court, a disposition the emperor used to limit the power of the prime ministers. Later on (in Wei and Jin dynasties), the organization in the central court (shangshu or shangshutai) itself became too powerful for the emperor; it was then institutionalized and shifted to the government at the outer court. A new organization was then established (zhongshu) in the central or inner court, which was later on (in Northern and Southern dynasties) once again shifted to the outer court to become part of the formal institution. The process went on continuously in the subsequent dynasties. One witnesses two important developments: 1) an on-going transformation of an entity from being powerful and informal at the inner court to being formal and less powerful at the outer court, and 2) the prime ministers were moved further away from the centre with their power being further restricted. On the one hand, there was an on-going development that forever mediated the conflict and the tension between the need to delegate and the need to control. On the other hand, as a consequence, there was one continuous historical trend: a decline of the position and power of the ministers, and a rise of an ever more autocratic monarch. In the early Ming dynasty, in a resurgent Chinese empire, this historical trend reached its conclusion in 1380. With rising tensions between emperor Zhu Yuanzhang and his prime ministers, the emperor in that year dismissed and executed the chief prime minister Hu Weiyong and members of his secret party – who together had attempted allegedly to usurp the throne – and declared that the prime-ministership and the three duke system were abolished, and were never to be instituted thereafter.28 Zhu Yuanzhang effectively dismantled the whole upper echelon of the government, and resumed direct rule over the three bodies of the government, the administration, the military and the 134

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censorate. Through this excessive concentration of power, Zhu now became the most autocratic emperor in Chinese history.29 Under him, from 1380 onwards, the most centralized government in Chinese history came into being, which lasted for five centuries in the Ming and Qing dynasties. In a large historical perspective, the Ming and Qing represented the highest plateau of an overall curve of the rising power of the throne. A most serious problem after the abolition of the prime-ministership was the enormous amount of work the emperors had to deal with everyday. After 1380, on average, Zhu Yuanzhang had to read 200 memorials and handle 400 items of government business everyday.30 Although very industrious and alert, he simply could not handle all this by himself. Low-rank scholar-officials from the Hanlin Academy were employed at the inner court as ‘grand secretaries’ (daxueshi) to help read the documents. In the reign of emperor Zhu Di (r. 1403–1424), more such secretaries were called in to work on the documents. Many were asked to ‘join the discussion with the emperor’ (canyu jiwu).31 They became a normalized group at the palace, recognized as an office named neige (inner office, building or cabinet, formally translated as ‘Grand Secretariat’), and regularly performed the mediating role in the transmission of memorials between the emperor and the government. Between 1425 and 1435, two successive emperors and three grand secretaries (the well known ‘Three Yangs’) cooperated closely and constructively, making neige a strong and effective centre of communication. A drafting system was established: in transmitting memorials from government officials to the emperor, the grand secretaries read them first and drafted tentative responses and directives, to be proved or rejected by the emperor in his own writing, before sending them back to the officials at the outer court. In the next 100 years (1436–1521), neige or Grand Secretariat became a fully established office whose chief grand secretaries assumed a position higher than that of the ministers at the outer court.32 Other forces at the inner court did challenge it from time to time. They were mostly the eunuchs who, taking advantage of a weak or young emperor, interfered and even controlled the Grand Secretariat at times. The irresponsibility of some emperors in the late Ming was another reason for the malfunction of this office and for the overall decline of communication with the outer court. In general, in this new institutional layout, the Ming emperors ruled the whole government through the Grand Secretariat as a mediating point for the transmission of information and control. However, the Grand Secretariat was not a new prime-ministership. Unlike the old office, there was neither statutory definition of its authority nor any clear specification of the size and composition of the staff.33 It had the secretarial work of the old office but not its authority. In terms of emperor–minister (jun–chen) relationship, it signified a further step in the strengthening of the position of the former and the weakening of that of the latter. The Qing court inherited the same institutional layout from the Ming, and practised it often with good discipline. But the mutation was ongoing. Between 1729 and 1732, in the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor (r. 1723–1735), a new office came into being: junjichu.34 Literally it meant ‘office for military affairs’ 135

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but is translated as ‘inner grand secretariat’ or ‘Grand Council’. To secure secrecy and efficiency in transferring information and directives between the inner court in Beijing and the troops on the north-western frontier in central Asia, this small office was established. It handled the transmission that by-passed the Grand Secretariat and the related formal, lengthy channels. Later on, Yongzheng used this inner grand secretariat to handle both military and civiladministrative affairs, in fact any matters considered important and needing to be dealt with efficiently and confidentially. After that, the communication mechanism and the related drafting and decision-making process acquired a two-tier system: it operated at two levels through the two offices respectively, the Grand Council and the Grand Secretariat. The first dealt with the more important and essential issues, whereas the second dealt with routine business. Subsequently, the officials working in the first office assumed a higher position than those in the second (which in turn were superior to the ministers at the government offices outside). Yongzheng is regarded as one of the most rigorous and forceful rulers of the Qing house. Under him, the arrival of this office marked a critical point in the evolution of the institutional layout in late imperial China. We witness here the old phenomenon recurring in a new condition: by 1700, the Grand Secretariat had become an institution too formal, open and ‘distant’ from the emperor, with a potential to become another powerful office that could not be easily controlled from the inner court. At this point, the emperor needed to restrict its potential and delegate his trust to a new office closer to him, one that was relatively more internal and more powerful. At this moment, the Council was established at a location more internal than that of the Secretariat, and was entrusted with the privilege of access to secret and important material, and the related decision-making process. This development imposed a restriction on the power of the Secretariat, and externalized its institutional and spatial position relatively (although without physically removing this office). This arrangement, for the rest of the Qing in the last 200 years, further strengthened the autocratic rule of the emperor developed since 1380. The spatial layout of these offices is intriguing, and needs close observation. Based on the maps made in 1750, we are able to identify the location of these offices as in the mid-eighteenth century under the Qianglong Emperor (r.1735–1795), after the reign of Yongzheng. This was Qing at its height, the last zenith of competence, vitality and glory of imperial China. It was also the point that accumulated the traces of all the institutional mutations of late imperial time. The main offices of the Qing were marked on this map, which covers much of the centre of Beijing (Figure 5.9). From inside to outside, one finds a series of localities for different levels of the ruling institution. 1

2

The emperor was at the two locations, the central ‘formal’ palace, and the western ‘real’ palace (since the time of Yongzheng), both in the inner northern part of the Palace City. The Grand Council, since its formative years in the late 1720s during Yongzheng’s reign, was located immediately outside this inner enclosure, at 136

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KEY 1. Ministry of Rite 2. Ministry of Personnel 3. Ministry of Revenue 4. Ministry of War 5. Ministry of Punishment 6. Ministry of Public Works 7. Department of Foreign Affairs 8. Department of Censorate 9. Six Sections of the Censorate 10. Department of Jurisdiction 11. Head office of the Imperial Clan 12. Department of Protocol for the Imperial Clan 13. Department of Protocol 14. Imperial Clinic and Medical Institute 15. Department of Ceremony Services for the Imperial Clan 16. Imperial Academy (Head Office) 17. Imperial Institute of Celestial Studies and Calender-making 18. Grand Secretariat (Head Office) 19. Grand Secretariat (Archive) 20. Grand Secretariat (Offices) 21. Grand Secretariat (Offices) 22. Grand Council 23. Emperor's formal residence 24. Emperor's 'real' residence x Headquarters of the Eight Banners (Eight offices of the@ military command in the eight zones of the Capital City) Note: Not shown within this map x1 Department of Ceremony Services

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Figure 5.9 A layout of state institutions of the Qing in Beijing: the monarch (24, 23), the Grand Council (22), the Grand Secretariat (21–18), and the major government offices (six ministries, the censorate, the military command and other offices) (17–1).

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the north-western corner of the courtyard between the inner and outer parts of the Palace City. The Grand Secretariat was located further outside: in the south-east corner of the Palace City, attached to the southern wall and close to the eastern gate. It had always been there since its formative years in the 1420s and 1430s in the early Ming, despite the shifting of its institutional and spatial position relative to the Council. The offices of the government, primarily the six ministries, but also the military command and the censorate (and all the associated and independent offices), were in the early Ming clustered around the axis in the south of the Capital City, and were by now in the mid-Qing shifted to the south-east. As a result, the overall layout became asymmetrical. 137

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Taking all these offices together, one sees an overall diagonal line from north-west to south-east, from inner parts of the Palace City to urban quarters of the Capital City. Although there was the north–south central axis that can regulate spatial architectural layout, as certainly intended in the early Ming, the actual layout of the offices by now in the mid-Qing deviated much towards the east. This corresponds to the observation made earlier: that the eastern parts of the city (in the Capital, Imperial and Palace Cities) were more integrated and accessible than the west. The particular shape of the walls of the Imperial City also made the eastern route easier to travel for communication between the offices. Both the integration of the spatial fabric and the shape of the walls give a clear priority to the eastern areas and the eastern route. However, the more intriguing patterns here concern the institutional, political and spatial positioning of these offices. 1 A space–institution correspondence One can identify a correspondence between an institutional hierarchy and a spatial hierarchy. The emperor, the Grand Council, the Grand Secretariat and the ministries and boards of the government, were respectively located at places that ‘descended’ from inside to outside, along the diagonal line that extended from the centre of the palace to the south-eastern quarters of the city. That is, starting from the centre, and descending on this line, the more external the point, the more inferior its institutional position. Here spatial and institutional positioning corresponded to each other. In fact the very notion of ‘position’ implies a spatial and institutional differentiation at the same time. 2 Distancing In this overall correspondence, institutional distance was mediated by spatial distance. From the early Ming to the mid-Qing, two levels of the offices, the Council and the Secretariat, came into being. They occupied locations between the emperor and the government, which distanced, spatially and institutionally, the relationship between the two. With this development in distancing, the gap between the two was gradually widening. By now in the mid-Qing, the distance was very noticeable and significant. At the level of urban geography, the entire Imperial City was free of any serious government offices. It acted as a wide buffer zone, an insulation gap, between the emperor at the centre of the Palace City and the government ministries outside the walls of the Imperial City. The urban-geographical gap supported and expanded the distance. In a longer historical perspective, one notices that the government offices were in fact gradually pushed out of the Imperial City, to be relocated in urban quarters, a pattern that was finally established and consolidated in the Ming and Qing.35 This externalization surely facilitated the general historical decline of the position of the prime ministers and officials, in the overall shift of balance in favour of the emperor in the emperor–minister conflict. 3 Relative distancing The distancing, however, was carefully exercised: it was not an open and permanent distancing but a subtle and proper annotation of 138

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points in space. The government ministries and boards, at their current locations in the mid-Qing, were in fact both ‘distant’ and ‘adjacent’ to the emperor at the palace. They were outside the Imperial City, but were immediately attached to it. The location of the Grand Secretariat was closer but still distant to the emperor. The Grand Council, being even closer to the emperor, was still outside his inner compound. The careful and relative positioning of these points in space reflected the layered hierarchy as stated above. In this spatial mediation of institutional levels, three spatio-political phenomena came into being: 1

2

3

The relative positioning in space eased the tension between different offices, primarily that between the emperor and the government. By materializing into urban-geographical and architectural space, the relative positioning naturalized and consolidated the vertical hierarchical differentiation. This relative positioning also eased the contradiction for the emperor, the dilemma between the need to delegate power to the officials and the need to restrict them. It did so by mediating spatially and materially the relative positioning of the offices to be trusted with power or to be restricted and externalized at that particular time in history, as in the case of the Council and the Secretariat. In this mediation of the tension and of the logical contradiction in the classic jun–chen conflict, spatial distances and material boundaries offered two basic means of institutional distancing. What actually separated these offices were the lengthy routes and the layers of the city walls. They were the material means of relative distancing, which mediated not only power relations but also the dilemma of these relations.

4 Inward migration Let us take a closer look at the historical development of the Secretariat and the Council, to see how relative positioning served to mediate and naturalize in space vertical power relations. As outlined above, after 1380 when the emperor assumed the most autocratic power over the government ministries, there was a need to fill in a large void between the emperor and the government, not to lead as prime minister but to fulfil a secretarial and inter-mediating role for the very heavy traffic of memorials and directives. The Grand Secretariat came into being in the 1420s and 1430s, and was located ever after in the south-east corner of the Palace City. By being inside and closer to the emperor, it assumed a position superior to the government ministries and boards located outside. Over time, this office itself became too formal, institutional and ‘open’. Although physically on the same spot, it was left to drift away institutionally from the inner emperor to the outer government. By the 1720s, it became essential for the emperor to build a new office, an ‘inner cabinet’, the Grand Council, to be placed spatially and physically closer to the emperor. The ‘grand secretaries’ at this office, being carefully selected, met the emperor everyday and sometimes many times a day.36 They read important memorials, drafted imperial directives, discussed with the 139

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emperor on critical issues, and were responsible for the transfer of important documents with efficiency and secrecy that by-passed the Secretariat. In relative spatial terms and in institutional-political terms, this new office ‘distanced’ and ‘externalized’ the Secretariat (which was already drifting away), and made it relatively inferior to the new office. There is a two-way movement here. On the one hand, there is a gradual distancing of the institutions from the centre. On the other, there is a gradual inward movement of some small but critical offices to the inner palace. While the first was for further restriction of the ministers and officials, and of the outer officialdom in general, the second was for strengthening the power of the emperor. Together they contributed to the same effect of strengthening the power of the throne, and to the overall historical shift of balance in favour of the emperor in the classic jun–chen conflict. For the emperor inside the inner court, there is also a two-way movement. On the one hand, this inward migration of an office, ever smaller, closer and more powerful but always under the emperor, strengthened the emperor’s control over, and his link to, the outer officialdom. On the other hand, this movement also demanded a more rational and disciplined way of life of the emperor, and thus mounted a challenge to the inner court as a world of ‘corporeal’ pleasure and comfort. 5 Inward-going trajectories. Besides this gradual, historical movement of a critical office into the palace to strengthen the emperor–official link, there was also a frequent, day-to-day, movement of officials, from offices of different levels and locales into the palace. For the inward movement to the palace, there were two major routes, as discussed and compared earlier: the south-to-north route on the central axis passing the central gates of the Imperial and the Palace Cities, and the diagonal route from south-east to north-west using the eastern gates of the two cities.37 For major ceremonies including grand audiences, officials, nobles and imperial clansmen used the first route and gathered in strict formation in one of the large courtyards in front of a palace hall to pay tribute to the emperor. For practical audiences and other daily official functions, the diagonal route was used (Figure 5.10). On this diagonal route, both the memorials and the officials from Beijing and all over the country ‘flew’ into the deep quarters of the Palace City. The memorials were transferred to the inner palace through the Grand Secretariat, or the Grand Council, or in exceptional cases directly by special messengers or by officials themselves (we will come to this in the next chapter). The ‘flow’ of the officials overlapped with the traffic of the documents. They, starting from different offices at different locations, travelled inward to meet the emperor. The meetings took several different forms: 1

There were audiences with the practical purpose of communicating between the emperor and the officials and of the former giving advice to the latter. This ‘audience at the imperial gate’ (yumen tingzheng) was regularly held at the front gate of the inner court, in that transition point 140

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Figure 5.10 Two major routes into the Forbidden City: the central-axial route for ceremonies (the dotted line) and the south-east diagonal route for working audiences and other practical communications (the continuous line). The second route constituted a critical link between the emperor and the ministers.

2

between inner northern and outer southern areas of the Palace City. Many officials at all levels, from the ministers in Beijing to local officials from prefecture and county offices, attended or were called to attend the audience. They submitted memorials in person and reported local conditions, or communicated on issues in the memorials they submitted a few days ago. The emperor either bestowed his advice and directives during the audience, or delivered orders or decrees later, after consideration and consultation. There were also ‘conferences’ held at the halls around the same courtyard, being attended by a combination of high-rank officials from the court and the government. The conferences were for extensive consultation and 141

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3

4

discussion on issues that could not be immediately settled in the audience or by the specific office of the government. The ‘grand secretaries’, coming from the Grand Secretariat at the southern edge in the Palace City, attended all these audiences and conferences, in order to record the emperor’s decision in the form of a response or a formal decree, which was to be confirmed, issued and filed later on. The ‘grand secretaries’ coming from the Grand Council at the northwestern corner of this courtyard attended many of them. They, however, had separate meetings every day with the emperor inside the emperor’s personal living compound. They took their inward and northbound journeys to the deep compound to see the emperor, to discuss on confidential memorials and to draft imperial directives to be delivered directly to the officials concerned anywhere in the empire.

6 Discipline and labour against distance Altogether, there were many inward movements of officials to meet the emperor, at carefully separated levels, that together facilitated and consolidated the emperor–minister and emperor–official link, which strengthened the rule of the monarchy over the government and the empire. These movements shared and converged on the same line: the diagonal, south-east-to-north-west route, passing the eastern gates of the Imperial and the Palace Cities. On this route, officials made recursive effort, with rigour and discipline, to overcome distances and boundaries, to meet the emperor, to sustain and reproduce the vital link between the emperor and the officialdom. In this sustained reproduction of the link through officials’ repeated, inward and ‘upward’ journeys, artificial discipline and labour were used to conquer the distances and the boundaries, to confront and suppress, as it were, the effect of distancing. In sustaining and reproducing the emperor– official (–minister) link, it had two effects as indicated earlier: it strengthened the rule of the emperor and, at the same time, demanded a disciplined and rational way of life for the emperor living at the inner court. An Institutional Space Altogether, one can call this entire space, from the locales of the emperor to that of the Council, the Secretariat and the government ministries and other boards and offices in Beijing, the ‘outer court’, a realm of the ruling institution of the Ming and Qing. It was an institutional space not just because it contained the organizations of the authority, but also because it involved the following qualities that were intrinsically rational and institutional. It was large (accommodating layers of positions and the historical process of distancing), open (permitting historical inward migration of the critical offices, and the daily inward journeys of the officials), discrete (with distances between differentiated levels of offices), calculated (in its layered structure and in its historical practice), and disciplined (for both the emperor and the officials in the daily reproduction of the link). In the operation of the ruling institution in this large and structured space, the grand secretaries, ministers and high-rank officials were the 142

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institutional agents that sustained the link and the collaboration with the emperor, with rational and disciplined efforts demanded by the normative rules of the institution.

A composition of forces Let us now look at the whole picture comprising both the inner and the outer court. The inner court, centred at the northern inner palace inside the Palace City, was a private and domestic world of the emperor, which was staffed and served by eunuchs, maids and ladies, with some assistance of close family members such as princes. The outer court on the other hand was placed in the south and south-east of the Capital City, but extended on the south-east route to the Imperial and the Palace Cities as well. It was a world of hierarchical institutions with the emperor at its apex, and was staffed and supported by grand secretaries, ministers and high-rank officials at different spatial and institutional positions in the capital, and many more officials and clerks around the country. The two followed a different logic of practice in spatial and political terms. In spatial configuration, the first was small and inward-looking, whereas the second was large and outward-looking. While the first was characterized by deep space and heavy enclosure, the second was constituted of openness and linkage, which negated depth and enclosure. In political practice, the first served the person of the emperor, and seduced him with comfort and pleasure, alluring him to fall into the depth of sensuality and irrational fantasy. The second, on the other hand, disciplined the mind and the life of the emperor. It demanded that he live up to the rational practice of ruling the government and the country, and the task of managing both the historical shift of the balance of power and the immediate daily audiences and the memorials. The first cultivated a person and a body in comfort darkness, the second demanded and helped construct a head of the institutions and a ruler of the open empire. The opposing logic ensured levels of tension and conflict between them from time to time. However, despite the logical and real confrontations, the two conjoined in the whole composition of the court, in the making of one ‘emperor’ that was both a body-person and a head-ruler. The inner and the outer courts, opposing as they were, constituted the two essential halves of a complex, human-institutional construct of an ‘emperor-ship’. They joined together to make one tectonic of the throne. There is a difference between logical structure and historical reality. The opposition in the logical structure does not necessarily manifest in surface reality in history all the time. In fact, in ‘good’ or ‘normal’ times in history, the two opposing parts of the court were complementary and coexisted well with each other despite the tension between them. In ‘difficult’ times, however, they confronted each other, at times openly and severely. The particular historical condition, and the quality of the emperor and the personalities of the parties involved, were in fact important in shaping the course of development from 143

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tensions to full conflicts. Neither the ‘normal’ nor the ‘difficult’ times were more ‘real’. What was ‘real’ to the agents living at that time was their own actions and the particular historical condition that surrounded them. However, from an analytical point of view, the relationship between the manifest conflict and the latent structural opposition invites close inspection. In ‘normal’ times when the normative principles were followed, the two parts of the court coexisted and all served the functioning of the body-person and the head-ruler of the emperor. A strong-minded emperor was usually a precondition of such a normal and normative practice, one who could restrain himself from falling into the trap of the inner court, limit the tension and maintain a balance of the two, and watch and restrict any improper behaviours of all the parties involved. At other times, when the emperor was either too young or not alert or disciplined enough, and when other factors were involved, the situation could deteriorate fast and the underlying opposing tendencies of the two run open and wild. This usually started with the emperor falling into the comfort of the inner court, relying more on the eunuchs, the rear palace (especially imperial concubines, the empresses and the empress dowager), the princes, or a combination of some of them. This led to the emperor’s growing distrust of the officials, the closing down of the palace, the lapse of the practice of holding the audience, the employment of eunuchs at the Council, the Secretariat and other government positions. This in turn was followed by the formation of a power bloc around the eunuchs or the empress dowagers, which recruited ministers and high-ranking officials from different offices of the government, a situation which further fragmented the whole officialdom and finally the throne itself. The tension between the inner and the outer court can be looked upon as contests to win a ‘solidarity’ with the emperor. The inner agents, serving the body-person of the emperor, tended to cultivate a corporeal, personal solidarity within the enclosed palace. The outer agents, working with the emperor as the head-ruler of the country, cultivated a rational, institutional solidarity between the palace inside and the government offices outside, across the urbangeographical distance between them. The two solidarities, due to the different logic of the existence and the operation of the two agents, naturally competed with each other and tended to split the throne when it was not strong enough itself. The competition between them was, however, not equal or symmetrical. They each had their own particular conditions and, between them, the officials as the outer institutional agents seem to have had some intrinsic inferiority. The inner corporeal agents had no normal access to the memorials and to the decision-making process, but had one critical advantage, that of spatial, corporeal and personal adjacencies. This was used and exploited by the agents to win the emperor’s trust and reliance on them, if and when the emperor was young or weak himself. The outer institutional agents, on the other hand, had normative access to the memorials and the decision-making process, but had no such adjacencies. They had to rely on disciplined and recursive journeys across the distance to meet the emperor, and to reproduce the link and 144

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the solidarity with the emperor. In this ongoing and sometimes very severe contest, the rational institutional link, in the end, tended to give in and surrender to the personal and irrational trust growing inside the dark palace. With their infinite intimacy to the body and the person of the emperor which may be intrinsically vulnerable, the inner agents inside the palace always tended to grapple with the throne with a stronger power, which in turn fragmented and suppressed the emperor–minister link and in the end the emperor’s authority itself. There were different manifestations in different dynasties. The Ming was particularly troubled by the eunuchs. For many specific historical reasons, eunuchs were entrusted to develop security departments and investigative agents (the ‘imperial bodyguard’, the ‘eastern deport’ and the ‘western deport’, known as jinyiwei, dongchang, xichang). A most superior eunuch office, the protocol department (silijian), was entrusted from time to time from the 1430s to read memorials and to draft imperial directives, which disturbed the normal function of the Grand Secretariat.38 The Secretariat became gradually ineffective. The ministers and officials from the outer government were also neglected. In the late Ming, most notably in the Jiajing and Wanli periods (1522–1566, 1573–1620), the emperors, indulging themselves inside the palace, did not hold any audience for as long as 20 to 30 years on end, which was very rare in Chinese history.39 In general, with the emperor falling into the depth of pleasure and delegating his power to the eunuchs, the balance of power was shifting in favour of the eunuchs. The deeds of eunuchs Wang Zheng, Wang Zi, Liu Jin (and his ‘party of eight’) between 1436–1449, 1456–1487, 1506–1521 respectively, marked critical points in this gradual ascendancy. The trend culminated in the formation of a vast eunuch clique centred around Wei Zhongxian between 1621 and 1627. The confrontation between the eunuchs and the officials finally manifested in the severe conflict of Wei’s clique with the donglindang party, a large association of scholar–officials based in south-east China, and in a vicious purge of the former on the latter. The Qing court was more disciplined with regard to the use of eunuchs and the need to open the palace and to hold audience often. Its problem came from other elements of the inner court: the senior members of the rear palace and the princes of the imperial clan who were also the relatives of these senior ladies. In other words the clan and the blood-lineage were the sources of ‘virus’ in the inner corporeal space of the Qing.40 By 1800, there were already signs of an overall decline. The Daoguang Emperor (r. 1821–1850) had many sons, which planted seeds for the blood-based political force to grow later on. The next Emperor Xianfeng (r. 1851–1861) ascended the throne young, and relied on his imperial concubines, eunuchs and close princes, instead of officials at the Grand Council, for consultations and for drafting imperial directives. Upon his death in 1861, his 6-year old crown prince ascended the throne, and his empress Cian and imperial concubine Cixi became empress dowager. In that year, they staged a palace coup with the aid of eunuchs and the Prince Yixin (Xianfeng’s brother and the lady’s brother-in-law) and arrested 145

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the eight officials of the Grand Council. This cleared the way for Cixi to establish the system of ‘holding the audience behind the curtain’ and to staff the Grand Council with trusted princes and clansmen.41 This coup in 1861 represented a full manifestation of the conflict of inner space against outer space, of the inner corporeal agents defeating the outer institutional agents. Since then, for the next and the last four decades of imperial China, the empress dowager Cixi ruled behind the curtain with the aid of her own clansmen, suppressing the officialdom and even the emperor. The blood-based ‘virus’ attacked and eroded the ruling institution, and finally corrupted the throne itself. These were the extreme moments of deep crisis. Although they were not more ‘real’, they were more logical: they reveal the tensions and the logical oppositions that were always there. They can explain not only the darkest moments, but also the historical shift of balance of power and the day-to-day contests in and around the court. Above all, they manifest a composition of forces, as inscribed in the structure of the emperor-ship, the tectonic of the throne. Based on this understanding, a diagram can be proposed as an illustration of the structural composition of the court, and of the throne at a more abstract level, in the Ming and Qing time (Figure 5.11). The diagram represents not only the abstract relations, but also the material spatial relations as well. The structure is composed of the inner and the outer court. The latter is larger and surrounds the former, with its main offices, the administrative, the military and the censorate, situated in the south-east, and its vital emperor–minister link extending inwards, on the south-eastern route, into the heart of the inner court. The emperor at the inner court is also served by the eunuchs, the maids and the ladies, while imperial clansmen were behind the palace with proximity to the throne. The nobles promoted from the officialdom were mainly outside the scene of actual political practice of the court. In this structure, there is a strange triangle with the emperor at the top, the inner corporeal agents (the eunuchs and the ladies) on the lower left, and the outer institutional agents (officials of all levels) on the right at the base. Tensions unfold on all the three lines of the triangle. Between the emperor and the inner corporeal agents, there is a need to keep them adjacent to the (body of) emperor, but also a need to restrict their access to the power of the throne. Between the emperor and the outer institutional agents, there is that classic emperor–minister conflict and the contradiction of the need to delegate to and the need to restrict the officials. But the most structural confrontation lies between the left and the right, between the inner corporeal agents and the outer institutional agents, in their competing attempts to build and consolidate their solidarities with the emperor at the centre. The two groups of agents, with their different attempts and different solidarities in relation to the throne, formed the components of the inner court and the outer court, the two essential halves of the whole composition. It is through the ongoing management and balance of the two that the court materializes itself as a complete institution that functioned from time to time in history. 146

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Outer Court Inner Court Emperor Nobles

Clansmen

'Emperor' (inner court) Palace Ladies and Maids

Grand Council junjichu

'Ministers' (outer court) Eunuchs and Bondservants

Grand Secretariat neige Government Ministries

'the corporeal' (inner court)

'the institutional'

- administrative - military - censorate

(outer court)

Figure 5.11 A constitution of the throne and the state in Ming-Qing China.

There has always been an ambiguity regarding the division of the inner and the outer court. In some scholarly literature, the Secretariat and the Council were categorized as the inner court, as opposed to the government ministries and boards as the outer court. Are they part of the inner or outer court? Another question: is the southern section of the Palace or Forbidden City part of the inner or the outer court? Yet another question: where is that line dividing the two worlds anyway? One would say that the essential problem here is not the terms used in the past, but the actual relations and operations among these critical agents, their spatial locales and trajectories. The inner and outer courts should be understood primarily as political units that had some fixed spatial coordinates, but also, more importantly, dynamic spatial movements over time. The dynamic contest between the two engendered, and was supported by, spatial trajectories that confuse and overlap inner and outer spaces. In this diagram, the inward historical migration and the daily journeys, from the outer officialdom to the inner emperor, were the challenges of the outer institutions to the inner corporeal palace. The inward flows of memorials and of the officials to attend the audiences were the struggles against inner space and its pleasures and irrationality. Furthermore, the building of the permanent offices of the Secretariat 147

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in the 1420s and the Council in the 1720s marked the successive effort of this struggle against inner space. In the Ming and Qing history as a whole, the making of the Council, being spatially and politically closest to the emperor of all the offices in the past, represented the maximum point of the inward movement and the limit of the contest. For convenience, one could propose that the inner court centred at the inner northern section, but had its outer boundary defined by the walls of the Forbidden City. That is, it can extend to include the outer southern part of the city. The outer court, on the other hand, was centred in the south-east in the Capital City, but extended inward and upward into the Forbidden City. It reached its maximum point at the courtyard in front of the inner section of the Forbidden City, marked by the site of the Council and the front gate of the inner section (where the ‘audience at the imperial gate’ was held). The overlapping areas, the outer section of the Forbidden City especially, were therefore the most interesting and uncertain zones of contest and confrontation.

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Based on the mapping of the court as a field of political forces, we can now observe the operations of these forces unfolding on this field. We will focus on some of the most important operations as they occurred across the landscape: the flow of information and control between the centre and the outside; the defensive measures taken to protect the centre; and the recurring situations at the centre that led to crisis and dynastic decline.

Flows of reports and directives In the composition of power relations at the court, the diagram (Figure 5.11) reveals three major relations, the three lines between three points in the triangle. Among all of them, the emperor–minister, or emperor–official line, involving tensions between the throne at the centre and the offices outside, was the most vital one in the functioning of imperial authority over the empire. On this line that relates the emperor at the inner centre and the ministers and officials at different outer locations, communication occurred between them in audiences and in the transmission of documents. With information coming in through these communication channels, the emperor at the centre can make decisions and deliver his instructions to offices all over the country. In both Ming and Qing, the communication-decision structure was integrated into one system.1 This structure unfolds primarily in a two-way communication: an inward traffic of reports and an outward flow of imperial directives. Attached to this two-way flow of information and directives was a deliberative system which assisted the emperor in formulating directives. The offices in the deliberative system can either make decisions for him on routine and unimportant issues, or offer suggestions on critical and difficult problems. The actual offices that made up this system, and those that managed the transmission of information and directives, mutated over time, reflecting a gradual shift in the pattern of power relations. In early Qing before the 1720s, the system was inherited from the standard Ming practice (with only minor alterations). The Grand Secretariat handled the traffic of incoming reports and outgoing directives. It was also responsible for drafting the directives (piaoni) for the emperor to approve, before they were formally issued.2 The deliberative system, being attached to this central 149

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communication-decision device, operated at several levels. At a lower level, the Six Ministries, the Censorate with the Court of Judicature (and the Ministry of Punishment) and the Court of Imperial Clan, were responsible respectively for the six areas of the government, the special legal cases, and problems within the imperial clan. At a higher level, exclusive boards were organized to handle difficult issues and to offer suggestions directly to the emperor. They were 1 2 3

the assembly of nine ministries and censors; the council of deliberative princes and ministers; and various joint bodies composed of elements of the first two groups.3

While the first was responsible for administrative and civil affairs, the second concerned military issues and those regarding the Eight Banners. The Grand Secretariat was not a deliberative but a secretarial body. However, its chief members, the grand secretaries, participated in the meetings of these boards with the emperor, which facilitated their work in drafting imperial directives. The emperor had other ways of obtaining information about the officialdom and conditions of the country. Holding frequent meetings at the Gate of Heavenly Purity, the ‘audience at the imperial gate’ (yumen tingzheng) was a key device. In the Kangxi reign (r. 1662–1722), it was held everyday in the morning at 7.45 in winter and spring, and 8.45 in summer and autumn.4 Ministers and high-rank officials from different offices attended the audience, to report their cases and to receive directives from the emperor (if the emperor chose to do so). The grand secretaries were present at the audience, for exclusive discussion with the emperor and for recording any advice and instruction the emperor might bestow on a minister. From time to time, local officials were also asked to attend these audiences or were given special audiences. In either case, the emperor could learn directly from them of conditions in the provinces. The emperor also used the Censorate that had branch offices in fifteen circuits across the country, and the six sections of censors attached to the Six Ministries, for critical assessment of behaviour of officials and local conditions. In reality, the impeachment of officials and the reports on local conditions were not always reliable.5 The emperor also sent imperial commissioners to collect information from time to time.6 Finally, the emperor himself travelled frequently in areas around Beijing and to distant areas in south-east China. His six tours to this region acquainted him with local culture and economy and asserted his authority among the elite in this region.7 Among all these channels of communication, the transmission of reports and directives remained the most reliable and most frequently used. Most of the time, the emperor relied on these written reports for information and used the same channel to send his written directives to the relevant offices. Officials at all levels sent ‘memorials’ (benzhang) to the emperor. They were transferred to Beijing through a nationwide postal system. The latter was directly inherited from the Ming (and had a much longer history before).8 Horses and other means of transport were kept at stations dotted at regular interval on eight routes across China. The eight routes converged to five main routes, which in 150

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turn converged onto the capital.9 All memorials once arrived in Beijing were sent to the Transmission Office (tongzhengsi). After examination, they were submitted to the Grand Secretariat. From here, the decision-making process started. The secretaries first made a preliminary draft in response to the problems presented in the memorial. The grand secretaries then examined the draft and prepared a formal draft, which was then submitted to the emperor. The emperor, after reading the memorial and the draft directive, might approve it, correct it or retain the document for consultation with the deliberative boards and with grand secretaries in the next audience. Once the imperial directive was finalized, it would be written down on the original memorial in vermilion ink by the grand secretaries. The document now became a ‘red memorial’. After copies were made at the Grand Secretariat, it would be sent to the relevant office in Beijing, then transferred back to the local office using the same route of the postal system. Many of them were also published in the Beijing Gazette (jingbao or tangbao) which was distributed to high-rank officials across the country. While this system was in full operation, a new channel of communication gradually emerged. In order to obtain direct information on irregularities in local administration and local economy which were concealed by provincial officials from time to time, the emperor in the late 1690s started to ask his bondservants who travelled to provinces to write him secret reports as ‘palace memorials’ (zouzhe).11 In the 1700s, many high-rank provincial officials were also asked to write such secret reports directly to the emperor. In 1712, the emperor charged all ministers and high-rank officials in the capital to present secret ‘palace memorials’ to him. If these palace memorials were sent from the provinces, they were sent by special messengers or military officers on the routes of the postal system. Once arrived in Beijing, they were sent to the front gate of the inner palace directly, bypassing the Transmission Office and the Grand Secretariat. At this gate, the Gate of Heavenly Purity (qianqingmen), they were handed to the eunuchs who passed them directly to Emperor Kangxi. For the officials in Beijing, they submitted their palace memorials to the emperor in the morning audience. The emperor read all the palace memorials himself. To reply, he wrote his ‘vermilion endorsement’ (zhupi) on the documents, and sealed the letter, all with his own hand.11 They were then returned to the same memorialist and kept in his hand. In this process, only the emperor and the memorialist knew the report and the endorsement. Absolute secrecy was upheld in the process. As a result, the emperor obtained direct surveillance over the officials and upon local conditions. In the following reign, under Emperor Yongzheng (r. 1723–1735), the palace memorial system developed much further. In the 1720s, a few grand secretaries from the Grand Secretariat were asked to work at the inner court.12 As ‘inner grand secretaries’ (neizhongtang), they helped the emperor to cope with palace memorials that were now expanding fast in quantity. They served the emperor both as a deliberative body and a secretarial office. They visited the emperor in this private residence everyday, and often a few times a day.13 Working on secret and urgent matters closely with the emperor, their functions eclipsed other 151

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deliberative bodies and the Grand Secretariat. If the emperor did not write his ‘vermilion endorsement’ on a particular palace memorial, the inner grand secretaries, after receiving the emperor’s instruction, would write the directive for him, and despatch it in a separate ‘court letter’ (tingji). The court letters, carefully sealed, were sent quickly and directly to the relevant offices, bypassing the Grand Secretariat. In the late 1720s, for preparing a major military campaign in the north-west, Yongzheng used the inner grand secretaries exclusively for the communication between the court in Beijing and the military officers at the frontier.14 Secrecy and efficiency were most wanted and rigorously adhered to in the transmission. They offered effective freedom and strategic superiority for Yongzheng to manoeuvre his troops to the frontier.15 When the war finally broke out in 1729, the load of communication increased significantly. At this point, the office of inner grand secretaries was formally established. It was named junji fang (house of military affairs), which became in 1730 banli junji chu or simply junji chu (office of military affairs, that is, as popularly translated, the Grand Council).16 When the campaign was concluded in 1731, the junjichu office continued to serve the emperor in deliberation of both military and civil affairs, in fact all critical issues concerning the emperor. However, from now on, it became a formal office that was clearly separated from, and was superior to, the Grand Secretariat. It was now the most superior office under the emperor in the entire Qing bureaucracy. The Grand Council performed two different functions at once: advisory (deliberating on civil and military affairs) and secretarial (drafting and preparing court letters and the more open edicts). Being spatially and institutionally closer to the emperor, it developed a level of deliberative and secretarial functions higher than those in the past. On the one hand it replaced them at this higher level, on the other it coexisted with and complemented them in the functioning of the bureaucracy as a whole. Since 1731, all incoming documents entered the court at two levels: the palace memorials through the Grand Council, and the routine memorials through the Grand Secretariat. The palace memorials had four channels to flow back to the senders. The emperor read all of them by himself first. 1

2

3

4

If he wanted to keep the information to himself, he would write his vermilion endorsement himself, seal the letter, and despatch it directly to the memorialist. If the matter concerned some major civil and military affairs that needed elaborate instruction, he would consult the inner grand secretaries at the Council. The Council, following the emperor’s instruction, would prepare a court letter and send it directly to the memorialist. If the matter concerned more offices and needed more consultation with other ministers and high-rank officials, the imperial edict would be prepared and delivered by the Grand Secretariat. In some cases, the imperial edict needed to be disseminated openly. The Grand Secretariat would then prepare and deliver it to local offices, and publish it in the Beijing Gazette. 152

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The four channels of outward flow of palace memorials were respectively secret, semi-secret, semi-open and open.17 In the last two cases, the paths overlapped with that of the routine memorials dealt with by the Grand Secretariat. The two levels of communication administrated by the two offices were complementary with each other in the functioning of the whole machinery. The palace memorials with vermilion endorsement and the court letters were despatched by the ‘horse express service’ (mashang feidi), from Beijing to local offices, along the routes of the postal system (Figure 6.1). Special messengers or military officers might cover the whole journey, but the horses and other means of transportation were provided at the postal stations on the route. The stations were usually 100 li (50 km) apart and were guarded by the officers of the Ministry of War. The set speed for the transmission was 300 li per day.18 However if it was urgent, the speed could be 400, 500 or 600 li per day. The 600 li per day was the highest specified by the Qing court. In practice, under

Figure 6.1 Routes of a nationwide postal system linking Beijing to the provinces and frontier regions, as in the late Ming dynasty (1644). Source: Chen Cheng-Siang, An Historical and Cultural Atlas of China, 1982, Fig. 71, p. 115, by permission of Hara Shobo Press.

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extreme pressure, some transmissions reached 800 li per day (which enabled one to reach Nanjing from Beijing in 3 days).19 In the Kangxi reign there were about 3,000 palace memorials in all. In the Yongzheng reign the total number was 50,000.20 Yongzheng did not just inherit a practice from his ancestor. He expanded and formalized this system, and maintained the strict confidentiality and high efficiency of the system. By institutionalizing the palace memorial system, the Grand Council and the associated horse express service, Yongzheng became, as many historians have suggested, the most totalitarian emperor in Qing China. Examining the development, one sees three main aspects in the making of an autocratic machine of the throne. 1 Creation of a newer and higher-level office, the Grand Council, which externalized and downgraded the position of the Grand Secretariat, the major deliberative bodies, and the government offices in general Emperor Yongzheng on the one hand expanded the distance between the throne inside and the government outside and on the other heightened the position of the throne in relation to the government. This horizontal extension of distance and vertical rise of political height were related. The more the throne retreats to an inner space, the higher it becomes. This horizontal expansion, however, was not a literal extension of metric distance from the inner centre to the outer wall of the Forbidden City. It was a creation of a relative depth of the inner space. By establishing the new office much closer to the inner centre than the old offices, the inside–outside separation was internally more subdivided with more layers of differentiation, which increased the relative depth of inner locations and externalized outer positions. The making of the new office pushed the earlier offices further away from the centre, and correspondingly raised the height of the centre. With depth and height being increased, the whole pyramid was expanded. In the overall historical shift of balance of power in the emperor–ministers relationship, we are witnessing another and the last stage of the rise of autocracy in late imperial China. 2 Institutionalization of secrecy and efficiency in the transmission of palace memorials and court letters Efficiency of the transmission added strength to this communication-decision structure. But it was secrecy that was the greatest, structural quality. Absolute confidentiality of the reports was reserved, first and foremost, to the emperor himself. He read all the palace memorials himself, and controlled the release of some of them to some offices at certain external locations. This radical centralization of information fragmented and individualized the subjects to be observed and controlled. Each minister and high-rank official wrote palace memorials to the emperor, and disclosed their confidential observation about other officials and about local conditions only to the emperor. It secured a mutual surveillance among the officials which negated liaisons and associations, and a centric top-down surveillance on the officialdom and the country. 3 A perfection of an apparatus of seeing based on the two-way traffic of incoming reports and outgoing directives The incoming palace memorials provided windows and 154

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observations upon the officials and the conditions of the country: they formed an imperial gaze upon the outside world. Based on that, imperial directives were issued in the same direction, outward and downward, to the officialdom and the empire. The two-way traffic, of incoming reports and outgoing directives, together constituted a one-way assertion of an imperial eye-power, from inside to outside, centre to periphery. The system, already functioning, was strengthened after Yongzheng’s reform. If efficiency helped strengthen and extend the rays of the eye-power, secrecy radically centralized and verticalized the panoramic gaze and control. The highly structured process of transmission since the 1720s constructed a taller and larger pyramid of seeing casting down on the social geographical space of the empire from the throne at the top.

Defence A fundamental asymmetry is now apparent. On the one hand, from inside to outside, there was full transparency and a total application of the eye-power. On the other hand, from outside to inside, the centre was opaque: there was a denial of transparency, of seeing and knowing, of visibility and accessibility. The denial of seeing, knowing and access was sustained by social and institutional rules, as well as by spatial distances and physical boundaries. In the making of the ‘wall’, social, political, military, spatial and physical, there was one level of practice, which was most physical and violent, and was immediately social and spatial: the deployment of defensive forces. Let us now examine this level of practice in the Qing palace. There was, of course, a large-scale deployment of army units of the Eight Banners across the country. There was also a deployment of units of the Eight Banners inside Beijing, as outlined earlier (in Chapter 3). The deployment at the centre, within and around the Forbidden City, however, was very different. It was the core of the whole defensive system, the last fortress, the final defence line, in an imaginary battlefield of the entire country. Furthermore, by applying a defensive layout in and around the palace, it collaborated with and thus reinforced existing spatio-political patterns of the Forbidden City, which were primarily that of distancing and separating effects. The deployment helped construct the ‘wall’. The defence at the centre of Beijing did not change dramatically in Qing history, although in the face of uprisings after 1800 more personnel and armament were added to the same system.21 This Qing system was organized on the basis of the Banners. While three Upper Banners, that of White, Yellow and Bordered Yellow, were responsible for security of the Forbidden City, five Lower Banners were responsible for the surrounding Imperial City (and all the Banners were responsible for the Capital and Outer Cities). The three Upper Banners were the elite troops directly controlled by the emperor. Three main forces were organized for the task of guarding and defending the palace, each of which was staffed with officers and soldiers from the three Banners. They were: the Department of Bodyguards (shiweichu), the Guards Battalion 155

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(hujunying) and the Vanguards Battalion (qianfengying).22 The first was responsible for safety and security for the emperor. While some of them were bodyguards of the emperor, others were deployed at the gates of the inner palace and the outer audience halls. There were 1,266 officers and soldiers in all.23 For security at the gates and the halls of the whole Forbidden City, the Guards Battalion was the main force, which had a military staff of 15,045. The Vanguards Battalion, with a staff of 1,800, was responsible for the security of the emperor’s entourage when he was travelling outside the palace. There were other units, also selected from the three Upper Banners, to look after other areas such as security for the empresses and concubines, and protection of many locations and activities of the Imperial Household Department. The actual deployment of forces of the three Upper Banners in the palace followed a different system, which cut across the above organization. The three Upper Banners each produced two ‘shifts’ (ban). Every shift contained parts of the above units and was deployed in the Forbidden City for one day and night.24 The six shifts took turns to guard the palace. In every 24 hours, for every shift, units were deployed following the same rules regarding the number of staff, their function and their specific location. In other words, there was a constant spatial pattern of deployment everyday. To trace this pattern in historical records and to plot it onto the map of the palace however is not easy. Descriptions about security practice are often incomplete, especially about marginal areas. There is also inconsistency regarding certain rules among different descriptions. Major forces at the key locales, nevertheless, can be confirmed from different sources and, accordingly, a reconstruction of a basic pattern of deployment can be made. Based on the court record in 1806 and on modern scholars’ research, this reconstruction is given in Figure 6.2.25 The static deployment assigned to specific locations, which excluded bodyguards of the emperor from the Department of Bodyguards and the mobile troops of the Vanguards Battalion, were all plotted onto the map. The majority of the forces described here were from the Guards Battalion. These forces were assigned to a specific site in three ways. They were assigned to: a gate which functioned as a check point examining people passing through, or a hall that functioned as a barracks of forces, or some smaller buildings in corner areas mostly in the background u-space which also functioned as a barracks. The three types of deployment are represented on the map (as ‘bars’, ‘boxes’ and ‘circles’). The additional forces that looked after secondary palaces (for the court ladies) and buildings of the Imperial Household Department, due to the lack of information, are partially represented on the map. They usually formed a section with a staff of 202 and were assigned to a location.26 There were thirty-one such locations but only about half of them can be confirmed and are marked on the map. To differentiate them from the main forces, they are marked with the staff number without any shape.27 What is presented here is a core structure of static military deployment in the Forbidden City at the beginning of the nineteenth century. There were security rules governing daily life at the court. Officials and nobles, unless specially honoured, would have to dismount and leave their 156

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Figure 6.2 A deployment of security and defensive forces in the Forbidden City, in the early nineteenth century.

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horses at the outer gates of the Forbidden City.28 They had to leave their servants midway between the outer gate and the inner gate (jingyunmen), and their clerks some twenty steps outside the inner gate. The lower the rank of the official, the fewer number of clerks and servants he was allowed to bring into the front gate. Scholar–officials working in the Southern Study at the inner palace, and inner grand secretaries at the Grand Council, could pass through the Gate of Heavenly Purity and the Inner Left Gate all the time. All other officials would have to have their identity checked and recorded at the gates they passed through. Eunuchs and artisans working inside the palace had to wear a special wooden tablet that had their identity inscribed on it. Their passage through the gates was also checked and recorded. When the gates were locked at night, there was a system that ensured officers from certain gates examined the four outer gates of the Forbidden City.29 The head office of all the forces deployed inside the Forbidden City was located at the gate jingyunmen, the eastern gate of that central transitional courtyard between the inner and the outer palaces (the site for the ‘audience at the imperial gate’).30 The eastern route, as suggested earlier, was most frequently used. Its trajectory passes this eastern gate before it enters the transitional courtyard in front of the inner palace. This gate was thus central and critical for the incoming and outgoing movement. To locate the head office of security offices at this gate reflects a rational response to the importance of the point on the inside-outside movement. It also reveals a confrontation between the security forces and the flow of movement in space: the first observes, examines and limits the second. At night, when an urgent message (such as a court letter or an endorsed palace memorial) was to be despatched from the emperor’s palace, the messengers or the officers would have to collect a tally from inside the emperor’s compound. This tally had the characters ‘imperial edict’ (shengyu) carved in relief. The messengers were allowed to pass through the gates only when their tally was found to match another tally with which it formed a pair. The other halves had the characters carved in intaglio. They were kept in seven gates: eastern and western gates of the inner palace (cangzhenmen, qixiangmen), eastern and western gates of the transitional courtyard in front of the inner palace (jingyunmen, longzhongmen), and the eastern, western and northern gates of the Forbidden City (donghuamen, xihuamen, shenwumen).31 In the Capital City, the central-southern gate and the northern gate on the western wall, zhengyangmen and xizhimen, also had the halves. They were the key thresholds on which the outflow of directives were examined and facilitated. There was also a patrol system at night. Critical gates and buildings, with guards assigned to them, formed nodes that dotted the patrol route. Every night, from 7.00 pm to 5.00 am, when soldiers were patrolling between these key nodes on the route, batons were passed from one node to the next, until they reached the first next morning.32 Inevitably, these routes were enclosed loops, or topological circles. They marked a few most critical enclosures, which reveal a spatial disposition of the palace as a system of fortress. There were two major patrol lines. 158

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The inner one encircled the central block of the inner palace, marked by twelve patrol stations or nodes, starting from jingyunmen, the gate that accommodated the head office of the security forces. The outer one encircled the outer walls of the Forbidden City, which was marked by twenty-two stations or nodes.

Between them, there were two smaller patrol routes: 3 4

one that encircled the central block in the southern part of the Forbidden City, as marked by eight stations; and another one that circled the central courtyard from within, which was marked by four stations (Figure 6.3).

To examine both the static deployment of the forces and the operative rules of security measures, one can make the following observations. 1 Predominance of ‘checkpoint’ as a spatial device to control movement Among three types of deployment, checkpoints were the most predominant, in the number of locations and the size of staffing.33 In operative practice, the function of the forces was to control movement passing through these checkpoints (checking the identity of people passing through, checking and locking the gates, patrolling between checkpoints). Among all these gates as checkpoints, the eastern gate jingyunmen is particularly interesting. As a key threshold on the most critical route between inside and outside, it was staffed with the largest security forces of all checkpoints. It was also the site of the head office of all the forces. The deployment at this point, as it were, rose up to the challenge and mounted its maximum strength, to fight and suppress the heavy movement passing through this threshold. In terms of the logic of military disposition in space, security and defensive forces are in war against movement, more specifically, against human movement in free open space. The checkpoints were the main spatial device with which the forces could control and suppress human movement and open space. 2 Occupation at the centre for a strategic control of all movements Observing the deployment closely, one sees a concentration of the forces in a central area. This central area covers a large territory from the southern outer gate (wumen) to the southern gate of the inner palace (qianqingmen), and from the eastern to the western outer gates (donghuamen and xihuamen). Both the sites of deployment and the routes of patrol confirmed this domination of forces at the centre. By stationing main forces at the centre, one obtains two privileges for security practice: on the one hand, one can block all major east–west and north– south movements; on the other, one is able to supervise and move in all directions with ease. The centre, in fact, was a checkpoint at a larger and global level, which functioned in controlling and suppressing movements in all directions. 3 The control of the u-space In this attack on movement and open space, there is yet another front. As the Forbidden City was wrapped up by the ring of the 159

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Figure 6.3 Patrolling routes at night inside and outside the Forbidden City, in the early nineteenth century.

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u-space, one which all inward and outward movements had to pass through, this space was under intense fire from the security forces. Among all the gates that were stationed with officers and soldiers, the majority was on the inner and the outer edges of the u-space. In other words, the check points were either those at the four outer gates or those at the gates leading to inner spaces. They created a two-tier insulation barrier, which strengthened the effect of control on movement between inside and outside. Furthermore, in making this two-tier boundary, nothing was more dramatic than the two major patrol routes which, when enacted at night, completely enclosed and sealed off the two edges of the uspace. In the darkest hours, the dream of a total suppression of movement and space came into reality. 4 The practice of security and defence as a making of boundary and depth The deployment of forces was in fact a reinforcement of the effect of walls, of spatial depth and of the inside-outside division. First, the deployment worked directly with the walls (the assignment of the check points at the gates and the practice of patrols along the walls). Second, the security and defensive practice itself created abstract walls (the control over movement and open space, the trajectories of the patrols, the reinforcement on the two edges of the u-space). Third, when physical and abstract walls were all in place, they together strengthened the effect of boundaries, defending deep space and reinforcing the insideoutside division. At night and at moments of real crises, when all measures were in full use, the effect reached the maximum level of manifestation. At this moment, the defensive deployment revealed its complete posture, which collaborated with and reinforced the existing spatial, architectural patterns of the Forbidden City: layers of enclosing boundaries suppressing inside-outside movement and relational spatial integration. 5 An imaginary battleground Very naturally, these forces were deployed and measures practised in the face of a potential danger of an assassination, an uprising, a palace coup, an invasion or any kind of political military threat from anywhere. There is an imaginary battleground that stretched from the inner palace to the distant frontiers of the empire in all directions. In this architectural-urban-geographical space, every point is a point of contest in a hypothetical confrontation against an imaginary enemy. In the layered patterns of defence, the core of this space, the capital and the palace at the centre, were naturally the most intensively guarded. Here, naturally, the contest was intense, and was densely saturated in space, with a darker concentration of points of hypothetical confrontation. The use of the wall of all kinds, and the exploitation of depth in space, were excessive. The practices were rigorous and combative. They fought against, and were to control and suppress, movements and free open spaces that contained seeds of danger and threat. The spatial military logic of the deployment at the Forbidden City, and imperial Beijing as a whole, resides in the imagination of this vast battleground. In historical reality, from 1800 onwards, hypothetical threats became ever more a reality, in the context of internal and external crises. 161

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Recurring crises Let us now turn to this reality of crises and decline. We are concerned with historical situations in which deviations from normal and normative practice occurred at the court, in the decline and demise of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Admittedly, the crises in the decline of Ming and Qing were very complex. Internal problems at the court, external socioeconomic pressures, peasant and regional revolts and challenges from neighbouring and distant foreign powers, have their complex roots that were partially related and partially independent of each other. In this study we are not interested in the cause of the problems and of the overall decline, but in the patterns of devious practices at the court and their interrelations with these problems. Focusing on the court, we ask: Were there any generic and structural patterns underlining different historical cases? What were these patterns in terms of institutional composition of the court? And how were these patterns conditioned and framed in space? Fragments of the research in response to these questions have already been developed in the earlier sections. Here let us integrate them together for a more comprehensive historical picture. In Ming history from 1368 to 1644, there were always disturbances and crises at the court from time to time.34 However, in the last few reigns, one sees an acceleration of occurrence and an accumulation of deep and negative impact of them on the position and the functioning of the throne. In the early sixteenth century, the reign of Zhengde (r. 1506–1521) presents us with a typical case. Eunuchs, already a powerful force in the earlier reigns, gained a closer proximity to and in the end a full control over (for a while) the throne. The emperor grew up with many eunuchs and developed a personal affinity with them. He ascended the throne at the age of fifteen. Being young and dependent on his close eunuch friends, he continued to enjoy pleasures of the inner palace and avoided communication with ministers and officials. Led by Liu Jin, a eunuch bloc of the ‘party of eight’ emerged. They facilitated the emperor’s pursuit of pleasures, offering him exotic girls and secluded palaces. They contested with ministers and officials that intended to win over the emperor. Finally they took control over the emperor, and much of the ruling institution. At the same time, the economy of Ming was deteriorating. Landlords accumulated land at a faster rate. Peasant revolts erupted and grew into large-scale uprisings. These nationwide economic and social problems, although controlled and suppressed temporally, consumed energy and resource of the court significantly. The internal crisis and external problems, combined together, weakened the position of imperial authority. The last three reigns of the Ming, in the seven decades from the 1570s to 1644, displayed all the crises that led to the decline. The reign of Wanli (r. 1573–1620) marked the first such development. While young in the first ten years of the reign, he was closely supervised by grand secretaries, chiefly Zhang Juzheng, who managed the government and the economy well. When Zhang died and the emperor reached twenty in 1582, he gained independence and ruled the country his way. He was greedy and not conscientious about state 162

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affairs, as characterized by historians. Under him, the court expanded its revenue by building numerous imperial farms and imposing heavy taxes on local industry and commerce. This led to continuous revolts and uprisings across the country. While pursuing his greed and indulging the pleasure of the inner palace, he ignored communication with ministers and officials. From 1592 to the end of the reign, for three decades, he held no court audience, a most notorious aspect of Ming court in Chinese history.35 His deeds and their consequences paralysed the bureaucracy and eroded much of the economy. In the following reign, the Tianqi Emperor (r. 1621–1627) ascended the throne at the age of sixteen. He was not interested in reading classics and history, nor in communicating with officials on state affairs. Instead, he enjoyed sport and craft. He also had a personal attachment to eunuchs and to his wet nurse. Eunuch Wei Zhongxian and the wet nurse Lady Qie encouraged and offered convenience for the young emperor to indulge his interests. In a familiar move, they controlled the emperor, distanced him from officialdom, and cultivated their own large clique that included not only eunuchs but also some officials. With the expansion of Wei’s clique, the officialdom was fragmented and weakened. Wei’s bloc finally confronted a large scholar-official group donglindang, and executed a vicious purge on them. The last Ming emperor Chongzhen (r. 1628–1644) was industrious and disciplined, but suspicious and impatient. Understanding that the dynasty was in a deep crisis and could collapse soon, he tried very hard to avert this happening. He suppressed Wei’s clique, although could not entirely cleanse its elements. The officials on the other hand had become extremely prudent. For many reasons, including his impatience, he fell into a trap devised partially by Wei’s die-hard elements, and wrongly executed loyal officials and mistrusted many others, which further distanced the officials from him. Eunuchs were once again employed for many important posts, and officialdom was further suppressed and fragmented. The emperor could not work closely and effectively with the offices of the government. With the economic and social crises deepening over decades, the uprisings grew larger and stronger in the late 1630s. At the same time, the Manchu force was advancing from the north-east, which posed another threat. Years of campaigns could not resist the two advancing forces. In early 1644, the 100,000-strong peasant army led by Li Zicheng launched a crusade to the capital. They defeated three large Ming battalions, surrounded the Outer and Capital Cities, and finally sacked the capital on 19 March 1644. In the early hours of the day, when the peasant army was marching into the Imperial and the Forbidden Cities, Emperor Chongzhen fled from the palace and committed suicide on the hill behind the Forbidden City (wansuishan). In the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the turning point may be placed around 1800.36 The reign of Qianlong (r. 1736–1795) marked both the height and the beginning of the decline of the Qing. Financial strain, population growth and corruption within bureaucracy contributed to social and economic pressures. In the reign of Jiaqing (r. 1796–1820), these problems worsened, leading to largescale uprisings at the turn of the century. This moment is regarded by many as a point of transition from strength and stability to weakness and decline. 163

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The Qianlong Emperor himself was one of the most extravagant in the Qing. Under him, an officer He Shen was promoted to the highest position, the chief inner grand secretary of the Grand Council. With the emperor’s favour, he enriched himself and his followers, and rallied around himself a large clique. The officialdom became demoralized and corruption was rampant. At the same time, the fast population growth, without an enlarged institutional frame to accommodate a larger official-gentry class and without an increase of grain production, meant a growing pressure to compete for increasingly limited positions and resources. Corruption among the officials and the overall demographiceconomic pressure seemed to feed each other, interlocked as they were in a vicious circle.37 Once again land was concentrated on to a smaller number of the population. Heavy taxes were also imposed to generate more revenue for the official class. More peasants lost their land, which led to social unrest and large-scale revolts. The White Lotus (bailiangjiao), a popular religious sect, staged nationwide uprisings at the turn of the century (1796–1804). Although suppressed temporarily, it unleashed more unrest that was to shake further the foundation of authority. In 1803, Cheng De entered the Forbidden City and attempted to assassinate the Jiaqing Emperor (Figure 6.4). In 1813, a remnant of the White Lotus Sect, organized by Lin Qing, broke into the Forbidden City and attempted to topple the Qing government (Figure 6.5). In the reign of Daoguang (r. 1821–1850), developments unfolded at several levels. At the inner court, the Daoguang Emperor had many sons; this was the seed for the rise of ‘blood politics’ in the late Qing in which princes, empresses and other close relatives interfered in the formal politics of the throne. At the outer court, the emperor attempted to clean and strengthen the bureaucracy, moves which were opposed by many officials who were involved in corruption. At a larger scale, in addition to the social and demographic-economic problems were the aggressive intrusions of foreign powers as manifested in the Opium War of 1839–1842, the first of many clashes between China and overseas powers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The next emperor Xianfeng (r. 1851–1861) ascended the throne at the age of twenty. He was an introvert and preferred to deliberate on state affairs with the intimate princes rather than the unfamiliar officials of the Grand Council. He relied on them, allowing them to form a power bloc, which centred around his younger brother Yixin (Daoguang’s sixth son), a group that became more powerful than the Grand Council. On the other hand, he continued to indulge himself with the pleasure of the inner palace, at the resort palace in Jehol (Rehe) (bishu shanzhuang) and in the Garden of Full Brightness (yuanming yuan). By now, all the internal and external problems of the late Qing had arrived: the weakening of the emperor himself; the advancing of the princes and close relatives to the throne; the distancing and the weakening of the emperor–ministers relation; the corruption in the bureaucracy; the demographic-economic pressures; the inland revolts; the uprisings of ethnic groups in the frontier regions; and the aggression of foreign powers. However, as far as the operation of imperial system itself was concerned, the weakening of the position of the emperor, being surrounded and attacked by ‘blood politics’, was the major problem. 164

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Figure 6.4 Trajectory of Cheng De’s assassination attempt in the Forbidden City in 1803.

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Figure 6.5 Trajectory of Lin Qing’s invasion into the Forbidden City in 1813.

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At the death of Xianfeng in Jehol 1861, the 6-year-old crown prince was to ascend the throne and to be guided by the new empress dowagers Cixi and Cian (respectively the imperial consort and the empress of Xianfeng) and the eight officials of the Grand Council together.38 However, when Xianfeng passed away, the dowagers wanted to instal the practice of ‘holding the audience behind the curtain’ which would give them direct access to deliberations on state affairs. The eight officials opposed this vehemently. On their way back to the capital, the empress dowagers arrived in Beijing 4 days earlier than the eight officials. In Beijing, the prince Yixin (who was also Cixi’s brother-in-law) encouraged senior officials to send petitions to the dowagers asking Cixi and Cian to lead the court by ‘holding the audience behind the curtain’. Upon this, the empress dowagers declared the establishment of the system, the forming of a new core leadership made up of themselves, Yixin and other close princes with some officials, and the execution of the eight officials of the Grand Council which was soon carried out. Throughout the palace coup, Cixi arranged the plot with the close support of Yixin and eunuch An Dehai. After the event, the boy emperor ascended the throne. He was given the reign title Tongzhi (r. 1862–1874), and was firmly under the supervision of the dowager Cixi (the emperor did gain independence at the age of 18, but soon died at 19). The ‘audiences behind the curtain’ were held in the eastern chamber of the emperor’s residential palace, the Palace of Mental Cultivation. This palace coup on the 29 and 30 September 1861 (known as qixiang zhengbian) marked the beginning of the darkest, and the last, 40 years of Qing dynasty. In these four decades, Cixi handpicked another two boy emperors: Guangxu (r. 1875–1908) and Xuantong (r. 1909–1911), who ascended the throne at 4 and 3 respectively. They were descendants of the seventh son of the Daoguang Emperor, and were Cixi’s sister’s offspring as well. By picking boy emperors close to herself, Cixi enabled herself to maintain the system of ruling behind the curtain, and to control the young emperors with the close network of blood relations. Her control over the Guangxu Emperor was notorious. The young emperor, at the age of 19, was to marry, and gain independence from the dowager. Upon this occasion, Cixi on the one hand coerced the emperor’s father to set up rules by which the emperor’s endorsements on major documents were to be submitted to her, and on the other hand forced the young emperor to marry her brother’s daughter which enabled her to observe him closely.39 With this, Cixi effectively continued her rule over the young emperor. The young emperor’s famous programme, the One Hundred Day Reform in 1898, was quickly crushed. The emperor was soon put into house arrest on an island in the western gardens of the Imperial City. In 1908, the emperor died at the age of 38, one day before Cixi died. Before that, the new boy emperor Xuantong had already been picked by Cixi, and was quickly ushered to the throne at the death of Cixi. History took another 3 years before it witnessed the collapse of Qing and the beginning of modern revolutions. In the decline and demise of the dynasty, a spatial development was sure to emerge and to complete its own story. The Xianfeng Emperor withdrew from the Forbidden City in Beijing to the resort palace in Jehol, in the face of 167

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Anglo-French forces approaching the capital in 1860. In 1900, in the face of the ‘international relief force’ of the eight industrial powers advancing into Beijing, the empress dowager and the Guangxu Emperor also withdrew from the palace and the capital, and fled to the ancient city Xi’an in the west. After the republican revolution in 1911 which brought down the Qing empire, the Xuantong Emperor with his imperial house had to give up the southern outer section to the new republican government and stay within the northern inner palace of the Forbidden City.10 In 1924, for fear of return of Qing royalists and also as a result of rivalry among the new warlords, the republican army brutally ordered the Qing house to leave the Forbidden City in 3 hours, on the 5 November.41 At the end of Ming dynasty in 1644, the emperor had also been forced to leave the palace in the face of the invading forces, although in a very different historical context. In different ways, the emperor always had to retreat in the face of an invading and expanding power that was not only entering the palace but also encompassing the overall territory in the making of a new order (Figures 6.4 and 6.5). One way or another, the demise of the court was marked in the final act of the new pressing into, and the old vacating, the inner space at the centre, the functional and symbolic locus of imperial authority. Among all these cases in the Ming and Qing, the key players that brought the devious practices to the court varied. Sometimes it was the emperor himself, such as Wanli, who ignored communication with the bureaucracy and indulged himself and consumed revenue excessively. Sometimes, the officials themselves were corrupt and led the fragmentation of the normal and normative practice, as best represented by He Shen. However, among all these situations, one can find a large cluster of cases in which eunuchs, senior ladies and princes, often in combination, played a decisive role in bringing devious practices to the court. With the arrival of a weak emperor, these three agents of the inner world, of inner corporeal space, quickly entered the scene and offered conducive conditions for the emperor to indulge himself at the inner palace. The emperor grew weaker and was more controlled by the inner agents. The emperor–minister relation was weakened and the distance between them increased. In effect, the inner court was expanding: inner space and its agents became more powerful, inside-outside differentiation was strengthened, and the life of the body of the emperor became ever more grotesque, as it was surrounded by alluring ladies, fanciful gardens and theatrical performances. The expanding inner court asserted severe pressure, and domination, upon the outer court. Whether it was Wei’s clique in the 1620s or Cixi’s power bloc in the 1860s and thereafter, the inner, corporeal agents overcame the outer state offices in two ways: suppression and fragmentation. The two went hand in hand: the more the outer officialdom was fragmented, the more it was suppressed as a whole; and the more it was suppressed at a senior and strategic level, the more it could be subject to analytical fragmentation. While the first was reflected in the defeat of some key groups like donglindang or key leaders, such as the eight officials at the Grand Council, the second was manifested in the recruiting of parts of the officialdom into the bloc centred around the inner agents. When the inner corporeal agents controlled the emperor on the one hand, 168

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and suppressed and fragmented the officialdom on the other, they weakened and deformed the most vital relation in the entire imperial institution, the emperor-officialdom link and the transmission of information and directives between them. The audiences were either stopped or, most of the time, manipulated by the inner agents. The transmission of incoming memorials and outgoing directives were either blocked or, most of the time, redirected into and through the hands of the inner agents. Cixi’s control of Qing imperial authority presents the best example of this scenario. With the ‘audience behind the curtain’ and the control over the boy emperors, the centre of power moved away from the apex of the normal-normative pyramid of imperial authority. It was moved to a location much lower and peripheral, and darker and institutionally irrational, than the top of the pyramid: the side chambers for the senior ladies behind the curtain. The ‘blood politics’ significantly deformed and eroded the tectonics of the throne. In the end, history witnesses a strange reversal and the closure of a full circle. The whole process of decline and demise started from the expansion of the inner court, of the body and the enclosed dark deep spaces. It led, step by step, to the suppression of the outer court and the state apparatus. When this reached a limit, the whole state and the throne were thoroughly eroded and a new force rose up elsewhere, and was now fighting back, from outside in. The boundaries were breached and the inner spaces were thrown open (Figures 6.4 and 6.5). The body was compressed and negated, in the form of internal restriction and confinement, of vacating the centre for external exile, of suicide and imposed execution. The body, and the enclosed inner spaces, which were so celebrated and had grown so large and monstrous, were now challenged and conquered, by a new force surrounding and advancing to the centre with a new social spatial order.

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Legalism and The Art of War By now it is clear that there are two sides to the story about the court: the ‘normal’ and the ‘devious’. On the one hand, there was a normal practice that followed normative rules, which sustained a smooth exercise of imperial rule and a balance between the inner and the outer court. On the other hand, there was a gradual rise of devious practice in later stages of the dynasty when the rules were violated, a situation which led, in conjunction with external factors, to corruption and dynastic decline. The first constructed and maintained imperial authority, whereas the second eroded and corrupted the authority. The first resisted and suppressed the second, which nevertheless still erupted from time to time: a positive and a negative side of the story of Chinese imperial rule as it unfolded recursively in history. Let us now examine the positive side of the story in this chapter. Let us explore this in order to understand the mind and the conscious design behind the structure of Chinese imperial rule. We ask these questions. How was the structure of the rule designed and constructed? How was it grounded, and articulated, in political and strategic thought in ancient China? And, in a large context, is it comparable to the ideas and developments in Europe? The structure of imperial authority in Beijing was gradually perfected. A natural high ground became ever more like an artificial pyramid: sharp, precise and consolidated. The decisive abolition of prime-ministership in 1380 by emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, the rise of the Grand Secretariat under Zhu Di in the 1420s, and the arrival of the Grand Council under Kangxi and Yongzheng from the 1690s to the 1720s, marked critical moments in this gradual perfection of the imperial pyramid. Let us use a triangle to depict a standard section of the pyramid, an ideal model the imperial structure was approximating ever closer to in late imperial China (Figure 7.1). The emperor is at the apex, the ministers and officials of bureaucracy are at the periphery and at the base, and all the subjects are in a similar position at a lower level. The horizontal distance from the ministers and officials to the centre represents spatial depth. The vertical distance from the base to the apex represents political height of the throne over bureaucracy. The relations from the subjects to bureaucracy, or directly to the throne, follow the same pattern. 170

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EMPEROR g: ein se the er ow e-p ey

Height (inequality)

MINISTERS / OFFICIALS Depth (invisibility from outside)

SUBJECTS Figure 7.1 The pyramid of authority: a socio-spatial constitution of the throne and the state in Ming–Qing China.

This is a centralized and hierarchical disposition. It has three interrelated aspects that have been explored earlier in different sections, which can be summarized here: a depth–height ratio; a downward flow of the effect of an eyepower; and inequalities in the making of boundary, visibility and authority. 1

2

In this disposition, horizontal depth correlates to vertical height with a constant ratio: the deeper the centre of the court is, the higher the position of the emperor at the apex becomes. This depth–height ratio bound spatial layout with political positioning, and offered a mechanism for the making of political height through an intensive exploitation of space. This is related to two processes. On the one hand, the intrinsic superiority of inside over outside, across a boundary, in the form of a wall or a distance, offered a primary mechanism for the making of political height through spatial depth. On the other hand, the artificial positioning of superior offices at inner locations corresponded and further enhanced this natural, spatial, in-out inequality. Both the spatial and institutional processes contributed to the making of this unequal distribution, that is, the overall depth–height ratio. Between the emperor at the apex and bureaucracy at the base, there was an inward flow of information to the top and an outward flow of directives to the base. When this was strictly adhered to, the emperor could gather detailed and first-hand information about the conditions of the officialdom and the country. With this, he could deliver his advice and decrees to the offices 171

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3

concerned immediately and directly. The emperor obtained a panoramic gaze on his subjects and his country from above, and could assert his power and control from the apex with great ease. The opposite flows of incoming information and outgoing directives combined to make one flow, that of the effect of an eye-power, which runs from the apex down to the officialdom and the entire country. The gaze was strictly one-way. While there was a gaze upon the outside, there was no visibility to the court from outside. Both spatially and institutionally, the centre of Beijing was invisible from outside, obscured by boundaries and a hierarchy of distances, and various institutional, disciplinary and violent means of denial and defence. In relation to this inequality of seeing between inside and outside was another, a more basic inequality, that of the boundary itself: the superiority of inside over outside. These two inequalities supported each other, re-enforcing a one-way visibility upon the outside and making the inside even deeper and higher. Together the two inequalities contributed to the making of an overall inequality between the inner centre and the outer periphery: the height of the apex and the rays of the eye-power radiating down and out. In this way, they contributed to, and were also protected and supported by, the third and a synthesized inequality: the superiority of the throne above the geography of the empire, above a universal land ‘all under heaven’. We are witnessing three forms of inequality or asymmetry, consistent and supportive to each other: that of boundary, of seeing, of imperial authority.

These arrangements were a result of intentional design and construction. First, the individual emperors in the Ming and Qing made conscious effort and adopted new rules to gradually shape and refine the pyramid. Second, they never acted alone. They inherited the institution from the past, in the same court and from the earlier dynasties. Their individual effort was part of a larger historical trajectory of a gradual progress: the rise of imperial authority. In fact, the Ming and the Qing marked the last stage and the highest plateau of this rising curve. Third, the effort of the individual emperors and the design of the institution of imperial rule were framed in a large, collective and historically formed consciousness of an ideal emperor in the Chinese tradition. This, in turn, was framed in conscious theories on authority and strategy in antiquity. Ultimately, one has to go back to these classical sources to understand the structure of the pyramid of the Ming and Qing in a historical and theoretical perspective. Theory of authority was developed in fajia, a school of ‘methods and laws’, which is now (somewhat improperly) translated as Legalism. Han Fei (c.280–33 BC) was its main theorist. His work Hanfeizi was most influential in shaping concepts and ideals of authority in imperial China. Theory of strategy, on the other hand, was developed by theorists following Sun Zi (fourth century BC). His work Sunzi Bingfa, ‘The Art of War’, offered a most comprehensive theory of strategy and associated political thought in ancient China. Han Fei’s book represented the final stage of the Legalist school developed in the Warring States period (480–221 BC). This was a dramatic and turbulent 172

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time in early Chinese history when small feudal kingdoms were replaced by large states. These states competed for supremacy through alliance and campaigns. Larger states came into being through conquest and annexation. One of them, Qin, emerged as the final victor. It unified all the states in 221 BC and became the first universal empire in Chinese history (221–207 BC). In this shift from feudal countries to absolute states, early rulership based on personal trust and customary morality was replaced by a centralized authority based on utilitarian principles and the use of universal law. Legalism was the theory that supported this development. Its theorists offered practical advice for the reforms carried out in these states. Han Fei himself assisted the Qin ruler who thoroughly applied the Legalist ideas in the process of building the first empire. In contrast to Confucianism that emphasized moral qualities of the ruler, spiritual aspiration of the subjects, and the practice of ritual as in ancient times, Legalism was characteristically structural and utilitarian in approach, and realistic and progressive in historical outlook. It acknowledged the new condition of the time and developed a theory of rulership that was based not on individual qualities but on the position of the ruler. It preached the development of a high and centralized position of the ruler, on holding absolute power at the top, on the use of universal law for all subjects, and on rigorous unification of local traditions and different ideologies. It offered a theory of authoritarianism and totalitarianism in ancient Chinese thought. Han Fei’s concept of human nature was not idealist. It did not assume an intrinsic goodness in humanity.1 Instead, it adopted a realist view of human nature and a utilitarian approach to the governing of the state. It suggested that humans always tended to search for pleasure and to avoid pain. To ensure the correct conduct of the subjects, the ruler must maintain and exercise the right to reward and to punish, the two ‘handles’ of effective control. Han Fei’s theory of authority rested on three key notions, which had been developed separately by different camps of Legalism before him. One advocated the use of shi to maintain authority. Shi may be translated here as ‘position’, ‘status’ and ‘political height’.2 Another group theorized the use of fa, universal ‘laws’, to be applied to all subjects.3 The third group advised the use of shu, ‘techniques’, to watch and to assure that officials and subjects performed according to the prescribed norms and standards.4 Han Fei, in his synthesis, argued that all three approaches were indispensable and none should be ignored.5 With the high position and authority of the ruler, just and open laws, and methods of close investigation upon officials and subjects, imperial rule can be sustained. With this overall disposition being constructed and maintained, there is no need to expect unusual and superior qualities of the ruler himself in moral or intellectual terms. The rational system itself can operate to support the ruler. Although all the three notions were important, shi was regarded most critical.6 Shi itself refers to a position that has superiority and a latent dynamic force or power. In Han Fei’s use, this notion refers particularly to a constructed position with a political and institutional height, a disposition that naturally asserts power from that position down to the rest of the world, without the need for 173

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morality or talent of the individual that occupies the position (Figure 7.2). Han Fei says, A flying dragon rides on the clouds, and a floating snake travels on the mist; but when the clouds disperse and the mist lifts, the dragon and the snake are not different from a cricket or an ant, because they have lost the element on which they ride. If men of talent are subjected by worthless men, it is because their authority is weak and their position low, whereas if the worthless can be subjected by men of talent, it is owing to the latter’s strong authority (quan) and high position (wei). . . . From this I know that it is authority (shi) and position (wei) that should be relied upon, whereas talent and wisdom are not respected. . . . Talent and wisdom are not sufficient to subdue the masses, but that authority (shi) and position (wei) are able to subject even men of talent.7 If some timber a foot in length is set up on top of a high mountain, it will look down upon a valley eight thousand feet deep. This is not because the timber is tall, but because of the loftiness of its position (wei). When Jie was Son of Heaven, he was able to keep the empire in subjection. This was not because he was talented, but because of the greatness of his power and position (shi). When Yao was an ordinary citizen, he was unable to govern three families. This was not because he was unworthy, but because of the lowliness of his status. . . . Thus what is short can see over what is tall, because of its high position (wei), and one who is unworthy can rule the talented because of his superior position (shi).8

a tendency in a situation a propensity in a disposition momentum and force in a configuration 'superiority'/ 'status'/ 'political height' Figure 7.2 Interpretations of shi: a key concept in Legalism and The Art of War.

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The superior position of a strong authority, as expressed in shi (and the associated word wei) involved, in a conceptual diagram, a spatial disposition of a high ground or a pyramid. The height itself expresses an essential image of superiority in shi. Specifically, the vertical differentiation between high and low positions defines a key element of this diagram. As an aspect of this composition, Han Fei particularly emphasized that relations between the ruler and his ministers must be regarded as antagonistic. Ministers and anyone near the ruler must always be regarded as potential rivals who will compete and usurp the throne when given the chance. They must be repressed to a lower position, kept at a distance, and always be subjected to close observation.9 A vertically differentiated relationship between the ruler and his ministers, as in a high ground or a pyramid, is the only proper disposition in this theory of power relations. Involved in the notion of shi is an idea of a large composition of positions that can assure a smooth operation of power, which relegates the importance of the individual and his moral and intellectual qualities. In Han Fei’s notion of shi, the overall composition, the overall shape, has already involved a natural height or intrinsic superiority operating on its own. A small tree can look down on the valley 8,000 feet deep, not because of its own qualities but because of the position it rests upon which has an enormous height and dynamic momentum. In political terms, it is the institutional set-up, the state apparatus in the form of a pyramid, that supports the ruler to govern the empire. In this radical discounting of individual qualities, Han Fei’s theory of authority involves an abstract map of power relations delineated in spatial terms, for which the individual is merely an abstract point. In this structuralist approach to authority, furthermore, the operation of the machine is considered as an automatic and autonomous process.10 Power emanates naturally from the top down to the world. The dynamic propensity within the disposition of shi will ensure this happens naturally without much human effort. Han Fei and many other Legalists studied Daoism as well. With modification, Daoist thesis of natural law and propensity was integrated into Legalist theory of power.11 Just like dispositions in nature which have enormous power and dynamism, a social political disposition, once set up, also carries a natural, automatic and autonomous propensity. All one needs to do, once the disposition is established, is to let the process run by itself. The machine will operate and all officials and subjects will work hard. The ruler, however, needs no action. Han Fei says ‘the wise ruler has no action, yet the empire’s work is accomplished.’12 Shi functions with the use of universal laws (fa) and the techniques of investigation (shu). While universal laws impose an open standard for everyone, the act of investigation casts a closer watch on officials and subjects at a subterranean level.13 In this process of investigation, we are witnessing an inequality of seeing. On the one hand, the throne is distant and deep, aloof and afar from even the close ministers and officials.14 On the other hand, the ruler at the top had the intelligence mechanism to watch and to collect information from the officialdom. The inequality of seeing is involved with, and becomes part of, the 175

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unequal disposition of power relations composed in the high ground and the pyramid. Some 100 years before Han Fei was born, Sun Zi completed The Art of War, the earliest known treatise on this subject in the world.15 A classic in this area, it influenced subsequent discourse and practice in strategic and political affairs significantly, and became an important stream of Chinese thought. The treatise looks at war not as a moral or religious problem, but as a subject matter that can lend itself to rational analysis. Characteristically non-teleological, it treats war as a material process that involves natural rules and tendencies. It regards war as an extension of statecraft. It advises political, diplomatic and strategic ways of subduing the enemy. It discourages direct and hard confrontation. It advises indirect, ongoing, manipulative, deceptive, intelligence-based approaches to conquering the enemy. It recommends constant change for quick adaptation to new postures of one’s enemy, maintaining at the same time a formlessness regarding one’s own position and approach. Sun Zi says, ‘Generally in war the best policy is to take a state intact, to ruin it is inferior to this. . . . To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence. . . . In war, the first choice is to attack the enemy’s strategy, the second his alliances, the third his army, the last his cities.’16 In other words, a good approach is to win superiority over the enemy at strategic, political and diplomatic levels. To confront him directly, against his forces and cities, is a secondary choice. To win in a larger context and at a more strategic level is more important than to conquer directly and physically in a war. After offering practical advice (on how to minimize dangerous confrontation, maximize the chance of victory and use information to assure victory), Sun Zi moves on to deal with spatial form or disposition (xing). Spatial form is found in topography, in organization of the army, and in the relative size of one’s own force vis-à-vis that of the enemy. Sun Zi suggests that when the form is right, the victory is obtainable. To win one has to have the right form or disposition as superior to that of the enemy, which defeats him already at this level. ‘He (who can win) conquers an enemy already defeated. The skilful commander takes up a position in which he cannot be defeated and misses no opportunity to master his enemy.’17 It is this form or disposition that offers some intrinsic propensity, which puts one in a superior position for victory. ‘It is because of disposition (xing) that a victorious general is able to make his soldiers fight with the effect of pent-up waters which, suddenly released, plunge into a bottomless abyss.’18 Sun Zi then moves on to a most critical point of his theory: the importance of shi, of a propensity borne out of a disposition. Here we come across one of his most interesting expressions: ‘Those skilled in war rely on disposition (shi), not on people’ (qiu zhi yu shi, bu ze yu ren).19 When form and disposition are right, they themselves generate a propensity that defines a victorious position for oneself: ‘courage and cowardice are a matter of disposition (shi); strength and weakness a problem of form (xing).’20 Sun Zi uses three images to illustrate a disposition that has powerful propensity: torrential water, a crossbow fully stretched, a high mountain. He says: 176

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When torrential water tosses boulders, it is because of its momentum (shi); . . . the momentum (shi) of one skilled in war is overwhelming. . . . His dynamic propensity (shi) is that of a fully drawn crossbow; . . . The propensity (shi) of troops skilfully commanded in battle may be compared to the momentum (shi) of round boulders which roll down from a mountain thousands of feet in height.21 In each of these three images, and particularly in the last two, a spatial form or disposition contains within it natural momentum and propensity which, if occupied and possessed by one’s own army, secures decisive superiority over the enemy. Sun Zi’s use of shi and Legalist use of the term were closely related.22 Legalists borrowed and developed the notion in the context of artificial construction in the social political world. In designing and building imperial authority, an institutional structure of a high ground or a pyramid, once constructed, follow the same principle. In both theories, personal qualities of individuals such as morality, talent, strength and courage were relegated as less important. In each case, it is the disposition, structural and strategic, that is the serious determining factor for the outcome. Sun Zi also emphasized the idea of ‘void’ and the practice of ‘formlessness’. The form of one’s army should be flexible and adaptive. ‘For army in war, the ultimate principle of form is formlessness. When it is formless, even the most penetrating spies cannot pry in, nor can the wise lay plan against you.’23 Formlessness gives rise to invisibility from outside, which was similar to the political disposition of the pyramid. On the other hand, formlessness also brings about an inner void, as a pretext for presence, potency and power, which is clearly a Daoist imprint on the theory of war. Despite the difference among schools of thought in antiquity before the Qin (221–207 BC) and Han (202 BC–AD 220), there were mutual influences among them. Since warfare was considered an extension of statecraft and the advised strategy involves political solutions, it is natural that The Art of War and Hanfeizi were comparable in many of their critical approaches.24 The use of a strategic disposition surrounding the notion of shi, which discounted the importance of human and individual qualities, is a key idea common to both. Daoism, on the other hand, also comes into the picture. In The Art of War, formlessness and void imply invisibility for the enemy from the outside. In Legalism, the centre was also kept deep and invisible for officials and subjects who were regarded as potential enemies to the throne. Furthermore, in both theories, in the idea of a general disposition with its own natural propensity irrespective of human subjective intervention, there is also a profound Daoist notion of a self-regulating nature and of man’s humble relation with it. In the war theory, it leads to the idea that war depends not on one’s soldiers but on one’s use of form and disposition. In Legalism, it leads to the same emphasis on disposition rather than humans, but brings about a more dramatic statement: the ruler needs no action, once the pyramid is established and its power mechanism is operating constantly and automatically.25 But the most important confluence was between Legalism and Confucianism. Their opposition was obvious. Legalism does not see human nature as 177

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essentially good and proposes to exploit this for the rule of law and for a universal order of the empire. Confucianism on the other hand sees goodness in humanity and aspires to bring about this inner quality through moral discipline and cultivation. The first sees the hierarchical institution of the throne as being the essential frame to safeguard imperial rule and the order of the world, the second expects the ruler himself to become a sage, so as to rule humanity through moral example and spiritual leadership. The first is realistic and utilitarian, the second idealistic and moralistic. However, since late antiquity and more clearly from the early Han onwards, the two came to compromise in theoretical discourse and converge in political practice.26 For the new rulers of Han empire, there was a need for both moral idealism and political realism, for both spiritual inspiration for the subjects and the ruler, and a strict legalist structure of the state under the control of the throne. The integration of the two, with their affinity and their contradiction, remained a central problematic for the Chinese court for centuries, and was later on articulated and debated upon by scholars of Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming dynasties. In this confluence of the opposing schools, some latent common elements emerged. Li Zehou has made it clear that a pragmatic rationalism (shi yong li xing) common in both emerged, developed and became a main stream Chinese thought.27 François Jullien, more recently, points out that this convergence led to a Chinese sense of order and efficacy. Both Legalism and Confucianism had the ideal of a total ‘order’ that can be managed from the top effectively and naturally. With this, the moralist and the legalist paths came to join with this affinity, and a Chinese world of order and efficacy was born. Jullien says: Of course, this compromise could also be seen as a subterfuge: enforced submission was transformed into voluntary cooperation and tyranny was disguised by the fine trappings of consensus. But all this further confirms the strange affinity we may already have detected between the rival tendencies: whether efficacy proceeds from the transforming influence of morality or from the relationship of force established by position, social and political reality is always conceived as a set-up to be manipulated. In itself the ideal of ‘order’ shared by both sides imposes the vision of a purely functional human world.28 Imperial authority of the Ming and Qing, as part of the long political, ideological development since the Qin and Han, inevitably incorporated a Legalist disposition and a Confucian diagram, a vertical pyramid of power relations and a concentric layout of moral and sacred order. It is therefore not contradictory to look at Beijing from both points of view: a Legalist disposition in a social, political space and a Confucian symbolic order in a formal, ideological layout.

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Vis-à-vis the Panopticon: two ages of reason Sun Zi’s The Art of War (fourth century BC) and Carl von Clausewitz’s On War (1832) are often compared in today’s research on strategy and warfare.29 The two are put into comparable positions due to their similar as well as opposite characteristics. Historically, they each represent in China and Europe the first theoretical account of the realities of warfare (although 2,000 years apart). In terms of approach, they both detach themselves from moral and religious points of view. Both view warfare as an extension of political practice, and both look at the subject matter from an objective, materialist point of view. In each, the business of waging a war is analysed in terms of strategy, tactics, practical techniques, as well as political objective and outcome. The theoretical concept of war and the ideal strategy advised in the two, however, are very different. It is now well known that Sun Zi’s strategy is indirect and mobile, whereas Clausewitz’s approach direct and finalist.30 In the first, war is theorized not so much as a hard confrontation but as an ongoing shift of formation and a process of manipulation based on knowledge and elements of deception and surprise. The best strategy is to form a superior disposition (shi) in which the enemy is already defeated. In the second, war is understood as approximation to a total and absolute confrontation where all forces are concentrated, to deliver a decisive blow to the enemy, and to destroy its capacity and its will. Naturally, they each have their origin in the philosophical tradition of their own cultures. Apart from distant origins such as Platonic form and Aristotelian means and ends, Clausewitz’s theorization was framed more immediately in the ‘age of reason’, in a rationalist and absolutist intellectual milieu of early modern Europe. Immanuel Kant’s maxim of final purpose, Cartesian-Newtonian scientific determinism, and Napoleon Bonaparte’s heroic campaigns (and, one may even add, Beethoven’s and Boullée’s vision in music and architecture), all find their traces and echoes in the ideals of an absolute war.31 In China in late antiquity, about 2,000 years before, the intellectual and cultural setting of Sun Zi is very different. However, despite the difference in content, sentiment and historical background, there is a persistent and intriguing similarity between the two, in so far as both are the pure and materialist treatment of the subject matter appearing for the first time in their own culture. This, furthermore, leads one to consider possible comparability between certain elements of the age of reason in Europe and that of late antiquity and its later development in China. This becomes clearer when one realizes that not only in strategy theory but also in political theory and practice, there are persistent points of similarity and symmetry between the two cultures. In China, the dominant political theory was first developed by Han Fei in his classic Hanfeizi (280–33 BC). As said earlier, it is thoroughly rational, that is, purist and materialist, in its observation of power relations. It is free from morality and religious justification. It objectively describes relations between the emperor, ministers and subjects, and advises the emperor on how to reinforce his authority. Han Fei advises a universal centralization of power at the top and making this position the apex of a pyramid. With this governmental 179

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institutional disposition (of shi) firmly set up, the effect of power radiates out and flows downward automatically. Individual qualities of the ruler are no longer significant. The emperor, resuming his sovereignty at the top, ‘has no action’ and yet achieves the empire all under heaven. In Europe, one first witnesses the emergence of a purist, materialist analysis of power relations in Renaissance Italy.32 Niccolò Machiavelli (1467–1527) offered his The Prince (1513) to Lorenzo II of the Medici.33 Like Han Fei, it was addressed to authority. It offered advice on how to reinforce power, and was based on objective observation on the workings of rulership, with no recourse to morality or religion. Like Han Fei, Machiavelli is concerned with the ‘effective truth’, and power relations are understood as pure clash of interests. However, unlike Han Fei, Machiavelli appeals in the end to the individual qualities of the prince and advises a good command of chance and fortune.34 Ideas of universal centralization, institutional set-up, and automatic flow of power have not quite appeared yet. About 100 years later, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) took a step further. In his Leviathan (1651), universal centralization of power at the top of a government is clearly proposed.35 According to Hobbes, human communities must be subject to a central authority. That authority has to be absolute. As a sovereign, it must not be limited to any other bodies. All subjects must submit to this authority. The best form of this authority is monarchy. Although a radical royalist, Hobbes effectively articulated a universal centralization of power and a making of an absolute state, which can be either monarchical or constitutional. In this gradual approximation to Chinese political theory, there is of course a divergent current that is largely absent in China (at least in Han Fei’s Legalism): liberal and individualist thought. With this current, the tendency of centralization of power is counter-balanced. One would put John Locke’s (1632–1740) political theory, particularly his Treatises of Government (1689–1690), in a central position in this articulation of a modern state where centralization of power is limited by checks and balances, that is, through the separation of legislative, executive and judicial functions.36 Although Locke’s articulation is liberal, it is within the purist, materialist tradition. Following Locke, the Utilitarians continue to explore legal and governmental issues in the same materialist perspective in the next 100 years. And here one witnesses the arrival of Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and a significant step taken in rationalizing the mechanism of authority in the modern state. In Bentham, European political thought arrived at a point most interesting for comparison with Han Fei’s system. In the 1790s Bentham developed his famous Panopticon proposal.37 It is a spatial, architectural configuration of a generic institution, which he calls ‘Panopticon or the Inspection-House’. It can be applied to prisons, asylums, factories, hospitals, schools, in fact, ‘to all establishments whatsoever, in which . . . a number of persons are to be kept under inspection’.38 With a functionalist rigour, the institution was designed to maximize the effect of inspection and control. An asymmetry or inequality between the inspector and the inspected is established through an institutional arrangement, which is spatially defined in 180

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the configuration of a building. The inspector is at the centre whereas the inspected are at the periphery (Figure 7.3). The inspected, like prison inmates, are individually located into the cells which are fully separated from each other but open to inspection from the centre. Light comes into the cells from the windows on the peripheral walls behind and the skylight in the central roof above, making each cell a small stage fully lit, and therefore visible from the centre. The centre itself, on the other hand, is kept away from direct light and, being in the dark, is invisible from the cells at the periphery. The inspected population are individualized, deprived of communication as ‘subjects’ among each other, and turned into ‘objects’ in full light to be observed, supervised and examined. A strong asymmetry between the inspecting authority and the inspected population is constructed within and is also generated from this spatial configuration. Above all, the asymmetry of seeing, the dissociating of seeing being seen, produced a seeing power that emanates outward but is forever unverifiable from outside. The inspected population will not know whether they are being watched or not at any particular moment. They are

Figure 7.3 Elevation, section and plan of a Penitentiary Panopticon designed by Jeremy Bentham in 1791. Source: John Bowring (ed.) The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 4, Edinburgh: William Tate, 1843, pp. 172–3.

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compelled to internalize upon themselves the inspecting power with its punishing, disciplining and normalizing effects (Figure 7.4). The power at the centre is made omnipresent. It can now function by itself, that is, automatically and autonomously. Bentham sees this as an invention of ‘a great and new instrument of government’, ‘a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind in a quantity hitherto without example’.39 In retrospect, as Michel Foucault has pointed out, the Panopticon since the turn of the nineteenth century had become a generalized pattern for many institutions as sites of disciplinary normalization, material production and development of knowledge.40 Furthermore, it had become an abstract ‘figure of a political technology’, a modern form of control and surveillance upon an entire social body.41 The rigour and the economy of this authority with its automatic mechanism had since become intrinsic characteristics of the Enlightenment and modernity, which ‘discovered the liberties, also invented the disciplines’.42 Bentham’s invention, as Foucault sees it, became an ‘indefinitely generalizable mechanism’ which, along with the rise of the modern state with its judicial functions and police apparatus, helped formulate a modern ‘disciplinary society’.43 François Jullien, in his recent study on Han Fei and Sun Zi, has made it clear that what was invented by Bentham, and what was seen by Foucault as a symbol of historical emergence of the modern state and society, had already been explored in the theory of shi. ‘In China . . . such an invention had been rigorously elaborated as early as late antiquity by the theorists of shi, and not simply on the cautious, modest scale of a prison but on a scale that controlled the whole of humanity.’44 Bentham’s conscious proposal, with Foucault’s analysis, certainly reached a point very close to Han Fei and Sun Zi’s notions of shi. In both Han Fei’s monarchical structure and Bentham’s panoptic system, these elements can be identified: a thorough centralization of power; an asymmetry of seeing; the use of institutional apparatus; an automatic radiation of control from centre to periphery; a relegation of the importance of the presence and the qualities of the person at the centre. The symmetry between Han Fei and Bentham, with Machiavelli, Hobbes and Foucault on Bentham’s side, seems obvious. The similarities between Sun Zi and Clausewitz, and between Han Fei and Bentham (with Machiavelli, Hobbes and Foucault) are not mere coincidence in the realm of pure ideas. They reflect historical transformation of the two cultures in these critical times. On the one hand, in China, late antiquity saw the blossoming of ‘a hundred schools’ of thought. While cosmological, religious, ritual and moral ideas were richly developed in Yin-Yang, Daoist and Confucian schools, strategic and political ideas were also rigorously explored in a materialist perspective by theorists of war like Sun Zi and political philosophers represented by Han Fei. The universal empire Qin (221–207 BC), emerging from the warring kingdoms, adopted much of Han Fei’s advice. Under its First Emperor (qin shi huangdi), power was thoroughly concentrated at the throne. Administration was centralized. Legal codes were standardized. Schools of thought were made to conform (many were suppressed in the process). Local customs were reformed to universal standards (written scripts, units of weights 182

Figure 7.4 A prisoner, in his cell, kneeling at prayer before the central inspection tower in a panoptic prison in Europe in the early nineteenth century. Source: N.P. Harou-Romain, Projet de pénitencier, 1840, p. 250.

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and of measures, width of roads linking different regions were made uniform). The ‘irrational’ feudal textures were rationalized in the order of the new empire. Traditional polity whereby kings ruled by personal trust in alliance with local lords and fiefs was giving way to centralized bureaucracy under the absolute emperor. Qin dynasty, and its successor Han dynasty (202 BC–AD 220), thus initiated a rational imperial system, which was inherited, developed and perfected in the subsequent dynasties in the following 2,000 years. On the other hand, in the West, since Renaissance and especially in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, along with the blossoming of humanism, science, empirical thought and rational philosophy, materialist political thought also emerged for the first time. Starting from Machiavelli, political thought extended itself along a centralist and authoritarian line, even though there was a later bifurcation towards liberal and individualist thought. Along this Machiavelli–Hobbes–Bentham lineage, one witnesses a parallel political transformation of the three centuries: a gradual centralization of power and a formation of the state with absolutist tendencies.45 Louis XIV (1643–1715) and Napoleon Bonaparte the emperor (1799–1814, after the Revolution in 1789) marked two interconnected moments, arguably the highest points in the ascendancy of the centralized, absolutist state. In a comparative perspective, in terms of universal centralization of state power as opposed to medieval polity based on feudal kingship in alliance with nobles and the Church, the French breakthrough of the time was remarkably similar to the Chinese transformation in the Qin and Han.46 In other words, as far as centralization is concerned, Louis XIV, Napoleon Bonaparte and the First Emperor of China shared the same dream and carried out revolutions that are comparable to each other. In both cases, the essential political transformation lies in a repudiation of feudal polity, of a local and ‘irrational’ political tradition whereby (to repeat this important point) kings ruled the territories through his personal delegation to his family members and to local nobles and magnates and, in the European case, with the approval of the Church. In both China and Europe in these critical transformations, the new system gradually cleansed the familial, personal, customary and regional forces, and the power of the Church in Europe. Under Louis XIV, the French court excluded royal relatives from the council, tamed local nobility, brought the French Church under the wing of the court and, above all, structured and centralized the government, turning traditional politics into effective administration.47 In the French Revolution, the National Assembly and Napoleon Bonaparte certainly turned the monarchical sovereignty upside down, replacing it with popular sovereignty, with ideas of representative government and equality before the law.48 But, at the same time, the new Republic continued to develop and strengthen the centralized state. Under the National Assembly, the Church was further suppressed, ‘the feudal system’ was abolished, and administration was further centralized with the new ‘department’ system. Under Bonaparte, these measures were protected and further consolidated. In the process of rationalization, local customs were also unified (notably the standardization of units of weights and measures, the use of a decimal metrical system). 184

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In China, the First Emperor of Qin, some 2,000 years before Louis XIV and Bonaparte, adopted similar measures in establishing a centralized administration. In a similar political transformation, royal relatives and landed magnates, and local political and cultural traditions, were gradually cleansed or suppressed. With the influence of Han Fei’s Legalism and the experience of earlier chaos of wars, the Qin emperor was in fact much more thorough and forceful in setting up authority across a much larger territory. Han emperors inherited the Qin imperial hierarchy, adding Confucian doctrines of a moral and sacred rulership. Sui and Tang courts institutionalized an examination system whereby officials were selected from the population according to merit, which further excluded the feudal and hereditary elements. In the Song, between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, the imperial system expanded and became more complex. In particular the civil service, of which China is credited as the inventor, was fully installed, implemented and operating. The system included a logical distribution of tasks among different ministries and specialized services, the establishment of a body of high civil servants recruited by competitive examinations, responsible for their actions, assessed at regular intervals, promoted and demoted, appointed outside their native provinces and shifted to another post at the end of about three years, the precise delimitation of responsibilities, and the control of the administration by a body of inspectors invested with wide powers.49 All this, in full existence since the Song, constitutes a rational structure that, if our observations are correct, sees no equivalence in the West until after Louis XIV and the French Revolution. Furthermore, the Song imperial bureaucracy had also grown into a very large structure, with more levels of hierarchy and a further distancing between the emperor, his high officials, a large body of civil servants, a dispersed local gentry class, and the population at large. The Ming and Qing, from the mid-fourteenth to the late nineteenth century, saw a process of perfection and consolidation of the same framework. The imperial system became ever more autocratic and, at the same time, complex and unwieldy. In the dialectic of expansion and the need to assert direct autocracy, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang finally abolished the prime-ministership in 1380, and assumed a direct rule over the entire administration. Subsequent emperors such as Zhu Di, Kangxi and Yongzheng added new offices to sustain and make more efficient the function of this vast and autocratic imperial machine. The process of centralization of state power in Chinese history reached a limit, a final zenith, in the year 1380, and a high plateau of excessive imperial rule was ensured afterward in the last stage of imperial China. There is an inclination in some studies to suggest a similarity between the Chinese and French courts in the seventeenth century, under the Qing Emperor Kangxi (r. 1662–1722) and Louis XIV (r. 1660–1715) respectively. In our perspective, however, this similarity of the two emperors is superficial. The comparability lies in a longer historical framework. As Jacques Gernet has clearly pointed out, in a longer historical perspective, the Chinese imperial 185

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system under Kangxi had already reached a highly mature stage of its long development in centralization of state power, whereas France under Louis XIV was just entering an early stage of this political transformation.50 The Chinese system by then was in fact over-institutionalized. Although the power of the throne reached the highest level, a long tradition of moral cultivation and complex institutional limitations mounted a strong framework upon the individual emperor. On the one hand, Chinese society was under the full control of imperial authority, on the other the emperor himself had become less free. In France the situation was somewhat the opposite. On the one hand, the country was still heterogeneous and the court was far from the point of full control over the population. On the other, Louis XIV himself was much less restrained by a developed moral and institutional framework (and, because of that, we may say that French and European kings were more ‘arbitrary’ than Chinese emperors).51 In comparing China and the West in terms of centralization of state power, a few points have to be clarified. There are many significant differences between them. The Chinese system had its particular combination: it had a rational and effective bureaucracy excluding feudal, hereditary elements but, at the same time, it was under the emperor, the last feudal, hereditary element that was not excluded. The result is a combination of the ‘traditional’ and the ‘modern’, the feudal and the bureaucratic. This distinguishes the Chinese system from both feudal kingdoms before Louis XIV and modern states after Napoleon Bonaparte. The European transformation, as it were, passed through a ‘Chinese’ phase briefly, from the heyday of the absolute monarchy to the beginning of the modern state. It then quickly moved on to involve ideas of popular sovereignty, equity, liberty and a positivist idea of checks and balances (the separation of three powers), which counter-balanced and also coexisted with the centralized state authority. In China this line of development was absent. However, in the absence of a popular sovereignty representing ‘people’, there was a cosmological ethics, an ideal of a harmony between humans and heaven, which frames the position of the emperor as mediating between and representing both humans and heaven. This moral and religious framework, deep-seated in collective consciousness, contained the emperor and granted people the right to revolt against him if he was not fulfilling the role and was no longer entrusted by heaven. In the absence of checks and balances, there is a body of inspectors (the Censorate) that can impeach against officials and the emperor. Above all, the Chinese system, different from the thoroughly positivist system of the West, involved a cosmological, religious, moral and ritual aura that appealed to human sentiments and emotive longings.52 The spiritual and the materialist currents, the symbolic and the functional, synthesized in late antiquity, run deep in the Chinese system in its gradual development for over 2,000 years. Let us now return to the main theme. Besides all these differences, there is a process of centralization of power and a formation of a systematic and functional authority explored by Chinese and Western theorists. In this perspective, there is comparability between the two cultures. On the one hand, it started in Qin and developed continuously in Han, Tang, Song, Ming and Qing. On the 186

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other hand, it experienced a short and steep rise after the Renaissance and moved on much faster from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century. While Han Fei developed a major theoretical scheme for the first, Machiavelli, Hobbes and Bentham played a similar role in the second. At a historical moment, in the making of a spatial and institutional composition of this centralized power, two figures emerged: one fully realized in the 1420s in the form of an entire palace and city, the other conceptually designed in the 1790s and generalized afterwards as an abstract pattern for the state apparatus and the dispersed surveillance network of institutional nodes. On the one hand, there is a Forbidden City – imperial Beijing composition as a seat of Ming and Qing imperial authority mirroring Han Fei and Sun Zi’s disposition of shi. On the other, there is the Panopticon scheme proposed by Bentham and subsequently analysed by Foucault as a figure of a centralized power in Western modernity (Figures 7.3 and 7.4). If Sun Zi and Han Fei’s theories of shi are indeed comparable with the Benthamite-Foucauldian scheme, then their respective spatial designs may be compared as well.53 1 Institutionalization In both cases, when power is understood in a materialist and functionalist perspective, a structural and operational approach was adopted. Both developed an institutional set-up as an operating device, which can facilitate the exercise of power and, when developed to a point, can operate the exercise itself. The presence and the qualities of the individual at the centre are no longer an important issue. The set-up is now a fully operating apparatus, asserting its power naturally, automatically, in all directions, in all times. 2 A system of constructed space In both cases, in institutionalizing the operation of power, space is actively exploited. Power is institutionalized because a system of space is established and is brought to bear on the locus of power and the field of its movement and influence. The difference between the two is scale. The Forbidden City – imperial Beijing composition is much larger than the Panopticon scheme. The first was the seat of the central authority of a large empire. The second, on the other hand, was a local institution. In its later dispersion, it still functioned as a local node of a large network of surveillance upon society. This unit, although local, was carefully designed in architectonic detail. The plans and sections of the Panopticon had to be specified in detail, to realize Bentham’s dream. 3 Asymmetry of visibility In both cases, there is an asymmetry of seeing. In Beijing, the centre is invisible, behind layers of walls with a hierarchy of distances. The outside, however, is fully visible from the centre, through an intelligence mechanism. A strictly opposite flow of incoming information and outgoing directives together impose an eye-power, an imperial gaze, upon a whole social space of the empire. In the Panopticon, the centre is invisible because of darkness maintained at the centre. However, the centre obtains a full visibility on all the little stages around the periphery lit by the windows on the outer walls behind and skylights above. Comparatively, the operation in the 187

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Panopticon is local and optical, whereas that in Beijing is imperial or sociogeographical, and is knowledge- or intelligence-based. In modern society in the West, the Panopticon, as a local node of a large network of surveillance, is also dispersed onto a broad, disciplinary, socio-geographical space. Today, perhaps, we are witnessing a convergence of the two, of Han Fei’s imperialism and Bentham’s optics of power: global, intelligence-based, digitized and optical. 4 A pyramid at a universal centre and at a local node In both cases, there is a diagram of a pyramid. There is a spatial depth and invisibility from outside to inside horizontally. There is also an abstract political height from the base to the apex at the centre. In this pyramid, horizontal extension contributes to vertical height. The deeper and more invisible it is horizontally, the higher the apex, the authority becomes. And, in this logic, with a constant height–depth ratio, when horizontal extension and vertical height are all increased, the overall pyramid becomes larger. Comparing Beijing and the Panopticon scheme, the former is much larger than the latter. As has been said, the former is the palace and the capital of an empire, whereas the latter a local institutional node. This indicates something more than a difference in scale and quantity. There is perhaps a qualitative difference. It indicates an intrinsically authoritarian and totalitarian use of space, of material and social resources, on a vast geographical surface. It represents a system of imperial bureaucracy more developed, and with a history longer, than the scheme dreamt of in Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century. 5 Qualities of a centralized configuration In both cases, there is a centrality in spatial disposition. The very idea of ‘centralization’ involves a spatial and an institutional process. It implies both a literal centralization of locus of power, and an operation of power systematically exercised at a strategic high point of a political universe. These two processes of centralization converge and compress into one and a real centre, simultaneously spatial and institutional, materialized at a historical moment, as in Ming–Qing Beijing and in the Panoptic institutions. From now on, in definite manner, spatial centrality facilitates, constitutes and becomes institutional centrality. However, from here onwards, a crucial difference between Beijing and the Panopticon also becomes clear. In the Panopticon, centrality is analytical: it is thoroughly positivist. In Beijing it is synthetic: it is both positivist and moral-cosmological, instrumental as well as symbolic. The same architectural layout in Beijing constitutes a functioning pyramid of authority on the one hand, and embodies a cosmological symbolism of authority as Son of Heaven on the other, contained as they are in social space and in formal ideological layout respectively which are compressed in one reality. That a symbolic representation of a sacred authority and a materialist exercise of an instrumental power can be so naturally intertwined in one spatial form in Beijing is a remarkable feature of this Chinese ‘reason’, partly similar to and partly different from that in the West.

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CONCLUDING NOTES TO PART II Architecture as a machine of the state

The architectural complex studied so far, the Forbidden City, may now be understood as an apparatus of the state in the Ming and Qing dynasty. Within the large, geo-political composition of the empire, it was completed as a core structure with the rest of the capital in 1420. As the centre of the capital in a centralized empire, this colossal built form, this mega-architecture, claimed a dominating centrality ‘all under heaven’. Approaching the capital, spatial and political centralities converged into one, in an architectural–urban–geographical complex. Analysing this setting carefully, layers of spatial and political realities reveal themselves as evidence of a state machine constructed with principles of a pyramid. At a physical and spatial level, the Forbidden City is a complex of walls covering an area of some 700,000 square metres. In an intensive manner, the walls, as it were, apply thousands of cuts onto a land surface, creating one of the most dissected architectural complexes in the world. On the one hand, the walls created a rich inner complexity; on the other, they developed a steep insideoutside inequality. On this dimension, the Forbidden City became excessively deep from outside, due to the use of layers of walls enclosing inner spaces, and of distances differentiating and separating inside from outside. In effect, walls and distances all created and intensified inside–outside inequality, strengthening the power of enclosure and the degree of depth. Approaching from the south on the axis, an official in his regular visit would have to travel some 1,700 to 2,000 metres, crossing 7 to 14 boundaries, to reach the inner courts and chambers of the Forbidden City. Depth, which meant inaccessibility to most of the population, marked the strongest feature of this architecture. The layout of inner space of the Forbidden City, on the other hand, was highly irregular (contrary to popular belief). Eastern areas were far more integrated, accessible and frequently used than western areas. The ‘urban’ ground, the ‘u-space’, was the most integrated: it acted as an invisible and functioning centre, in contrast to the central courtyard as a visible and ceremonial centre. At a political level, there is a composition of imperial authority centred at the Forbidden City and in the surrounding areas. The composition involved an inner court and an outer court. The first, a realm of service of eunuchs, ladies and princes to the emperor, constituted a ‘corporeal’ space. The second, a domain of cooperation of grand secretaries, ministers and officials of all ranks 189

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with the emperor, made up an ‘institutional’ space. The first was centred in inner northern areas of the Forbidden City, surrounding the private palaces of the emperor. The second, on the other hand, was centred in south-east areas of the Capital City but with critical extensions into the Forbidden City, to the very front doors of the inner residential palaces. The first cultivated a ‘body-person’ in the emperor, whereas the second cultivated a ‘head-ruler’ of the empire. The first used enclosure and depth to its advantage, reinforcing spatial interiority to facilitate the indulgence of the body-person of the emperor. The second, on the other hand, strove to overcome enclosure and depth, to penetrate the inner spaces, and to work with, and thus to cultivate, the head-ruler of imperial bureaucracy in the emperor. Eastern gates and a south-east-to-north-west route were actively used (covering 1,260 to 1,600 metres, crossing 4 to 11 boundaries, which was more efficient than the normal axial approach). Grand Secretariat and Grand Council were positioned on this route inside the Forbidden City in a gradual historical development (established in the 1420s and 1730s respectively). A layered hierarchy was established along this diagonal line whereby inside–outside inequality corresponded to high-low institutional positions. The private palaces of the emperor, the Council, the Secretariat and the offices of the formal government (civil administration, military command and the censorate), following a descending order, were dotted along this diagonal line from inner areas of the Forbidden City to urban quarters of the Capital City. Along this line, officials at different levels, overcoming boundaries and distances, ‘climbed’ back up into the palaces to meet the emperor on a routine, sometimes even daily, basis. Both the historical and the day-to-day movements into the inner spaces acted as a counter-balance to the forces of the inner court. A composition of the throne as imperial authority involves three basic relations: three lines that form a triangle. Starting from the emperor at the top, one sees two relations extending down from this point. On the one hand there is an emperor–eunuchs/ladies/princes relation unfolding at the inner court. On the other there is an emperor–ministers/officials (including grand secretaries) relation extending from inside to outside (known as sovereign–minister or jun–chen relation). Both relations involve a conflict, as the emperor on the one hand requires the presence of the agents and on the other has to restrict their political potential. In the second relation, the conflict resulted in a slow distancing of formal ministers and governmental offices from the inner centre, and a gradual inward move of a smaller and more powerful office under the control of the emperor (as marked in 1420s and 1730s). The triangular composition involves a third relation between the agents of the inner and the outer court, which constitutes a logical opposition as well as real historical confrontation. In the hands of a strong emperor, a balance could be achieved between the inner and outer court. When the emperor was young or weak, the opposition often turned into real conflict, which led to the crises and, in conjunction with external factors, a general historical decline. The process usually started with a growth of the body-person of the emperor (indulging the pleasure and comfort of the inner world), and a strengthening of the effect of enclosure and depth, 190

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and of inside–outside differentiation. This was often exploited by the corporeal agents (eunuchs, senior ladies and princes) who came to control the emperor, suppressed inside–outside communication, confronted, fragmented and finally defeated the outer court. Sooner or later, with many factors being involved, this led to the decline and demise of the court, which was finally manifested (in a strange reversal) in a conquest of enclosure, depth and the body-person, by a new advancing power from outside. For resistance, at the level of defence, the measure taken was one of reinforcing the effect of enclosure and depth. Check points and patrolling routes were placed along the lines of walls, particularly the inner and outer boundaries of the u-space. With defensive forces in full use at night, the ideal of a total war against spatial freedom, in the form of complete internal dissection and insulation of inside from outside, reached a high degree of realization. Resistance to decline inevitably involved a strengthening of normative operations, on the three lines of the triangle of the court. Here, with other lines in balance, the most critical was the operation of the emperor–ministers/officials (jun–chen) link, the most vital link in the normal and normative operation of imperial authority, unfolding as it was on the diagonal line between inside and outside. Along this relationship, there was an asymmetry imposed on the two sides of the boundary. While enclosure and depth of the inside were maintained, a transparency was imposed upon the outside. While the inside remained invisible and inaccessible, the outside was in full visibility and control. An asymmetry of seeing, a one-way traffic of an eye-power, is directed towards the outside. It is an intelligence mechanism resulting from information-control systems instituted at the court. It involved, among other things, a two-way traffic of incoming reports from officials and outgoing directives from the emperor. After abolishing the prime-ministership in 1380 by Emperor Hongwu (Zhu Yuanzhang), when the most centralized imperial authority was established, reports were to be handled by the new Grand Secretariat formed in the 1420s. In the 1730s, the Grand Council, on a site more internal than the Secretariat, came into being. These two offices mediated the traffic of documents between the emperor inside and officials outside. The first handled routine ‘memorials’ (benzhang) and imperial directives responding to them. The second, on the other hand, dealt with important and secret ‘palace memorials’ (zouzhe) and the emperor’s due response to them. The second office and its function, instituted by Emperor Yongzheng to expand the height and depth of his position above the outer lower government, secured absolute secrecy and efficiency in the flow of information and directives directly between the emperor and a particular official or general in concern. At a geographical scale, the transmission was carried out on nationwide postal routes radiating from the Forbidden City in Beijing to offices at local cities and military outposts all over the empire. The speed of transmission was set between 300 to 600 li (150–300 km) per day (in extreme cases it reached 800 li per day). If Zhu Yuanzhang in early Ming had pushed the centralist, hierarchical imperial authority to its logical limit, then Yongzheng in early Qing had within this structure perfected an internal operational mechanism and raised the throne to 191

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the highest possible point. Other emperors, such as Yongle (Zhu Di) of the Ming and Kangxi of the Qing, offered interventions and improvements as well. The pyramid of imperial authority as a spatial political disposition developed over time became more apparent. 1

2

3

Horizontal spatial depth correlates to vertical political height: a deeper internal system creates a higher authority which results in a larger pyramidical structure. The two-way flow between inside and outside creates a one-way gaze upon the outside: the emperor at the apex attained a total visibility over the entire social geographical surface. By exploiting inside–outside inequality in the built form and by systematic institutionalization of high-low and visible-invisible asymmetry into the structure of imperial bureaucracy, the height of the position of the emperor became a natural result. The effects of control and surveillance flow down naturally and automatically.

In Sun Zi’s theory of war, the idea of shi is essential. One is advised to employ a large disposition with a natural dynamic propensity (shi) that can be used to one’s advantage against one’s enemy. To use this disposition of shi to secure a strategic and formal, spatial superiority is far more important than to confront one’s enemy immediately with brute force. In Han Fei’s political theory, to build a form or a disposition with shi is a central advice given to the rulers. The emperor must maintain a distance and a height with respect to officials and subjects. A pyramid must be developed, in which a dynamic propensity of shi ensures a momentous downward flow of the effects of imperial power. With this institutional disposition firmly in place, imperial power can operate naturally. Han Fei also advises the importance of imposing an imperial gaze upon the officialdom and the country (in the exercise of shu, the technique of investigation), as part of the inside–outside inequality, in the disposition of the pyramid. With a long tradition of developing state apparatus with Han Fei’s Legalism and the associated ideas of strategic theory, the Forbidden City clearly reveals a Chinese approach to the disposition of space, power and authority involving theories of shi. A partial similarity between Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon and Han Fei’s disposition in the Forbidden City indicates a comparability between Chinese and European development of the centralization of state power. There are differences and similarities between them. A concentric layout, an asymmetry of seeing from centre to periphery, an institutional structure that ensures an automatic operation of power, the importance placed on structural disposition rather than individual intervention and a structure of a pyramid in which spatial depth correlates to political height are common to both. Both, in fact, are a masterpiece of a modernist, functionalist design. However, the Western system followed an open and positivist approach thoroughly, whereas in China the positivist, instrumentalist thought was combined with ‘feudal’ and ‘human’ traditions. In the West, with the rise of people’s sov192

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ereignty, a legalist system of checks and balances was installed. In China, in a heterogeneous manner, the absolute monarch was maintained alongside a thoroughly open and rationalized bureaucracy. In this mixed manner, materialist strategic-political thought was combined with a cosmological ethics and a religious, symbolic aura. With the confluence of Legalist and Confucian traditions, the Forbidden City was both instrumental and symbolic.

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Part III RELIGIOUS AND AESTHETIC COMPOSITIONS

8 A RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE

Composing and building the discourse Here is the prayer announced at the Altar of Heaven when the first Qing emperor ascended the throne in Beijing, in the tenth month of the first year of his reign (1644): The grand Qing emperor accompanied by his ministers presumes to make this announcement to Imperial Heaven and Empress Earth. The Divine glance is without partiality. Your loving care is bestowed with graciousness. My imperial grandfather by your favour received the Heavenly decree to establish the Eastern State and so laid the foundations of the great inheritance. My imperial father, having received the sceptre enlarged the kingdom, and I, unworthy one, now continue the succession. When the Ming dynasty approached its end a licentious swarm of rebels arose, and humanity, sunk in misery, longed for relief. By the merits of my ancestors and by reliance upon the virtues of my kindred I marshalled my armies and delivered the people from flame and flood, swept away the oppressor and pacified the land of the blackhaired race. Within and without the capital all were of one mind and the great work was accomplished. Thus the government has been established in Beijing so that the Middle Kingdom may have peace. The ministers, officials and people have all united in saying that, the spirits having given their assistance, I should not disobey: that one ought not to oppose the will of the people: that it is necessary for me to ascend the throne and set a pattern to the nations. But, only if I received the Divine favour, can I follow the will of the people. So on this first day of the Tenth Month I announce to Heaven that I have ascended the throne and that the name Da Qing Guo [grand Qing empire] will be used and that the reign designation will be Shun Zhi. In establishing the new government I humbly pray for the assistance of Heaven and Earth, that all disorder may speedily cease, that the weapons of war may be laid aside, that the nine provinces may all be at peace, and that by a long life of virtue I may be enabled to establish forever our Da Qing Guo. This is my prayer.1 197

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So was born the Qing empire, and ascended the Emperor Shunzhi to the throne. The prayer included layers of message that can be deciphered. First of all, as expressed in the first paragraph, the very origin and authority of the throne lie in ‘heaven’, in its loving care and favour. Above all, it rests upon the heavenly decree, bestowed to the first emperor of the Eastern State. The decree, coming down through the imperial lineage, now reached the present emperor, the first of the new Qing empire. The decree and the lineage lend legitimacy and a paramount authority to the new emperor. Second, in the following two paragraphs, a historical background is given, which rationalizes the new rulership further. It is this emperor that ‘delivered the people from flame and flood’, ‘swept away the oppressor’, ‘pacified the land’, and established the capital at Beijing, to ensure peace over the whole kingdom. Third, in the last paragraph, a more systematic argument is put forward. Now, having achieved all that, there is a ‘will of the people’, that I should ascend the throne, to set a pattern to the people: a will that cannot be opposed. But all these need a Divine mandate, a heavenly favour and support. So now I pray to you, god on high, and reverently ask for your endorsement, for the new government and for the eternal order of the Qing empire. A basic framework of imperial ideology is manifested here. In a conceptual diagram, the emperor stands at an intermediate position between heaven above and humanity below. He receives a mandate from heaven to rule humanity. Following the heavenly decree, the emperor is entrusted and enabled to rule the nations, to ensure peace and order ‘all under heaven’. In the native language, the emperor is referred to as tianzi, ‘Son of Heaven’, which depicts this vertical relationship vividly. This is surely the core of Chinese imperial ideology developed since antiquity. In Chunqiu Fanlu (Luxuriant dew of the Spring and Autumn annals) from the Han Dynasty, Dong Zhongshu says: Heaven has established mankind with natures containing basic goodness but unable to be good in themselves. Therefore it has established kingship to make them good. This is heaven’s intention. . . . The King respectfully carries forward the purpose of Heaven above, and conforms to its decree and mandate.2 Despite the subsequent elaboration over a long history, most notably in NeoConfucianism of the Song and after, the imperial ideology inherited by the Ming and Qing courts in Beijing remained essentially the same as it was first developed in the Han. In essence, political ideology is embedded in a cosmological ethics. The emperor rules with the heavenly mandate, to ensure harmony between man and nature, between heaven, the earth and the humans. This line of semantic discourse is clear and self-evident in written texts accumulated since antiquity. The intriguing problem we are facing now comes from elsewhere: in the present case of Beijing, the difficult problem lies not so much in the logic of these ‘internal’ ideas, but in the ways in which these ideas are represented and produced in the ‘external’ world. The above text, in fact, was situated in a complex religious institution, which defined the site, the date and 198

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the development of the rituals, in which a prayer like this was drafted, copied, inspected, read and burned, in a long and elaborate process. In this external world of ‘discourse practice’, we can identify two areas of investigation.3 There is this religious institution that, unfolding with a spatio-temporal structure, directly represents the contents of imperial ideology as based on ideas of heavenly mandate. There is also a large-scale formal composition over much of Beijing that, in relation to the institution, manifests a heavenly aura or spirit, which also contributes to the representation of ideology as based on the cosmological and ethical philosophy. The first requires a study of ritual practice in space and time, and the ways ideology was enacted and produced, whereas the second invites a study of spatial and architectural compositions, their visual and aesthetic qualities, and their manifestation of the spirit. This and the following chapter deal with these two areas respectively. Let us first obverse the framework of the religious institution. All rites at the Qing court were classified into five categories: Auspicious, Commending, Military, Guest and Inauspicious (ji li, jia li, jun li, bin li, xiong li).4 Auspicious Rites were those sacrifices offered to gods, spirits and a few historical figures.5 They were grouped at three hierarchical levels: Grand, Medium and Assorted Sacrifices (da si, zhong si, qun si). Grand Sacrifices included those to Heaven, the Earth, Imperial Ancestors, Land and Grain, Harvest, Rain and the Sage Confucius. Medium Sacrifices involved sacrificial rites to the Sun, the Moon, the Year Star, Saint of Agriculture, Saint of Sericulture, Emperors of Previous Dynasties, Guansheng god and Wenchang god. Assorted Sacrifices was a huge category that included some fifty gods and spirits to be worshipped, ranging from Saint of Medicine and God of Literature to the Northern Star, the Eastern Peak, and kitchen and door gods. The emperor attended all Grand Sacrifices in person, attended some and delegated his officials to others for the rites of the second level and sent his officials to take care of all the rites of the third level. In other words, the Grand Sacrifices and some of the Medium Sacrifices were most important to the emperor. All these rites were conducted on a specified site, in a temple or on an altar located somewhere in Beijing. They were performed on a specified date marked on the annual calendar. The most significant ones of the first two levels, attended by the emperor in person, occupied primary sites and dates. Eminently, the altars for the rites to Heaven, the Earth, the Sun and the Moon were to the south, north, east and west of the Capital City respectively. The dates for these sacrifices, respectively, were on the Winter Solstice, Summer Solstice, Spring Equinox and Autumn Equinox. While Auspicious Rites were sacrifices to gods of a higher realm, Commending Rites were ceremonies that concerned secular affairs of the court. Commending Rites covered all significant events at the court.6 They were: Ascension to the Throne, Transferring the Throne from the Emperor to His Heir, Initiating the Rule behind the Curtain, Returning to the Throne, Grand Audience, Normal Audience, Audience at the Imperial Gate, Emperor’s Father’s Reception of Greetings on the Three Grand Dates, Empress’ and Emperor’s Mother’s and Grandmother’s Reception of Greetings on the Three Grand Dates, Grand Banquets, Conferring Senior Titles, Conferring the Title of 199

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Empress, Conferring the Title of Crown Prince, Conferring Titles to the Princes, Grand Marriage, Marriage of the Princes, Marriage of the Princesses, Officials’ Marriage, Emperor’s Inspection of the Imperial Academy, Lectures on Classics, National Examinations at the Palace, Declaring Imperial Decrees, Submitting Completed Books to the Throne, Submitting Greetings to the Throne, Inspections and Hunting Tours, Visits to the Countryside. With some exceptions, all major Commending Rites occurred at the centre of Beijing and mostly inside the Palace City. They were organized around some primary halls and courtyards inside the Palace City, rather than temples or altars. The temporal structure was loose. Most of these ceremonies had no fixed dates on the annual calendar. They were organized when they were needed in the life of the court. The important exceptions were Grand Audience and Normal Audience. The first was held on the ‘three grand dates’, that is, New Year’s Day, the Winter Solstice and the Emperor’s Birthday. The second, on the other hand, was held on the 5th, 15th and 25th of every month throughout the year. Military Rites were the ceremonies concerned mostly with campaigns and wars.7 They included: Departure of a Campaign led by the Emperor, Victorious Return, Departure of a General delegated by the Emperor, Arrival of a Victorious Message, Receiving Surrender, Receiving Prisoners of War, Grand Military Inspection, Hunting Tours, Rescues at the Eclipse of the Sun and the Moon. Many of these rituals were organized in front of Wumen, the southern front gate of the Palace City, a symbolic point of departure and return. The massive façade of the gate tower represented a dignified image of the throne. On the temporal dimension, naturally, none of these ceremonies had a fixed date on the annual calendar. Guest Rites were to do with neighbouring and overseas countries.8 They included: Conferring the Title of Kingship, Receiving Tribute from other Countries, Receiving Visitors from Overseas Countries. Under this category was also included rules of proper behaviour between nobles inside and outside the palace, officials at the capital, officials in the provinces, and all members of the gentry class and all commoners. Inauspicious Rites included: Mourning for the Deceased Emperor, Mourning for the Deceased Empresses, Mourning for the Deceased Imperial Consorts and Concubines, and mourning rites for the Crown Prince, princes, princesses, other royal family members, officials of different levels, all members of the gentry class and all commoners.9 In this vast system of rules concerning all sacrifices and ceremonies at the imperial court, a few critical aspects must be extracted. Basic semantic differentiation (1), spatial location in the city (2), and temporal fixation on the annual calendar (3), seem to be the three most important structural dimensions of the institution. 1 Semantic differentiation One can argue that there were only two essential groups of rites: ‘celestial’ sacrifices and ‘terrestrial’ ceremonies. Auspicious Rites were sacrifices to gods in a ‘celestial’ world. Commending Rites, on the 200

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other hand, were those ceremonies that concerned secular affairs in the ‘terrestrial’ world. Military, Guest and Inauspicious Rites despite their differences, also belonged to the same terrestrial category. This basic division of all rites into an ‘upper’ and a ‘lower’ class may prove essential in the following analysis of the religious institution, its performance and its representation of imperial ideology. 2 Spatial location A pattern can be discerned. As stated above, all Auspicious Rites had a fixed site, which was either a temple or an altar located somewhere in Beijing. Commending, Military, Guest and Inauspicious Rites, on the other hand, had no particular religious sites or buildings to which they were directly related. Nevertheless they did occur somewhere, involving a few different places, often inside the Palace City at the centre of Beijing. Chose analysis shows that sites for Auspicious Rites were outside the Palace City and were dispersed outward to the periphery of Beijing, whereas sites for Commending, Military, Guest and Inauspicious Rites tended to concentrate heavily onto the Palace City. In other words, over the whole map of Beijing, ‘celestial’ sites dispersed towards periphery whereas ‘terrestrial’ sites gathered at the centre. All major terrestrial ceremonies, the eminent ones in Commending Rites especially, unfolded along key axial lines using major halls and gates of the Palace City. Important celestial rites, that is, the Grand Sacrifices and some of the Medium Sacrifices the emperor attended in person annually, occupied major temples and altars outside the Palace City, many of which were much further away from the centre (Figure 8.1). The Temple of Ancestors and the Altar of Land and Grain were on the two sides of the central axis in the southern areas of the Imperial City. Worship of the Sage Confucius was accommodated at the Imperial Academy on the northern edge of the Capital City. Worship of Agriculture and Sericulture were accommodated at the Altar of Agriculture, to the south of the Capital City, on the western side of the north–south axis. On the eastern side of the axis was the largest religious complex in Beijing, the Altar of Heaven. Praying for harvest was conducted at the Temple of Yearly Harvest (qi nian dian) in the northern section of this complex. Worship of the god of Rain and of Heaven was conducted on an open-air Circular Altar (huan qiu) in the southern section. In a symmetrical and opposing relation to the Altar of Heaven to the south was the Altar of the Earth to the north. Similarly, the Altar of the Sun and the Altar of the Moon were symmetrically placed to the east and to the west. These four sites, outside the walls of the Capital City, marked four cardinal points of the celestial sacrifices. In this spatial distribution of religious sites, including both terrestrial rites at the centre and celestial sacrifices on the periphery, the geometrical layout of Beijing as a whole was reinforced, with added symbolic meaning. Centrality was reinforced, not only by the concentration of terrestrial ceremonies in the Palace City at the centre, but also by the symmetrical and circular layout of celestial sites outside and around the Palace, Imperial and Capital Cities. The north–south axis was also consolidated in a similar fashion. The contrast between centre and periphery was another such formal quality added with religious 201

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KEY 1. Hall of Supreme Harmony (Palace City) 2. Temple of Ancestors 3. Altar of Land and Grain 4. School Temple, Imperial Academy 5. Altar of Heaven 6. Altar of the Earth 7. Altar of the Sun 8. Altar of the Moon 9. Altar of Agriculture Figure 8.1 Sites of ‘celestial’ sacrifice and ‘terrestrial’ ceremony attended by the emperor in person in the Qing dynasty.

A RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE

content. Here the centre was identified with the paramount ceremonies of the court, whereas the periphery was associated with sacrifices to gods in a higher and larger universe. Together, this level of religious practice reinforced an overall concentricity on the formal plan of the city, and offered a new layer of symbolic representation of imperial ideology. The process of making this representation, however, awaits further analysis of the actual ritual practice. 3 Temporal fixation As framed by the annual calendar, only Auspicious Rites and some of the most prominent Commending Rites were fixed with a date or a series of dates. In the Commending Rites, as said earlier, Grand Audience was held on the three grand dates (New Year’s Day, the Winter Solstice, and the Emperor’s Birthday), whereas Normal Audience was held three times a month (on the 5th, 15th and 25th). Both were organized around the audience hall and its courtyard at the centre of the Palace City. In other words, when spatial location and temporal date are related here, we witness a spatio-temporal marking of the most prominent position for the audiences, and especially the Grand Audiences. They were at the centre in a spatial and temporal world. For the Auspicious Rites, the significant ones attended by the emperor occupied important dates as well. For the Grand Sacrifices, that to Heaven, to repeat, was held on the Winter Solstice and that to the Earth on the Summer Solstice. Praying for Harvest and Rain were held (at the Altar of Heaven) on the 8th of the first month of Spring and on an auspicious date in the first month of Summer respectively. Worship of the Imperial Ancestors was held five times a year: on an auspicious date in the first month of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, and on the second last day of the year. Worship of Land and Grain was organized on an auspicious date in the second month in Spring and in Autumn. Worship of the Sage Confucius was also to be on an auspicious date in the second month in Spring and Autumn. The same date, in the second month in Spring and Autumn, was assigned to worship of Agriculture and Sericulture. Finally, for worship of the Sun and the Moon, the dates were the Spring and Autumn Equinox respectively. The annual calendar used in China involved four seasons starting with Spring; each had exactly three months.10 To plot the above dates on a line of the annual calendar reveals a clear privileging of four major areas: the central month in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.11 Furthermore, the use of this month in Spring and Autumn is different from that in Summer and Winter. While there is a messy concentration of many rites in the central month in Spring and Autumn, there is an extreme austerity in the use of the central month in Summer and Winter. In fact, only worship of Heaven and the Earth on the Winter and Summer Solstice were placed in the central month of the two seasons. In other words, there is a contrast between Summer/Winter and Spring/Autumn: the first marked a pole of purity, the second a world of multiplicity and heterogeneity. These four central areas in the annual calendar, of course, were finally marked by the four central dates for the four sacrifices to Heaven, the Earth, the Sun and the Moon, that is, the two solstices and two equinoxes. 203

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AXIS OF PURITY

Again, when spatial location is taken into account, the structure is more pronounced. The four sacrifices occupied not only key points in time, but also primary positions in space. One can therefore mark a north–south axis between sites for Heaven and the Earth, and an east–west axis between sites for the Sun and the Moon. They represent a spatio-temporal structuring of all the celestial sacrifices, with the first line representing a pole of purity, and the second a pole of multiplicity and heterogeneity (Figure 8.2). When we relate terrestrial ceremonies and celestial sacrifices together, one date surfaces as a critical point of all religious dates: the Winter Solstice. Terrestrial and celestial rites come to overlap or intersect at this key point, and at this point only. On this critical date, a paramount celestial sacrifice to Heaven, at the Altar of Heaven, was followed by a paramount terrestrial ceremony, the Grand Audience, at the centre of the Palace City. In the entire religious institution of the Chinese imperial court, this date emerges as the pivotal moment. Furthermore, when spatial and temporal structures are put together, the Grand Audience puts the centre of the Palace City back into the picture as a central point relating and in contrast with the four celestial points on the periphery (Figure 8.2).

Earth / North / Summer Solstice

ce Audien lstice Grand ter So in W , Centre

Grand Audience / Centre / Winter Solstice AXIS OF MULTIPLICITY

Sun / East / Spring Equinox

Moon / West / Autumn Equinox

eaven ip to H olstice Worsh inter S ery, W h p ri e P

Heaven / South / Winter Solstice

Figure 8.2 Primary points of a spatio-temporal framework of a religious institution at the Qing court.

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Performing an ideology Let us look more closely at the ways in which these rites, through their discourse practice, produce and represent imperial ideology. We will trace out the means of ideological production along the three key dimensions identified earlier. Spatial location will be observed at a more localized level. Temporal specification will be taken into account as well. Above all, semantic differentiation of ‘terrestrial ceremonies’ and ‘celestial sacrifices’ will be employed as a basic structural division in the whole discourse practice, in the making of imperial ideology.

Terrestrial ceremonies Ascension to the Throne, Grand Audience, Normal Audience, and Declaration of Imperial Decree were among the most significant terrestrial ceremonies at the Qing court. Detailed descriptions are found in several historical records. The first ascension ceremony of the Qing court in Beijing was conducted, as said at the beginning of this chapter, on the first day of the tenth month in the first year of Shunzhi’s reign (1644).12 On that day, officials were sent to the Temple of Ancestors and the Altar of Land and Grain to pray and announce to the spirits. At the same time, the emperor himself went to the southern suburb, to pray and announce to the gods of Heaven and the Earth. At the Altar of Heaven, the prayer quoted above was read and burned, which was followed by ministers and officials’ prostration to the emperor. After that, a proper ascension ceremony was conducted inside the Palace City, at the Gate of Hall of Supreme Harmony. Princes and dukes stood in the northern section of the courtyard in front of the gate, whereas civil and military officials stood in the southern section. All paid prostration to the north, to the emperor sitting on the throne inside the gate (after being carried back to the palace along the central Imperial Way). The next emperor Kangxi, ascending the throne in 1661, followed a different procedure, which was to become a standard pattern for the following emperors. Before the ceremony, officials were sent to announce the ascension and to pray to Heaven, the Earth, Ancestors, and Land and Grain. After paying tribute to his deceased father, and to his mother and grandmother inside the residential palace, the emperor came out via the Gate of Heavenly Purity (the front gate of the inner court). He was carried first to the throne in the Hall of Middle Harmony to receive prostrations performed by inner officials serving at the palace. He was then carried to the throne in the Hall of Supreme Harmony. There he received rituals of elaborate prostrations performed by princes and dukes, and high-rank civil and military officials, all lining up in a symmetrical order in the courtyard in front of the hall, that is, in the largest open space of the Forbidden City. High-rank princes were led into the hall for tea. When all was completed, the emperor returned north while the princes and officials retreated and left by the southern gates. A decree was issued afterwards announcing this enthronement. 205

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For the Grand Audience, it was stipulated in the eighth year of Shunzhi’s reign (1651) that it be held on New Year’s day, the Winter Solstice and the birthday of the present emperor.13 In the eighth year of Kangxi’s reign (1669) the procedure was standardized. In the early morning of the day, all princes and dukes were to gather in front of the Gate of Supreme Harmony, whereas all high-rank civil and military officials were to assemble in front of the Meridian Gate. While they were waiting in the east and west in the two open spaces in a symmetrical order, ritual officers were to carry congratulatory memorials to the pavilions in front of the Meridian Gate. Ritual officers of a higher rank then carry them further and place them on tables set up on the platform in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The princes, dukes and civil and military officials were then led by other ritual officers into the gates and onto the spots assigned to them. While the princes and dukes were to stand in the eastern and western sections on the platform in front of the audience hall, the officials were to stand in the same fashion on the ground level in the open courtyard south of the platform. When all was ready, the emperor came out of the inner palace via the Gate of Heavenly Purity. He was carried to the throne in the Hall of Middle Harmony first. Then, with music and with the drum beating and bell ringing at the Meridian Gate, the emperor, with guards and officers following him, was carried southward to the Hall of Supreme Harmony, to the throne at the centre. Ministers and officials of the inner offices, ritual officers and imperial bodyguards all stood on the two sides of the throne. At a signal, all the princes, dukes and officials on the platform and in the courtyard knelt down. The congratulatory memorials were then opened and read aloud reverently. A piece of court music was played after that. With this music filling the entire courtyard, all the princes, dukes and officials were now performing a most reverent and solemn ritual to the throne: three kneelings and nine kowtows. After that, officials from Korea and Mongolia, standing at the southern end in the west, were led to the platform to perform this ritual to the emperor. They were then allowed to sit down. Tea was offered. This was followed by one kneeling and three kowtows performed by all the princes, dukes and officials. This brought the ceremony to an end. While the emperor returned to his residence in the north, the princes, dukes and officials retreated southwards and exited the palace by the southern gates. The date for Normal Audience, on the 5th, 15th and 25th of every month, was regularized in the ninth year of Shunzhi’s reign (1652).14 On the due date, the emperor would come to the Hall of Supreme Harmony to receive congratulations and obeisance from ministers and officials. When the emperor was unable to do so, ministers and officials should perform due rituals in front of the Meridian Gate, to the massive gate tower as a symbolic face of the throne inside. The Audience at the Imperial Gate, Yumen Tingzheng, was also included as a Commending Rite.15 As discussed in earlier chapters, this was a real meeting, a working audience, between the emperor and the relevant ministers, officials and princes. It was organized around the Gate of Heavenly Purity: while the emperor was sitting on the throne inside the gate, the relevant ministers, officials and princes were standing on the platform and in the courtyard in front of 206

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it, waiting to be called upon to see the emperor. This meeting had no fixed date and was conducted frequently. Perhaps the most elaborate ceremony in terms of participants’ movement across the Palace City was the Declaration of Imperial Decree.16 Rules governing this event were formalized in the first reign of the Qing in Beijing (1644–1661). The decree was to be written in Manchurian and in Chinese scripts. Before the ceremony, tables and pavilions were placed at many locations in the Palace City. In the early morning, princes, dukes, ministers and high-rank officials assembled in front of the Meridian Gate. At the same time, a senior official from the Grand Secretariat carried the decree from the Gate of Heavenly Purity to the Hall of Supreme Harmony and placed it on a table inside the hall. When the emperor arrived at the throne in the audience hall, all princes and officials, now standing on their spots in the symmetrical formation on the platform and in the courtyard, paid their due obeisance. A minister from the Grand Secretariat then solemnly handed the decree to the minister from the Ministry of Rites kneeling outside the hall. The minister then reverently placed it onto another table on the platform. After that, the decree was placed inside a case and was handed down to an official from the Ministry of Rites. He then reverently carried it southward along the central path, with all the princes and officials following him, all the way to the Meridian Gate, and placed it in a pavilion in front of the gate. Another official from the same ministry took the case from the pavilion, and carried it further on the same axis to the front gate of Imperial City, the Gate of Heavenly Peace. The decree was brought to the top of the gate and placed on a table. When all the princes, dukes, ministers and highrank officials arrived at the courtyard in front of this gate, they again stood in a symmetrical formation, and all faced north, to the gate. The decree was then solemnly read aloud, in Manchurian and then in Chinese, by an official from the Ministry of Rites. All the princes and officials below then performed three kneelings and nine kowtows. The decree was then placed in a case and put into a gilded wooden pheasant. It was lowered down from the top, and was received below by other members of the same ministry, who then carried it further southward, on the same axial way, to the south-most gate, the Gate of Grand Qing Empire. The decree was to arrive at the Ministry of Rites, just outside and to the east of this gate, to be copied and distributed to relevant offices all over China. To analyse these ceremonies, one could regard the event as an organized encounter between two parties, the emperor and his visitors, that is, the monarch from the inner palace, and the princes and high-rank officials from outside the palace. Tracing their performance carefully, one can identify two critical spatial dimensions: lines of movement and points of interface. The two parties had clear lines of movement. The emperor always started from the inner residential palace, came out always from the central gate, the Gate of Heavenly Purity, and then moved down to a site, normally one of the throne halls, to have audience with his princes and officials. The princes and officials, on the other hand, always entered the scene from outside via the grand central gates in the south, the Gate of Heavenly Peace and the Meridian 207

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Gate (strictly speaking the central-east and central-west entries of the central gate towers). In a direction opposite to that of the emperor, they faced north and moved upward, to reach various points, to pay their obeisance to the emperor. Whereas the first line moved down and out, the second surged in and up. They intersected and intertwined at various points, generating scenes of a ceremonial drama. Observing closely the descriptions of these events, one sees that these points of intersection, these points of interface between the two parties, concentrated only on four locations. They were all on the central axis. From north to south, they were the Gate of Heavenly Purity, the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Meridian Gate and the Gate of Heavenly Peace (Figure 8.3). Naturally, they were on the lines of the two movements. With these lines of movement of the two parties, they were related to other points in the north and the south respectively. On the northern end, sites inside the residential palace were inevitably linked mostly to the first two points as part of the emperor’s trajectory. On the southern end, places such as the Ministry of Rites, other official compounds nearby, and in fact offices all over China, were the external points relating to the four key locations on the axis, in the princes’ and officials’ journey up to the throne. Although these four locations resume generic qualities as points of interface, they were each associated with certain functions. The Gate of Heavenly Purity was the meeting point for the Audience at the Imperial Gate. The Hall of Supreme Harmony, the central throne hall, was associated with the most celebrated rites such as the Grand Audience and the Ascension to the Throne (Figure 8.4). The Meridian Gate, in many court ceremonies, was the architectural symbol of the throne and the emperor (Figure 8.5). When the emperor was not available, one prostrated oneself and kowtowed to him symbolically, in front of the massive gate tower. As the front gate of the Forbidden City, this was also a symbolic point of departure and return for distant campaigns. The Gate of Heavenly Peace, as the most southern gate of the entire imperial complex, symbolized the threshold between the palace and the outside world. It was thus the point to announce imperial decrees to all the offices and, through them, to all in the empire. When we move closer, other systematic characteristics emerge. On all four locations, there was always a structure on the northern side and an open-air courtyard on the southern side. A large throne hall, a gate or an elaborate gate tower, constituted the northern part, whereas a courtyard of different size and articulation, attached to the structure to the north and enclosed on all other sides, constituted the southern part of the space. Whereas the northern part accommodated the emperor and symbolized the throne, the southern part offered space for the princes and officials, and also represented an inferior and lower position of the subjects in relation to the supreme master on the opposite side. The interfaces between the Hall of Supreme Harmony and its courtyard, and between the Meridian Gate and its open space in front, demonstrate this contrast most clearly. Upon this physical spatial layout, human performance was systematically 208

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Figure 8.3 The four focal sites of ‘terrestrial’ ceremony inside the Forbidden City.

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Figure 8.4 The Hall of Supreme Harmony (taihedian) viewed from the south. Source: Laurence G. Liu, Chinese Architecture, 1989, p. 249, by permission of Academy Editions.

organized, to further develop a consistent mapping of contrast and opposition between the two sides. The performance was indeed complex involving many aspects. Among all these, two basic bodily postures were essential: that of the face and that of the entire body. When the two sides arrive at the interface point, the emperor, sitting on the high throne at the north, faced south, whereas the princes and officials, standing in the open space in south, faced up and north. This interface, no matter how distant they were from each other, was a most symbolic, spatio-corporeal composition. This was consistent with the entire spatial setting where the north–south opposition symbolized a hierarchical domination. Furthermore, it also correlated with the architectural composition where the façade of the structure represented the face of the throne. The facial position was part of the posture of the whole body. While the emperor was sitting himself on the high throne in a most noble posture, the princes and officials had to stand in the south in strict formation and, at key moments of the ceremony, perform prostrations. The spatial positions of the subjects, being in the south and at a lower ground level, already symbolized an inferior position in social hierarchy. But nothing was more revealing and dramatic than the actual performance of kneeling and kowtowing by the princes and the officials. At this moment, one had to stand on one’s knees, and to lower one’s head to touch the ground, and to do so many times, in order to express and to confirm one’s reverence to the supreme master in the north. The body’s excessive labour was needed to test and to confirm reverence and respect, to symbolize, once again, the domination of north over south, the emperor over the subjects. What we are witnessing here is a process of making a discourse practice, and a religious–ceremonial institution, which produced ideology in the external world. External, material dispositions became part of the internal, semantic content of ideology. That north is above south, inside above outside and centre above periphery, as constructed in spatial layout and through human perform210

A RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE

Figure 8.5 The Meridian Gate (wumen) and the Forbidden City beyond viewed from the south. Source: Nelson I. Wu, Chinese and Indian Architecture, 1963, Plate 137, by permission of George Braziller, Inc.

ance, is intrinsically semantic and symbolic. In this discourse practice, all the contrasts and oppositions outlined above indicates one meaning only: the emperor is above all humans. Celestial sacrifices As introduced earlier, worship to Heaven was the most sacred celestial sacrifice. How was it structured in spatial, temporal terms? What was its physical setting? What was the spatial layout that composed the ritual performance? How did these external elements become internal contents of a discourse, in the making of an entire imperial ideology? Located to the south of the Capital City and to the east of the axis, the Altar 211

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of Heaven is the largest religious complex in Beijing (Figure 8.6). It measures 1,700 metres from east to west, and 1,600 metres from north to south, covering an area of about 280 hectares.17 It has two enclosures, both of which have circular corners in the north and rectangular outlines in the south. Inside the first enclosure to the west are two compounds, one for ceremonial rehearsal and one for preparing animal sacrifices. All the main structures are inside the second enclosure. This is divided into two sections by a wall. In the northern section, there is a hall of abstinence for the emperor who, having spent 2 days of fasting inside the Palace City, would reside here to continue his abstinence for the third day before the sacrifice. There is a north–south axis running through the entire enclosure, linking two major structures in the two sections. In the north is a group of structures surrounding the Hall of Yearly Harvest (qiniandian) at the centre, a blue-tiled, triple-roofed circular temple. A repository of shrines and tablets was behind. A storage compound was to the north-east and a slaughter pavilion was further away in the same direction. There is a long and raised platform on the axis to the south. The emperor would approach the hall from the south on this path for his yearly prayers for a good harvest. On the southern end of the axis is another group that surrounds a central structure, the Circular Altar (huan qiu). A three-tier platform open to sky, this is the place the emperor offered his worship to Heaven on the Winter Solstice (Figure 8.7). It is contained in two enclosures: a circular court inside and a square court outside. Triple gateways pierce through each of the courts on the

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Figure 8.6 Plan of the Altar of Heaven, with sites for ‘celestial’ sacrifices. Source: Adapted from Liu Dunzhen, Zhongguo Gudai Jianzhushi, Beijing: Zhongguo Jianzhu Gongye Chubanshe, 1980, Fig. 184-1, p. 348.

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Figure 8.7 Plan of the Circular Altar, a site for a supreme ‘celestial’ sacrifice. Source: Adapted from Liu Dunzhen, Zhongguo Gudai Jianzhushi, Beijing: Zhongguo Jianzhu Gongye Chubanshe, 1980, Fig. 184-2, p. 349.

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four cardinal points. Those on the north, east and west were closed during the sacrifice. In the south-west corner of the square court there are three tall masts on which, during sacrifice before daylight, large red lanterns were hung. In the south-east corner, there is an altar of burnt offerings. Extending towards the north-east, there is also a row of eight large braziers for burning offerings. Outside the square court, to the north, is a repository hall where the tablets of Heaven and other gods were kept. To the north-east is a storage and a slaughter pavilion. Again there is a long sacred way on the axis on which, during the sacrifice, the emperor would approach the altar from the south. The Hall of Yearly Harvest was originally a site for worship of both Heaven and the Earth in the early Ming dynasty. From 1530, under the Jiajing Emperor (r. 1522–1566), the sacrifice was separated: that to Heaven was on the Circular Altar to the south, and that to the Earth on a square, open-air altar to the north of the Capital City. This practice remained for the rest of the Ming and Qing. In the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736–1795) in the mid-Qing, both the Hall of Yearly Harvest and the Circular Altar were significantly redesigned. Both were repaired and partially reconstructed in the following reigns, but without alteration to the design of the Qianlong’s time (Figures 8.6 and 8.7). It is well known that these constructions contained symbolic meanings. The ancient belief that the earth and heaven are of a square and a circular shape can be found in the outline of the enclosures and the plan of the buildings and platforms. Blue, symbolizing sky and Heaven, is the colour of the tiles on the three roofs of the Hall of Yearly Harvest. Odd numbers, regarded as ‘Yang’ numbers, as opposed to even and ‘Yin’ numbers in the duality of Yin and Yang, Earth and Heaven, were systematically used in these structures. Number three and its multiplication were used in many ways to symbolize a heavenly presence as well as lunar cycles and seasonal periods of the annual calendar. In a memorial submitted to the Qianlong Emperor in 1750 outlining the new design of the Circular Altar, it says: We now propose that . . . the altar be made to contain in ancient measurement in the first terrace a diameter of 9 zhang, or 1 times 9; in the second a diameter of 15 zhang, or 3 times 5, and in the third terrace a diameter of 21 zhang, or 3 times 7, so that the heavenly or odd numbers, 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 will be represented, and the diameters of the three terraces added together will make a total of 45 zhang, which will express the numerical relation of 9 and 5. . . . We request that each terrace may have 9 circles and that one circular stone be added in the centre of the top terrace. The uppermost terrace will represent 1 times 9, and show a total 9 times 9 or 81 stones. The second terrace will begin with (81  9) 90 in the inner circle and end with 162 in the ninth, and the third terrace begin with 171 and end with 242 in the ninth. . . . The balustrades around the three terraces are each in four sections. On the first terrace each section of the balustrades will contain 18 panels; the second 27 panels, and on the third 45, making a total of 360 panels, corresponding to the 360 degrees of a heavenly circle. 214

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All the measurements of the surfaces of the above-mentioned threeterraced altar, the length and width of the balustrades, as well as their thickness, and the width and height of the steps, are in the ancient chi, but slight additions and deductions have had to be made to preserve the relation of the number 9. The above is in accord with the celestial sign of Qian Yuan, the ancient tri-gram corresponding to Heaven.18 Another symbolic arrangement was found in the use of orientation. Here in both the Hall of Yearly Harvest and the Circular Altar, humans approached the site from the south on a pathway, whereas the gods, represented as tablets in shrines carried reverently by officers, were invited to come down to the site from the repository in the north. Such a spatial arrangement was more pronounced around the Circular Altar, a platform for a dramatic encounter between the heavenly gods from high above in the north and humans from a lower realm in the south. This spatial layout symbolized not only a heavenly presence but also, more importantly, a Heaven–human relationship in which Heaven was conceived as above humans. Religious and ideological meanings were represented in these architectural constructions and spatial arrangements. One may see this as a discourse practice which involved a production of internal meaning of a discourse in and through the making of external, material entities with their spatial interrelations. In this practice, a discourse was inscribed onto this physical spatial setting. The discourse practice, furthermore, included another aspect: an embodied and dynamic enactment. As an enacted ceremony it unfolded against the backdrop of this setting like a drama being played upon a stage. The process, when observed closely, involved a more defined spatial deployment of ritual objects and human agents, animating various spatial dimensions in relation to their semantic meanings. Five days before the Winter Solstice, sacrificial animals were inspected by the emperor in person or by deputy.19 Three days before, a table with a notice of abstinence was placed at the centre of the front gate of the inner palace, the Gate of Heavenly Purity, in the early morning, announcing the beginning of a 3-day abstinence observed by the emperor and high-rank officials. Two days before the sacrifice, the prayer text was prepared by the officials in the Grand Secretariat and approved by the emperor. It was reverently copied in vermilion ink onto a piece of blue paper mounted onto a tablet. It was then stored in a room in the Secretariat in the south-east corner of the Palace City. One day before the sacrifice, the animals were killed at the slaughter pavilion in the Altar of Heaven. The Circular Altar was cleaned. The shrines for the tablets of spirits were placed on the altar. That for Heaven was placed in the north on the axis whereas those for imperial ancestors were placed on the two sides, all on the topmost terrace. Those for other heavenly and earthly spirits were placed on the eastern and western sides on the second terrace (including the Sun, the Moon, Rain, Clouds, Winds, Thunder and many mountains, rivers and seas). At the southern end on the axis on the top terrace, a tablet was placed which indicated the position of the emperor when he ascended the top from 215

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time to time during the sacrifice. On the second terrace at the head of the southern flight of steps was placed a tent, which was to be occupied by the emperor before and after his offerings at the top during the ceremony. Another and larger tent was erected outside the southern gate of the square court on the eastern side of the central axial path. This was the emperor’s dressing tent he used at the beginning and at the end of the ceremony. On the same day, inside the Palace City, a table was set up inside the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The prayer was brought from the Grand Secretariat and was placed on it. The emperor, after inspecting the prayer, knelt once and kowtowed three times. The prayer was then placed in a kiosk to which the emperor offered incense three times, knelt once again and kowtowed three times. The prayer and other offerings of incense, silk and jade were then carried to the storage in the Altar of Heaven. After that, the emperor, sitting on this chair of the state, with his entire entourage, in a strict formation of a procession, slowly moved out of the Palace City, amidst the ringing of the bell and the beating of the drum at the Meridian Gate. The procession followed the sacred way on the axis of the whole city from the Meridian Gate of the Palace City to the southwestern gate of the Altar of Heaven. All street intersections on the two sides of this avenue were blocked by timber fences and covered by large curtains. Shops on the two sides were also closed. Guards and soldiers knelt on the two sides all the way through. The emperor’s procession entered the Altar of Heaven by the south-most gate on the western side of the enclosure. He was then carried to the southern gate of the inner enclosure on the axis of the Altar. There he alighted and walked northwards through the two courts of the Circular Altar to the repository. Inside this hall, the emperor offered incense, knelt three times and kowtowed nine times to Heaven, followed by the same prostrations to imperial ancestors and other heavenly and earthly spirits. The emperor then inspected the arrangement of the shrines on the Circular Altar. After that, he was carried to the hall of abstinence in the west of the enclosure. About 3 o’clock in the morning on the Winter Solstice, the prayer was brought from the storage to the Circular Altar, and was placed on a table on the topmost terrace. About the same time, the emperor was requested to attend the sacrifice. He was carried to the southern gate of the square court. There, on the western side of the sacred way, he alighted, walked to the eastern side, and entered his dressing tent. About the same time, the tablets of Heaven, of imperial ancestors and of other heavenly and earthly spirits, were invited to attend at the altar. They were carried reverently by ritual officers from the repository in the north down to the altar and were placed in their respective shrines already positioned on the top and the second terraces. At the request of a ritual officer, the emperor comes out of the tent, washes his hands, and is escorted into the square and the circular courts, and up the southern steps to his tent on the second terrace where he stands facing north. At this moment, officials who are to serve the spirits to the east and west on the second terrace are standing on the east and west respectively. Musicians, chanting choir and dancers are arranged to the south of the altar, half east of the sacred way and half on the west. Groups of princes and officials are stationed on 216

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the two sides of the axis inside and outside the circular and the square courts. Ritual officers are standing at all places to direct the ceremony. At this time, it is still dark. The site is illuminated by three large red lanterns on the tall masts and by hundreds of candles and lanterns dotted around the altar. When all is in the right position, an officer announces the service for the reception of Heaven. The fire is kindled and a whole body of a bullock is consumed at the altar of burnt offerings in the south-east. A piece of music is played. With his tablet at the top being removed, the emperor is now escorted to the top terrace. He walks to the shrine of Heaven, kneels, takes a stick of incense and places it in the censer before the shrine. This he does three times. He is then conducted to other shrines to the east and west on the top terrace and, before each of them, the same ceremony is repeated. The emperor then retires to his tent on the second terrace. His tablet is placed back at its assigned spot. There inside the tent, the emperor, facing north, kneels three times and kowtows nine times; this is followed by the same prostrations of all the princes and officials in their places inside and outside the two courts. The officer then announces the offering of jade and silk. The offerings are made with the same procedure, but accompanied by a different piece of music. This is followed by the offering of large trenchers of wood containing bodies of bullocks. The same procedure is followed, with yet another piece of music. The officer next calls for the first offering of wine. A piece of music starts, and some sixty ‘military’ dancers start their performance. The emperor is conducted to the top terrace where he offers a cup of wine to Heaven, and is led to the table on which the prayer is laid. The music stops. One officer, after prostrations, takes the prayer and kneels. The emperor, with the entire company of princes and officials, kneels. The prayer is read aloud. The music and the performance resume, and the prayer is placed in a basket in front of the shrine of Heaven. The emperor leads the whole company in three salutations to Heaven. He is then conducted to other shrines to the east and west, to each of which he offers a cup of wine. The music and the performance come to a stop and the emperor is once again escorted to the tent on the lower terrace. The second offering of wine is made towards the spirits on the eastern side on the second terrace. The third offering, on the other hand, is to those on the western side. They are each conducted by the officials on that side, and are accompanied by music and performances of ‘civilian’ dancers. A blessed feast now starts. The emperor is escorted to the top. He kneels in front of the shrine of Heaven. He reverently takes a cup of wine, raises it and hands it to officers on his right. He then raises a plate of meat offerings and hands it to the officials on his right. He makes three salutations and retires back to his tent on the lower terrace. There, he leads the whole company of princes and officials in three kneelings and nine kowtows. An officer now announces the return of Heaven and other spirits. The tablets are carried back to the repository in the north in a procession accompanied by music. In this process, the emperor, leading the whole company, again kneels three times and kowtows nine times. After that, an order is given that the prayer, the silk and other offerings be sent to the altar of burnt 217

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offerings and to the braziers in the south-east area of the square court. A piece of music starts. The emperor is conducted to the outside of the southern gate of the circular court. There he stands, reverently watching the burning of the prayers and the offerings. As flames and smoke rise to the sky, dawn gradually breaks and the great sacrifice comes to a close. After changing into his dragon robe in the dressing tent outside the square court, the emperor is carried out of the Altar of Heaven and back to the Palace City. This is one of the most elaborate ceremonies of the Qing court. In the process of worshipping Heaven, a spatial disposition, already mapped in the physical layout, is activated and, as it were, brought to life (Figure 8.8). Other critical elements, situated within the spatial setting, also manifest themselves prominently. An enacted space, a performing body and an external life of a text emerge as three critical aspects in the making of religious and ideological meaning. 1 An enacted spatial disposition The north–south hierarchy, already represented in the physical architectural layout, is projected onto a more defined central space around the altar itself and, during the sacrifice, is enacted. On the one hand, the placing of shrines of Heaven and other gods, of the emperor’s tablet, of the emperor’s tents, of the princes and officials, depicts a more defined, focused and vivid hierarchy between Heaven, the emperor and all other humans. On the other hand, the performance, when the emperor moves into the courts, onto the terraces, when he offers worship north and retires south to his lower positions, and when he leads his princes and officials behind him in prostrations, dramatizes the hierarchical spatial layout, activating once again the emperor’s position as an inter-mediating point between Heaven above and humans below. 2 The body as a discourse In embodying the hierarchy between north and south, between Heaven and the emperor, the work of the body of the emperor surfaces as the most dramatic element of the whole performance. The body has to be purified. Bathing and fasting are required for 3 days. Upon entering the gate of the square court, the emperor has to wash his hands. The body, furthermore, has to pay excessive labour to show a deep reverence. The emperor, one day before the sacrifice, has to walk to and through the two courts to pay worship to the gods in the repository. On the day of the sacrifice, he has to walk from the southern gate of the square court to the altar, up the stairs to the second terrace, and move up and down many times during the ceremony. More importantly, the body has to pay salutations and prostrations profusely to the gods. And nothing is more dramatic than the act of kneeling and kowtowing. At critical moments during the sacrifice, the most sacred body on earth has to lower itself down onto the ground and has to do so many times, to test, confirm and demonstrate a profound reverence to the supreme god on high. The emperor has to kneel fifteen times and kowtow forty-five times in the early morning of the Winter Solstice. In total, in the whole process of worship to Heaven, he has to kneel forty-six times and kowtow 138 times (excluding kneeling performed on its own without kowtowing). The labour required is excessive indeed. It reveals a profound relationship between the discipline applied to and 218

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Figure 8.8 An aerial view of the Altar of Heaven from the south. Source: Nelson I. Wu, Chinese and Indian Architecture, 1963, Plate 145, by permission of George Braziller, Inc.

the ordeal undergone by the body and a religious reverence thus generated and confirmed towards a superior being. Based on this, an intrinsic link is revealed between the act of the body and the religious discourse that is manifested, a link between performing and signifying, between embodiment and ideology. In this context, the kneeling and the kowtowing, performed together, constitute a central unit of a discourse practice. 219

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3 The production of words Throughout the ceremony, one critical line of development is the trajectory of the prayer: an external and material life of a religious text. The text was drafted, and copied onto a piece of paper applied on a tablet, by officials at the Grand Secretariat in the Palace City. It was then brought to the table at the centre of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, to which the emperor paid his prostrations. After that, it was placed in a kiosk and brought to the storage north-east of the Circular Altar. In the early hours of the Winter Solstice, it was reverently carried onto the table on the top of the altar. In the very middle of the process, at the moment when music stopped, with the emperor kneeling in front, the prayer was read aloud on the altar. It was then placed in the basket in front of the shrine for Heaven. At the end of the long ceremony, it was carried to the altar of burnt offerings, and was consumed in the flames that rose high to the sky. A rich and material life of the text, of words and meanings, runs through the entire ritual drama as a central theme. On the one hand, more importantly, the arranged trajectory or life of the materiality of the prayer served to represent reverent and submissive communication to the sky and Heaven. This, in turn, is a central part of the whole external and material making of the religious practice, a process through which spaces, objects, human agents and their interrelations become intrinsically symbolic. The message they symbolize, stated clearly in the prayer and spatially framed in the north–south hierarchy, is clear and consistent. With all humans standing behind him, the emperor humbly and most closely follows the way of Heaven: he is the Son of Heaven. Synthesis: the production of the emperor The terrestrial and celestial rites examined above should be related together. They were two parts of one religious institution of the imperial court. Framed, composed, enacted and re-enacted, they were combined to make one complete imperial ideology. In this synthesis, symmetrical reversal in external spatial disposition acted as a key mechanism for combining the two levels of discourse practice together. There is already a contrast in the overall spatial location of celestial and terrestrial rites, as they were respectively placed on the outer periphery and at the centre of Beijing. However, between the key locations of the two levels of rituals, that is, between the Altar of Heaven outside and the Palace City inside, a clearer symmetrical reversal was systematically arranged. Spaces, objects, human agents and their interrelations at these two extreme locations were systematically reversed, offering a mechanism for a synthesis in the making of one coherent ideology. This was dramatically enacted on the most sacred date of the Chinese calendar: the Winter Solstice. On that day, the celestial sacrifice and the terrestrial ceremony were held one after another. The emperor, after paying worship to Heaven on the southern peripheral site, went back to the centre of the Palace City to give his Grand Audience to his princes and officials. In the first event, within a peripheral site distant from the centre, along its own axis, the emperor approached from the south, kneeled and kowtowed to 220

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Heaven in the north. He prayed for Heaven’s favour and decree for him to rule. He confirmed that, with all humans behind him, he followed Heaven reverently and most closely, as the Son of Heaven. In the second event, within the enclosure at the centre of Beijing, along its own axis, the emperor was himself sitting on the high throne in the north, receiving prostrations from princes and officials from the south. He granted audience to his subjects and all humans behind them. He received ‘the will of the people’ to rule all nations under Heaven. He was the supreme ruler in the terrestrial world. By reversing the spatial and semantic position of the emperor at these two levels of rites, as most dramatically enacted on the Winter Solstice, the two halves of the discourse practice were conjoined together. He who is the leader of all humans in the terrestrial world, and a closest follower of Heaven above, the Son of Heaven, must now resume a central mediating position between Heaven above and humans below. He is then the ideal emperor. He is there to ensure a cosmological harmony between Heaven, Earth and Humans. This whole religious institution of the imperial court constructed a subject of an ideal emperor. At a theoretical level, it conceives of an emperor whose consciousness or subjectivity is primarily based on two communications conjoined upon itself. It is this subject who ‘speaks up’ to Heaven and then ‘speaks down’ to all humans, who then duly receives Heaven’s decree to rule and people’s will to support him to ascend the throne. In this way, the subject of an ideal emperor was constructed ideologically and theoretically. At a spatial level, this construct of an imperial subjectivity was also projected onto the city plan, adding a new layer of spatial formality and ideological meaning. The spatial mapping of the religious institution upon the whole city plan of Beijing not only reinforced a sacred concentric layout, but also activated a symbolic signification of the imperial capital for the Son of Heaven. Besides the classical planning model projected onto the city plan as an ideological representation as studied earlier, we are witnessing here a new layer, a religious and ceremonial practice, applied onto the same formal, symbolic surface. We are arriving at a point symmetrical to one of the conclusions in the central part of this book. If the pyramid of the court constituted a political tectonic of the throne, a functionalist subject of seeing and control (that is, the ‘powerful ruler’), then the concentric layout of the formal plan, with its reversal of the terrestrial centre and the celestial periphery, constitutes an ideological subject of the emperor (that is, the ‘safe ruler’). This subject, certainly, is that of an idealized emperor who follows the ways of Heaven, to ensure the good conduct of all humans, to ensure a harmony between man and nature. It is a central value of imperial ideology well articulated in Han Confucianism and further enriched in Neo-Confucianism in the Song and after. As such, it also becomes part of a collective consciousness, a generic subject of the Chinese. This, however, is a larger issue awaiting a perspective beyond the social, the political and the ideological.

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Beijing as a scroll Can Beijing be understood from an aesthetic and a pure, formal point of view? Is there a formal composition of Beijing as a whole, besides the concentric plan and its symbolic and ideological representation, and besides the social space of power relations? How to reconcile a search for pure, formal compositions, and a study of the same city as a social, political and ideological construct? How can a city be both aesthetic and socio-political? There are at least three areas in which this difficult relationship between form and socio-political reality intersected and, in each case, an argument for a formal composition can be raised: the overall symbolic meaning of the plan, the relationship between formal scale and political power, and the use of walls and the related phenomenon of invisibility. 1 Overall symbolic meaning of the plan Beijing has a formal plan with a strong symbolism. There were, according to the research in the earlier chapters, three lines of development that contributed to this formal pattern and its symbolic meaning: Han Confucianism with a heritage from antiquity, Neo-Confucianism followed by the emperors of the Ming and Qing, and the whole religious institution practised by the Ming and Qing courts in Beijing. Han Confucianism, with its synthesis of classical traditions, offered a philosophy that defined a central position of the throne in a heavenly universe: a political ideology embedded in a cosmological ethics. Following that, it offered a planning model for the imperial capital. Neo-Confucianism strengthened both the position of the throne and the rational form of the planning pattern for the capital and its central palace. The religious institution, on the other hand, reinforced the theory and the formal pattern in a circulating manner. It relied upon, but also strengthened and enacted, the ideology and the formal pattern. Together, they contributed to the making of one pattern with one symbolic meaning in Beijing. The pattern, grand and strictly organized, signifies the paramount importance of imperial authority and a heavenly universe that supports that authority. The pattern symbolizes both a sacred centrality of the emperor and a grand cosmos that sanctions this centrality. The question we are asking now, however, demands a detour from here. Besides and in relation to this symbolic signific222

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ance of the pattern on the plan, is there another rationale or logic in the formal pattern itself, one that is more internal, with its own compositional principles? 2 Relationship between formal scale and political power Beijing is appreciated for its large-scale composition. The whole city was planned and constructed as one design in the 1410s. Subsequent developments added local and minor elements that enriched and strengthened the overall pattern. The concentric enclosures, the emphasis on the centre, the alignment to the four cardinal points and the 7.5 kilometre-long north–south axis that runs through much of Beijing defined the overall composition as specified in the early fifteenth century. The control was maintained at the largest possible scale, covering the entire city against a geographical background. The control was also maintained continuously at different scales, from the whole city to the Imperial and Palace Cities, and to the individual buildings at the centre and along the axis. Scholars and architects have all marvelled at the ‘majestic’ design of so many structures and spaces at such a large scale. Many see a connection here between the scale of control in formal composition and the presence of a political power behind it. However, since these writings focus on formal and aesthetic characteristics of the design, this relationship is just hinted at in passing statements, and only in the realm of representation (that is, in the sense of a form symbolically representing, not politically constituting the authority). According to the present research, as the early chapters revealed, the building of Beijing was part of the political project of emperor Zhu Di and of the overall political development of the Ming court in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Developing over centuries, the level of autocracy of Chinese emperorship reached the highest point in 1380, when the first Ming emperor Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the prime-ministership. Emperor Zhu Di continued the process of strengthening the authority in other aspects, including the building of the new capital Beijing and the outward assertion of a Ming-centred world order in Asia. Beijing is a product of the most authoritarian imperial court in Chinese history. The authority developed since 1380 directly supervised the design and construction of Beijing, which emerged in 1420 as one of the largest urbanarchitectural compositions in human history. One should not ignore this critical political condition when exploring the formal composition of Beijing. However, in relation to this, one may also ask questions in a new direction. Is there another level of rationale or logic in the formal composition that, supporting the political demand, also involves its own formal and aesthetic principles? More specifically, what is the role of scale, of largeness, that relates to the authoritarian power on the one hand and a total formal composition on the other? 3 Use of walls and the phenomenon of invisibility There is a phenomenon in Beijing often ignored by many: the pervasive use of walls and the resulting phenomenon of invisibility and inaccessibility for much of Beijing. Walking around Beijing, everywhere one sees walls of different kinds and size that conceal spaces of different scale behind. At a larger scale at the centre, the entire Imperial and Palace City is forbidden and invisible to the outside. The centre is like a large void. For a similar situation in Tokyo, Roland Barthes has made a famous 223

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comment in his Empire of Signs. He says that, in contrast to the Western tradition where the city centre is a site of ‘truth’ and ‘reality’, Tokyo offers a paradox: ‘it does possess a centre, but this centre is empty, . . . a site both forbidden and indifferent . . . the sacred ‘nothing’, . . . an empty subject.’1 Jeffrey Meyer, in his Dragons of Tiananmen: Beijing as a Sacred City, developed this thesis further in the case of Beijing. He suggests that this phenomenon is closely related to the ‘Oriental’ tradition that sees the world as nothingness and non-being and to the related wisdom of non-thinking and non-action. On the one hand, the metaphysical worldview of this tradition sees reality as a function of nothingness. On the other, the socio-political advice it offers is to adopt non-action and nonpresence as much as possible, and to delay or to hide the use of action or presence. ‘As the most effective word is unspoken, so Beijing’s architecture of concealment enhances even more powerful the sacred presence within. . . . The Forbidden City hides in order to impress.’2 Both of them leave many problems unresolved. Barthes, in making an observation on a metaphysical quality of an urban composition, ignores or bypasses many socio-political issues. Meyer, in his development, indicates a socio-political dimension of this formal composition, but from a representational point of view, leaving the instrumental operations of this composition unexplored. They all start from the problem of the centre. Is the centre a ‘void’ or a ‘solid’? Although it can be viewed as a void or nothingness from outside, it is also a ‘solid’ centre from within. It houses the emperor and many imperial and government offices. It has all the substance or ‘reality’ of an imperial authority, all the symbolic as well as political forms and functions. But Barthes and Meyer’s view seems correct: the centre was indeed invisible and appeared as a void from outside, even though it was a solid reality inside. How to explicate this apparent contradiction of visibility and invisibility, of the centre being a void and a solid at the same time? In fact, the invisibility of the centre to the outside, the experience of the centre as a forbidden void, results from the use of walls, which is a more pervasive phenomenon on its own. The invisibility at the centre is part of a larger problem of the use of walls and other forms of boundary. As suggested in the earlier chapters, the use of boundaries in Beijing contributed to the making of a socio-political and institutional frame of the whole urban space. From the walls of compounds and blocks, to the fences at street intersections, to the patrolling routes around the districts, to the city walls and the walls of the palaces at the centre: they were all boundaries that divided the whole urban space. There were ‘horizontal’ divisions that cut the space into segments equal to each other in social status. They were ‘vertical’ divisions that differentiated segments in a socio-political hierarchy. Together they built a tight social space like an institution. The boundaries, and especially the walls, helped contribute to an institutionalization of the entire space of Beijing. The vertical division between the enclosed centre and the outside created the problem of invisibility and inaccessibility to the outside. Here, as demonstrated in the early chapters, an asymmetry of seeing is at work. It is not a simple phenomenon of invisibility from outside, nor a simple issue of literal seeing. It is an institutionalized asymmetry of visibility from inside and invisibility from outside, 224

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as facilitated by systems of inward flow of information and outward flow of control. The emperor can see you, but you cannot see the emperor. It is a Legalist–Daoist disposition that worked in a way similar to Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. That the palace looks like a void from outside and acts as a real political centre from within, that it is both a void and a solid, are merely two necessary processes of one political mechanism. At an experiential and representational level, Meyer is indeed correct in saying that, following a Daoist emphasis on concealment and negation, the inner palace looks more powerful when it is disclosed slowly and gradually, behind layers of forbidding walls. At a metaphysical level, the relationship between invisibility and absence of ‘truth’ and ‘subject’ appears reasonable as well, which will be explored later in this chapter. Here, let us come back to our main question again. The use of walls and the phenomenon of invisibility are certainly part of a strong socio-political programme. But, at the same time, is there also a formal and aesthetic logic operating here? Can we explicate the use of walls and the problem of invisibility in formal and compositional terms? With these questions in mind, let us now explore the problem directly. Scholars like Wang Qiheng, François Jullien and Andrew Boyd have in different ways shed light on this issue. Wang Qiheng, working on the teachings of fengshui in relation to the design of imperial architecture in the Ming and Qing, uses a theory of formal disposition in a school of fengshui to explain the underlying principles of composition of Beijing.3 This theory, developed over centuries since the Jin dynasty (265–420), represents a generic approach in reading a natural landscape and in composing forms of built structures. The theory centres on two key words: xing (form) and shi (propensity and force). Xing refers to specific forms visible locally, whereas shi refers to a dynamic propensity unfolding through and over these forms observable only at a distance. It teaches us that xing and shi, local forms and global outlines, are always related in a natural landscape and, in a created built structure, must be composed together as well. Their relations are expressed in the many teachings of this school. ‘A propensity is observable from one thousand chi away, a particular form is visible from one hundred chi away.’4 ‘Form and propensity are contained within each other.’ ‘Forms are made once a dynamic propensity is established.’ ‘Compose a set of forms against a distant backdrop of a propensity, or gather forms carefully to unfold a propensity.’ ‘When forms gather a propensity is disclosed, when currents and flows (qi) gather a majestic aura of heaven (tian) is revealed.’ Wang Qiheng sees the composition at the centre and along the axis of Beijing as a case in which these principles are manifested (Figure 9.1). While individual structures are limited, in all dimensions, to a length of some 30 to 35 metres, the distant views in front of the major gates (wumen and tiananmen) are disclosed at a distance of some 300 to 350 metres. The scale of individual structures and that of groups of different size are consciously differentiated and separated. At the same time, the transition or the change of scale from one level to the next, when one is moving closer or setting back, is made continuous. That is, the composition is complete at any level, in any distance. In a mutual support between xing and shi, a broad composition frames individual 225

PALACE OF EARTHLY TRANQUILITY

PALACE OF HEAVENLY PURITY

GATE OF HALL OF HALL OF HALL OF MIDDLE SUPREME HEAVENLY PRESERVED HARMONY HARMONY HARMONY PURITY

GATE OF SUPREME HARMONY

MERIDIAN GATE

GATE OF HEAVENLY PEACE (TIANANMEN)

Source: Adapted from Liu Dunzhen, Zhongguo Gudai Jianzhushi, Beijing: Zhongguo Jianzhu Gongye Chubanshe, 1980, Fig. 157, p. 293.

Figure 9.1 A cross-section along the central axis from Tiananmen in the south to Shengwumen in the north (from right to left).

MARTIAL SPIRIT GATE

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forms and, at the same time, local forms are gathered to reveal a large scheme. The organization rests on a basic dialectic of local forms and global outlines, of specific objects and dynamic forces or currents unfolding through and above them. The result, as one may observe at a distance, is a grand and total composition, vibrant and large in an intrinsic sense, with a dynamic and a cosmological aura. In The Propensity of Things, François Jullien suggests that shi is in fact a generic category the Chinese employ in cognition and in practice. The Chinese sees shi, a natural dynamic propensity in a form or a disposition, existing everywhere in nature and in the human world. The Chinese advocates an active employment of shi in many areas of their practice: devising a military and political strategy, composing a painting, a poem or a novel, and theorizing dynastic history and moral, political reality. Among the practices Jullien discusses, fengshui and the art of scroll painting are related, based on their common use of xing and shi.5 Seeing form and propensity operating in the landscape, the Chinese employs them and enacts their interrelations in a long horizontal scroll (Figure 9.2). The idea of form containing larger currents and flows, of shifting and rolling forces and propensity, are expressed not only in the profile of mountains and waters, but also in a composition of spaces and viewpoints extending across the surface of the painting. In fact, Wang and Jullien’s observations fit into each other well. Related together, they suggest that the imperial architecture in Beijing and the logic of composing a landscape scroll share a common tradition with fengshui and other practices using the principles of form and propensity. Can this architecture and painting be compared? Andrew Boyd has made an early attempt on this. Writing in the early 1960s, Boyd makes a brief but insightful observation. He says that the composition of Beijing, although well planned along one strong axis, does not organize around one centre or climax, but many centres, many viewpoints, one relating to the other continuously, as one sees in a scroll painting. Boyd says: The axial line does not cut through the plan, opening it up on either side, and the composition does not culminate in one element of central importance. . . . The whole length of the axis is never revealed at once; it does not present a vista but a succession of varied spaces in a related sequence, each one blocked but visibly leading on to a further stage. . . . Just as in the Chinese landscape painting there is typically no centre or focal point round which the whole composition is arranged, but either a long progression in one direction or a diffusion and balance of elements throughout the composition, so in the axial way in Peking and in many other ensembles there is no climax, or rather no one climax, but rather a series of architectural events leading up to one objective after another and then on beyond.6 With the support of Wang and Jullien’s work developed in the 1990s, Boyd’s observation may be developed. The notions of form and propensity can be 227

Source: From and by permission of the Palace Museum, Beijing, People’s Republic of China.

Figure 9.2 The last of twelve scroll paintings titled Kangxi Nanxuntu (Emperor Kangxi’s tour to the South), by Wang Hui (1632–1717) and others. It depicts the emperor’s return to the palace in Beijing on the imperial way along the axis, from south to north (left to right).

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brought into the analysis. The theory and practice of scroll painting can be studied further in relation to the architecture of Beijing. Furthermore, in relating the composition of painting to that of architecture, one is assuming a common spatial model the two are following which is purely formal. One is also assuming that, if there is indeed a relationship, represented by this model, the relationship is topological rather than geometrical. That is, the similarity rests upon an abstract, spatial and experiential pattern that can assume different geometrical shapes in different contexts. In the Northern Song dynasty (960–1126), when large-scale landscape painting came into full blossom, significant theories and works emerged, setting up a basic pattern that was followed and developed in subsequent times. Guo Xi’s theory and Wang Ximeng’s painting represent this pattern in many aspects. Guo Xi (active 1068–1077), in his classical essay Linquan Gaozhi (‘Lofty ideas of forests and springs’), suggests that the artist should have a ‘mind-heart of forests and springs’.7 With this he can experience and reflect with the landscape in a mutual dialogue and interaction. In this process, the artist should see the changing form of the mountains as he moves and alternates his viewpoint from place to place. He should be aware of the effect of distance over which form and vitality are perceived. There are different kinds of distance: ‘vertical distance’, ‘deep distance’ and ‘horizontal distance’. The high profiles of the mountains, the deep spaces between and behind them, and the outlines extending along the horizon, can be grasped in these three distant views respectively. Scenes at many levels, from the very minute details to large forms, to vaster outlines over a long distance, should be carefully noted and understood. Above all, it is the overall profiles and their vital lines and currents that are most important. In them one sees a cosmic breath (qi) and a dynamic propensity (shi), unfolding over a vast landscape, animating the form and revealing its inner life. Wang Ximeng’s Qianli Jiangshantu (A thousand li of rivers and mountains, c.1096–1120), one of the best known works of the time, illustrates these ideas well (Figure 9.3).8 This horizontal scroll, about a half metre high and 11 metres long, contains mountain formations and groupings of a rich variety, rising and falling between a cloudless sky and rippling waters, with vast open horizons extending in many directions. Hundreds of small details, of buildings, boats and human figures, dot the landscape. When we unroll this scroll gradually, we submerge ourselves into the landscape, moving in many directions, seeing and feeling as the artist does, over time and space in an open universe. The landscape in the painting, as it changes its form dramatically, reflects a shift of our eyes and positions. Capturing an inner life of nature, the mountains reveal not only a composition of form, but also, seen from afar, a cosmic breath (qi) and propensity (shi) animating the formal composition. The painting actualizes an experience of a mind-heart communicating with a large and meaningful universe. There is a philosophical issue here concerning a relationship between the subject and the world. An epistemological and existential approach is found here, one that proposes a dissolution of the viewing subject into the 230

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world. We will come to this in the next section. At the moment, a more formal and technical pattern is already evident regarding the composition of space on the surface of the painting.9 There are four interrelated elements in this approach. 1 Folding and unfolding The scroll painting is viewed gradually when one folds and unfolds the two sides of the painting horizontally. This very physical act indicates a way of seeing and of composing space: there is always another point of view absent at any one moment. The presence of an absent view compels one to move on and to see other spaces, which negates any centric viewpoint, any centrality and any idea of a final truth. 2 Movement and temporality Without any centrality, the surface is composed of many centres or viewpoints, to be connected in the temporal flow of a seeing experience. 3 Dispersion and fragmentation There is a fragmentation of the whole space into diverse and localized areas and points. With this fragmentation, there is an incredible concern and care for details, minute and deep in each of them, and profuse and varied in their overall disposition. The space is infinitesimal. 4 Largeness and infinity Although the whole space is fragmented, it is also excessively large. The more the space is fragmented into diverse points, the larger the entire visual world becomes. The more the local forms are substantiated with details and composed with varied outlines, the grander and more vibrant the overall profile emerges. The very horizontality of the painting, furthermore, corresponds to the universal line of horizon, between heaven and the earth, which adds a heavenly or cosmological dimension to the vitality and largeness of the composition. In a specific way, the composition of imperial architecture in Beijing follows a comparable pattern (Figures 9.1, 9.2 and 9.3). This particular composition fulfils the symbolic, ideological and socio-political functions unique to Beijing of the Ming and Qing. Yet, at the same time, it also has its own formal logic based on a generic culture of seeing, and of enacting form and propensity. 1 Beijing folds and unfolds There are always parts of Beijing forbidden and invisible to parts of the population at any one time. Beijing is always partially visible and partially invisible. There is always another point of view outside the frame at any one moment. Horizontal and vertical divisions, and vertical divisions between the centre and the outside, offered a basic pattern to fragment space. They were certainly part of a socio-political and a Panoptic mechanism in the institutionalization of urban social space. At the same time, they were also part of a formal approach to composition. Boundaries, and especially walls, with thresholds attached to them, played the role of folding and unfolding urban 231

Source: From and by permission of the Palace Museum, Beijing, People’s Republic of China.

Figure 9.3 A section of a scroll painting titled Qianli Jiangshantu (A thousand li of rivers and mountains), by Wang Ximeng (active 1096–1120).

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spaces, and constructed a city of solids and voids, of presence and absence, of visibility and invisibility. 2 Beijing negates a simple notion of centrality through sequences of spatial trajectory unfolding temporally Andrew Boyd has already said that there is no one centre, but many centres or visual focuses, one leading to the next and onto another. ‘In Peking, the Hall of Supreme Harmony is only an incident, if a major incident, in a long series that continues far beyond it.’10 The involvement of a moving eye passing through spaces negates a design of one final or absolute centre. In the central areas in Beijing, there is a dynamic decentralization as well as a geometric centrality building up upon the throne, upon the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The Palace City is both centralized and decentralized. They develop a sophisticated constitution of a centrality that negates a simple and a final disclosure of all ‘truth’ around the Hall. At an experiential and topological level, the centralized geometry of the Palace City can be dissolved into a free and organic flow of views and spaces as in a horizontal scroll. 3 Beijing is fragmented into many microcosms Boundaries and divisions helped institutionalize the entire urban society. At the centre, the use of walls and the degree of institutionalization are intensified. Everywhere, but more so at the centre, one sees an excessive fragmentation of space into microcosms, into courtyard compounds and internal subdivisions, deep and minute in themselves, and profuse and varied in the overall quantity and arrangement. Although it is a spatial pattern of a socio-political institutionalization, it also reflects a tradition of formal and aesthetic composition that closely involves deep and detailed spaces. Space in Beijing is excessively localised and subdivided, it is infinitesimal. 4 Beijing attains a largeness of a cosmic dimension All the microcosms are organized with axes, which in turn are governed by one central north–south axis. The small spaces, highly segmented, were nevertheless controlled rigorously for a total composition of forms (xing) visible at a certain distance and, beyond that, of a dynamic propensity (shi) breathing and flowing over an urban and geographical surface. This ambitious and imaginary vision, supported by the most authoritarian political power developed from 1380, attains a horizontal largeness of a cosmic aura between heaven and the earth. It certainly symbolizes the sacred imperial authority and a heavenly spirit that supports it. Yet, at the same time, it is also an aesthetic composition of ‘lofty ideas’ of xing and shi, of ‘a thousand li of rivers and mountains’.

Vis-à-vis ‘Cartesian perspectivalism’: two ways of seeing When Andrew Boyd was analysing Beijing in relation to Chinese landscape painting, he was in fact doing so in a comparison of Chinese and European approach to town-planning. According to Boyd, Beijing, a striking example of Chinese town-planning, reveals four contrasts with the practice in Europe: 234

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1 2

3

4

The scope and scale of Chinese planning is larger than European absolutism had the opportunity to achieve. The Chinese system grew slowly following a few principles set up at the beginning, maintaining a high degree of harmony and unity of the entire city. The Chinese conception of monumentality applies not to individual buildings, but to the city as a whole and enclosures within it as wholes. It ‘reflects a social as well as an aesthetic difference of emphasis from Renaissance Europe, a less obvious, perhaps less pretentious, way of expressing the power and prestige of the government and of the monarch.’ ‘The axial line in a Chinese composition and the build-up of an axial composition as a whole are rather different things from their counterparts in Europe. The axial line does not cut through the plan . . . and the composition does not culminate in one element of central importance . . . it does not present a vista but a succession of varied space in a related sequence. . . .’ Boyd continues, ‘the plan of Versailles compared with that of Peking (or the Palace City alone) is revealing. One can perhaps see here a typically Chinese quality of design, which architecture shares with other arts. Just as in the Chinese landscape painting there is typically no centre or focal point . . . so in the axial way in Peking and in many other ensembles there is no climax, or rather no one climax, but rather a series of architectural events.’11

Following Boyd, Joseph Needham developed this observation further in his Science and Civilization in China: The contrast with the Renaissance palace is striking, for there the open vista, as at Versailles, is concentrated upon a single central building, the palace as something detached from the town. The Chinese conception was much grander and more complex, for in one conception there were hundreds of buildings, and the palace itself was only part of the larger organism of the whole city with its walls and avenues. Although so strongly axial, there was no single dominating centre or climax, but rather a series of architectural experiences. . . . The Chinese conception also shows more subtlety and variety; it invites a diffusion of interests. The whole length of an axis is not revealed at once, but rather a succession of vistas none of which is overpowering in scale. . . . [It] combined a meditative humility attuned to Nature with a poetic grandeur to form organic patterns unsurpassed by any other culture.12 Other scholars such as Li Yunhe and Edmund N. Bacon have made further observations on this comparison. Both Li and Bacon noticed that whereas there is a concentration of mass at a central point in a Renaissance design, in China there is a dispersion or fragmentation of mass into a large field of spaces.13 This observation, in fact, correlates with Boyd and Needham’s observations. The dispersion of mass into bits and pieces over a large space is another aspect 235

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of the same composition in which views are dispersed along axial sequences. They contrast with the Renaissance composition that organizes itself around a centre in massing and in visual arrangement. But, one may pause at this moment and ask, what is a ‘Renaissance’ composition? The notion of a ‘Renaissance’ composition may sound too general: more differentiated and specific categories regarding region and period should be used. But, in this context, in the cross-cultural comparison of Europe and China as explored by these scholars, it may be valid to investigate the relevance of this generic concept. Perhaps, seen over a long distance, from where China stands, there is indeed a generic approach, a hegemonic model or paradigm, which can be found in many local and specific approaches in Europe from 1400. Similarly, from where Europe stands, a generic ‘Chinese’ paradigm may also become clearer. When we turn to scholarship on European architecture, we do find critical researches that have explored a generic and hegemonic paradigm in Renaissance and post-Renaissance Europe. They tend to relate the issue of formal design and composition to the problem of visual and representational techniques and their underlying epistemological outlook developed after 1400. The invention of linear perspective in Italy in the early fifteenth century is regarded as a critical event that helped shape a modern outlook and a new way of seeing and making space in arts and in architecture. Erwin Panofsky’s Perspective as Symbolic Form, a seminal work first published in 1927, established a basic thesis on this. He suggested that linear perspective is a particular and a rationalist way of seeing the world, one which was to become a critical aspect of the epistemological basis of modern European science and philosophy in the following centuries.14 In the 1980s and 1990s, Alberto Pérez-Gomez, Louise Pelletier, Robin Evans, Lise Bek and Peter Eisenman have all worked on the impact of this perspectival epistemology on architecture, on its representational methods and, to an extent, on the constructed composition itself.15 Developed experimentally by Filippo Brunelleschi in the 1410s and theorized by Leon Battista Alberti in 1435 and 1436, the method of linear perspective offers a way of representing space on the surface of a painting.16 The method assumes that the painting is like a window, that there is one fixed eye or viewpoint, that there is a visual pyramid shooting (horizontally) from the eye to the world, and that the painting as a window is a (vertical) cross-section cutting through the pyramid of visual rays (Figure 9.4). The geometrical techniques used to construct such a representation involve a systematic mapping of the world in a grid of three dimensions expanding to infinity. As a way of seeing, it casts upon the world a map of space that is rational, homogenous and infinite. Furthermore, it constitutes, at the moment of seeing, a fixed and centric eye and an intense scientific gaze. The immediate consequence of this is the use of linear perspective in oil painting in Europe from 1400 over the next 500 years. A second and allied consequence, claimed by many, is the use of a visual composition and underlying spatial technique derived from linear perspective in architecture, urban and 236

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Figure 9.4 An illustration of the aids used to draw a perspective, by Albrecht Dürer, 1527. Source: From Albrecht Dürer, Underweysung der Messung, 2nd edn, 1538.

landscape design after 1400. Both technically and conceptually, linear perspective found its way into a new composition, and a new spatial paradigm, of the built form in Renaissance and post-Renaissance Europe. Eminent examples on all scales can be found. The long and straight avenue, the telescopic vista, the axis that hits the high façade, the open square in front of the façade, the façade and the mass of the building at the end of the vista, are some of the key elements of the new composition since 1400 in many European cities. Baron Haussmann’s transformation of Paris in the 1850s certainly represents the most thorough and the largest realization of this approach. Large architectural complex and landscape design, as represented at Versailles since the 1660s, are also cited as classical examples. A long axis hits and passes through buildings at the centre, controlling and ordering a rational, geometrical and open space. On a smaller scale, many villas, such as Villa Madama (Rome, 1521) and Villa Rotonda (Vicenza, 1566), are also often noted as eminent examples. Again, the axis hits and penetrates the building at the centre, organizing a geometrical universe inside and an open and infinite space outside. Pérez-Gomez, Pelletier, Bek and Evans have paid close attention to the organization centered on the axis.17 Many features, such as symmetry, frontality, open square, telescopic vista, geometrical space inside and outside, are in fact dependent on or at least closely related to the axis. It is a central, organizing element. Peter Eisenman, however, added a new element not emphasized by many: ‘objecthood’ or the making of the building as an object.18 There is always a tendency to cultivate the mass at the centre of the composition. There is always a tendency to open it up, first on its front (as a façade), then its two sides and, finally, its entire circumference. A pure object, isolated, heroic and monumental, is being projected and made ever clearer. In many earlier examples, such as Villa Rotonda, this was already evident. Approaching the end of the eighteenth century, history witnessed an extreme manifestation of this impetus, in neo-classical architecture, especially in the visionary design of Etienne-Louis Boullée, the Cenotaph for Isaac Newton (1784) (Figure 9.5). One can argue that both the axis and the object are the recurring and 237

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Figure 9.5 Design of a cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton, by Etienne-Louis Boullée, 1784. Source: From and by permission of Bibliothéque nationale de France.

essential elements of the new composition.19 A close observation of the painting View of an Ideal City (School of Piero della Francesca, 1470s) reveals this clearly (Figure 9.6). The axis and the object, in fact, are closely related to the act of seeing in linear perspective. The axis is a line of the central visual ray shooting from the eye to the object, which is also a line relaying between the two points. The object, on the other hand, is a body being gazed upon, defined and isolated as it is in the rational, mathematical space of the perspective. In this understanding, two new elements can be found: light and openness.20 Optical illumination and open space, dependent upon each other, are both a natural condition and an underlying intellectual impetus for the act of seeing in the composition. They permit and encourage the eye to see and the object to disclose itself to the eye. One would suggest that the axis, the object, light and openness are the critical, interrelated elements in the making of this new generic composition, this new visual spatial paradigm. Together they developed an axis that is intrinsically visual, optical and open, and an object that is fundamentally centric and isolated, standing in an open space, bathed in a strong, directed light. A philosophical thesis is found in this composition. The perspectival epistemology, according to many, is essentially a Cartesian epistemology. Linear perspective, according to them, leads ultimately to the rise of the modern rational worldview in the theories of René Descartes, Isaac Newton and Immanuel Kant. Panofsky says: ‘The Renaissance succeeded, mathematically, in fully rationalizing an image of space. . . . This view of space, even with its still-mystical 238

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Figure 9.6 A painting titled View of an Ideal City, by an artist in the School of Piero della Francesca, c.1470. Source: From and by permission of Art Resource Inc. and Scala Group S.p.A. © Photo SCALA, Florence, Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali, 1990.

colouring, is the same view that will later be rationalized by Cartesianism and formalized by Kantianism.’21 Jacques Lacan also claims: ‘It is around research on perspective that is centred on a privileged interest for the domain of vision, whose relation with the institution of the Cartesian subject, which is itself a sort of geometrical point, a point of perspective, we cannot fail to see.’22 Martin Jay links the two more closely. He uses one phrase to denote the whole paradigm, ‘Cartesian perspectivalism’, which is ‘the dominant, even totally hegemonic, visual model of the modern era, that which we can identify with Renaissance notions of perspective in the visual arts and Cartesian ideas of subjective rationality in philosophy.’23 Cartesianism established the position of the human mind as a centric and independent subject, which sees, knows and controls the world of material bodies at a distance.24 It involves a critical move in the rise of the modern worldview, namely, the split, the distancing, of mind and body, subject and object, that is, the human subject and the world of material bodies. Assuming that I think, therefore I am, is the final truth that cannot be challenged, Descartes postulates that all rational enquiry has to start from or rest upon my mind (‘I think’ or Cogito) and nothing else, nothing in the world of bodies or objects. With this argument, a centric subject, free from the world of objects, is established. The Cartesian dualism of mind and body, or subject and object, finalized as it was in 1637 (with the publication of Discourse on Method), made possible the rise of modern European science, as exemplified by the physics of Isaac Newton. The perspectival composition developed in post-Renaissance Europe, and Cartesian theory of the subject, can be viewed as operating at two levels, analogous and affirmative to each other.25 One is literal and optical, the other is conceptual and discursive. They both belonged to a common hegemonic culture emerging in the fifteenth and coming into ascendancy in the seventeenth centuries. In both cases, there is this separation, this distancing, between the eye and the world, the subject and the object. In both cases, with the distance opening up, the eye of the subject sees, knows and controls the world 239

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of objects, in the light of reason and in the openness of a universal, mathematical space. There is also a reversal at work here. In an epistemological enquiry (such as scientific research) and in a created composition (as in arts and architecture), the object reflects the presence of the subject.26 In a created architectural composition, the reversal can be more dramatic. In an extreme case, as in Boullée’s Cenotaph to Newton, one sees not only a distanced object but also a thinking, designing subject. The more the object is objectified in an absolute and finalist manner, the more it represents an idealism of the subject. In Cenotaph, we certainly see an object but, at another level, we see even more clearly the vision and the dream of the architect, the subjectivity of the subject. The object reflects not only the two opposing entities of Cartesianism, but also Kantian notions of the beautiful and, in some cases, the sublime.27 Immanuel Kant’s theory of aesthetic judgement (1790) operates largely within the Cartesian dualistic framework established more than a century before.28 On the one hand, Kant’s notion of disinterestedness in a transcendental aesthetic judgement can be seen as a development of the act of distancing between the subject and the object, emphasizing the need to fully isolate and distance the object. On the other hand, Kant’s notion of the beautiful assumes a ‘finality of form’, which also encourages an extreme purification of the formal profile of the work. Furthermore, Kant’s notion of the sublime, extending beyond the limit of the beautiful, involves ‘the vital and powerful . . . in the realm of imagination’, which also finds its reflection in some of the most radical forms in neoclassical architecture of the late eighteenth century, again perhaps best represented by Boullée’s visionary design. The classical object at the centre, purified and isolated, represents the form of the beautiful and, through its astounding and powerful excess, captures an imagination of the sublime. Approaching the age of revolution, there is even a stronger impetus for a radical disclosure, of a total and final truth. In the manner of Ludwig van Beethoven and of Carl von Clausewitz, the Cenotaph represents a total war, a final clash, tragic as well as heroic, which brings the object to the limit of the beautiful and, beyond that, the realm of the sublime. The ensembles at Versailles, gradually developed since the 1660s, may be looked upon as one of the eminent cases that manifested this generic composition in a specific way (Figure 9.7). Clearly, it has a long axis cutting through the plan. It hits one central mass, passes through it, and moves on to infinity. Apart from the central mass it goes through, the axis exists in the open, guiding the visual rays in many directions, that is, the axis is optical. The buildings are grouped closely into one mass, centralized and symmetrical. They gather to become one form standing in isolation, fully disclosed to illumination and visibility, in a space mapped geometrically and extending to infinity. There is a distance opening up between the eye and the mass. There is a finality and purification of the object at the centre, which reveals underlying notions of the formal and the beautiful, and perhaps, with the glory of royal authority on display, elements of the sublime. The whole composition reveals an obsession of 240

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Figure 9.7 An aerial view of Versailles, built and extended since 1660. Source: Spiro Kostof, A History of Architecture, 1995, Fig. 21.27, p. 534, by permission of Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques et des Sites.

a seeing subject, a centric human subject, asserting an absolute control upon the object in an open, illuminated and rationalized universe. There are practical and important reasons to take Versailles into account in relation to Beijing. It was the palace of the French Kings from 1661 to 1789, a period that witnessed the rise and the climax of absolute monarchy. In the overall rise of the power of kingship in post-Renaissance Europe, the French kings, and Louis XIV especially (r. 1661–1715), achieved the highest level of centralization and imperial control.29 The largest architectural construction, the palace and gardens at Versailles, was proposed, built and used by the most autocratic monarchy in Europe.30 Beijing, emerging in 1420, was also the product of a monarchy that represented the highest plateau of the whole evolution of autocracy in Chinese history, as marked by the abolition of the prime-ministership in 1380. In a comparable period of history, under the most authoritarian power in Western Europe and East Asia, the two largest constructions came into being. The two are ‘symmetrical’ at this moment and in this perspective (even though they cannot be compared in a larger historical perspective as discussed in Chapter 7). They are symmetrical not only in terms of political use and support, but also in terms of the scale of construction and the level of realization of a compositional tradition developed in their own culture. Against these considerations, we may ask the following questions. If Beijing represents an approach different from that of the Renaissance composition as reflected in 241

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Versailles and other examples discussed above, what are the important differences? If Versailles is perspectivalist and Cartesian, what about Beijing? Beijing is different in many respects. Beijing has neither the axis nor the object one identifies in the Renaissance composition. As Boyd and Needham have pointed out, ‘the axial line does not cut through the plan, opening it up on either side’. The axis, long and powerful, is organizational rather than optical. It co-ordinates enclosed spaces rather than opening them up to infinity. It cuts visual rays into segments. It composes them in series of visual events along axial lines, passing through layers of walls gradually and successively. There is no immediate and dramatic opening up of a large space. There is no telescopic vista, to let the visual rays pass through a large space, to hit a high façade, and to disclose dramatically a final centre, a final ‘truth’. There is a lack of interest in staging a front, a high and large façade. Without that, there is no tendency to project the mass of the building forward and upward. In the end, there is an absence of the object or objecthood. Underlying all this is a fundamental absence of notions of universal light and openness as they were emerging in post-Renaissance Europe. Without all these, at a physical level, but also metaphysically, there is no distancing between the eye and the world. There is no distinction, no confrontation, between the subject and the object. Without the Cartesian confrontation, there is also a lack of dramatic isolation and purification of the form of the object. There is no finality of form as a basis of the beautiful and the sublime in Boullée and in Kant. An absolute war, a heroic and tragic clash, to disclose a final and a transcendental truth, is altogether absent. What is present here, instead, is a composition more humble and horizontal and, in its own way, all the more accommodating, universal and cosmological. On the one hand, the subject immerses itself into the landscape, seeing and moving over time and space. On the other hand, the whole construction, the mass or the object, is eroded and dispersed horizontally over a large surface of the land. In this immersive–dispersive composition, we find a way of seeing, of positioning the subject, and of forming space and architecture, which is consistently different from the Albertian–Cartesian approach. The seeing subject enters and experiences the world. It communicates with the world in an on-going and evolving interaction, as the artist does in Guo Xi’s theory and Wang Ximeng’s practice. Seeing is an experience of a journey. It discloses no centric or final truth, but a scroll of endless viewpoints. With the ‘mind-heart of forests and springs’ living in and communicating with the landscape, the Cartesian subject, with its dualistic distinction and confrontation with the world, is dissolved. An inter-subjective approach is proposed.31 It postulates a negation of the centric subject through immersion and dispersion. The subject immerses itself in a space of dispersion, with an extending net of relations with ‘others’, that is, with nature and with other human subjects. We find this in the teachings of metaphysical negation where any centric being is eroded in the universal process of change and transformation (as in Buddhism and Daoism). We find this in the teachings on harmony between humans and nature, between humans and heaven (as in Daoism, Yin-Yang Cosmology and 242

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Confucianism). We also find this in the teachings of social moral relations where the egoistic individual is altogether discouraged (as in Confucianism). For spatial and architectural construction, a non-Cartesian order is disclosed (Figure 9.8). Externally, mass is eroded and dispersed across a land surface. Internally, space is infinitely divided and subdivided, with layers of walls

Figure 9.8 An aerial view from the north on the axis, overlooking central Beijing formed in 1420 and extended in 1553 (photo taken in the late Qing dynasty, c. 1900). Source: Dijing Jiuying: As Dusk Fell Upon the Imperial City, 1994, p. 14, by permission of Zijincheng Chubanshe, Palace Museum Press.

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enclosing deep spaces. The optical axis is dissected, replaced by an organizational axis. An immediate visual spectacle with a strong illumination is replaced by an extended experience of seeing and reading in a diffused light. Never opened all at once, the powerful axis, 7.5 kilometres long, organizes walls and other forms of boundary, framing thousands of micro and deep spaces over an architectural-urban-geographical surface. Boundaries, and especially walls, are the primary features of the physical construction. They contribute directly to a socio-political programme that institutionalizes urban social space with a Legalist–Panoptic disposition. At the same time, it is also a formal composition that shares a way of seeing with the scroll painting and the associated cultural practice. It involves the four elements identified earlier: 1

2

3 4

Beijing folds and unfolds. With thresholds attached to them, walls act as a key element in closing and disclosing urban spaces, punctuating and extending the process of seeing and reading. The flow of seeing negates a simple notion of a centre where truth is finally disclosed. It helps constitute a complex organization of centrality that affirms a centre of the throne but also opens it up to a scroll of viewpoints that disperses the centre. Beijing is infinitesimal, involving thousands of deep and micro spaces. All these micro spaces are rigorously controlled, to compose a large form (xing) conceivable at a certain scale and, beyond that, a dynamic disposition with cosmic breath (qi) and propensity (shi) over a larger land surface.

Spreading horizontally between heaven and earth, Beijing attains a cosmic aura. With the support of the most authoritarian political power, it humbly unfolds a vision that is ambitious, imaginary, and is intrinsically, philosophically large.

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In the past two chapters, we have studied two modes of representation in Beijing: religious practice of the court across the city, and a formal composition of the whole city. Religious practice involves terrestrial rituals at the centre and celestial sacrifices at locations on the periphery. The emperor speaks down to the subjects in the first, asserting his position as a ruler of all humans, and speaks up to ‘heaven’ in the second, confirming his position as a recipient of the mandate from heaven to rule. An ideal emperor, a central image of imperial ideology, is produced as a synthesis of the two: he who speaks to both at the two levels assumes the mediating and pivotal position of the Son of Heaven, who receives a decree from heaven to rule all humans. As an institutionalized discourse, it constructs a total spatial disposition onto the city, emphasizing the cardinal points, the centre and the critical peripheral positions, especially that of the Altar of Heaven. It inscribes symbolic meanings onto the plan. It symbolizes a noble centrality of the emperor and a heavenly sanction and support from above. In the end, it renders the whole city with a sacred and heavenly aura. The formal composition of the city, as an aesthetic and existential experience, is another way of representing the aura and sacredness. A scroll is discovered in the visual, experiential and topological structure of the composition. It contrasts with an Albertian-Cartesian composition in the urban and architectural settings in post-Renaissance Europe. While the Western approach assumes a centric subject gazing upon a centric object distanced and exposed in a universal space, the Chinese approach involves a subject submerging and moving in the landscape. Its urban and architectural composition displays four characteristics. It folds and unfolds; it is dynamic involving many visual spatial centres which open and decompose the centre; it is infinitesimal with infinitely minute spaces; it is horizontally large with a cosmic aura. Following the ideas of form (xing), propensity (shi) and dynamic flow and breath (qi), considerations are given to a total composition of the entire setting. In both cases, religious and aesthetic, the composition is strategic. There is an investment in the potential of a total and complete disposition of a large scale, one which can deliver the production of ideology and sustain the aesthetic composition with a cosmic aura. While spatially it involves a total disposition, conceptually and ideologically it represents a fundamental attitude to 245

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conform to a total order in nature and heaven. It represents a philosophical position that advocates a profound harmony between humans and heaven. A cosmological ethics exists at the core of this philosophy. In the middle chapters of this book (4–7), we have examined the political institution of the court, as centred at the Forbidden City with important quarters attached from outside in the south-east. The inside-outside differentiation in space and the high-low positioning in the institution correspond to each other closely. Spatial depth contributes to political height. There is a pyramid in this spatial institutional arrangement: the emperor sits at the top in the innermost space, whereas the levels of offices are hierarchically placed from inside to outside, mostly along a diagonal line to the south-east. Along this line, vital links are established between the emperor and the ministers. Information flows in and up whereas directives flow down and out. They constitute a oneway cast of an eye-power, seeing and controlling the outer and lower world from the top. Emperor Hongwu (Zhu Yuanzhang), Yongle (Zhu Di) and Yongzheng, in the 1380s, 1420s and 1730s, all made contributions that pushed this Chinese political disposition to its logical limit. Following the Legalist tradition of Han Fei and the strategic theory from antiquity (with key notions of shi or ‘propensity’ in a disposition), the spatial political machine acts in a way comparable with that of the Panopticon devised by Jeremy Bentham, in the rise of a centralized state power and a dispersed surveillance network in early modern Europe. Following the Legalist and strategic theories, this institution employs a total disposition in space, the composition of a pyramid. It uses the potential inherent in this composition to effectively deliver and sustain the operation of power. Further before that, we have identified this concentric, hierarchical disposition at a larger scale, covering the whole of Beijing. We have differentiated two aspects of this disposition: a concentric formal plan visible from above and a hierarchical social space functioning effectively in an invisible section. While the first represents an idealistic Confucian ideology (‘reason’ or li), the second follows pragmatic Legalist principles (‘power’ and ‘propensity’ or shi). Prior to that, and on a larger scale, we have also examined the formation of Beijing as a consequence of a geo-political move of early Ming emperors. Beijing as it emerged in 1420 was part of a geo-architectural construction, of a new, artificial topography. It is a point in a diagram, with an arc of the Great Wall to the north-west and a long curve of the Grand Canal to the south-east, extending further to South-east China. There is an exploitation of locality, of its natural topographical condition and its strategic potency for the design of a larger space of the empire at a global scale. There is also a constructive approach to the making of a new city, a new social topography, to enhance the power of the site and to establish a centrality of Beijing in the empire and in the region. There is persistently a preference for a large and total disposition, and to use its potential to effectively deliver and sustain various kinds of operation: geopolitical arrangement, representation of ideology on the city plan, control over the city, and the political control of the throne over the empire. These dispositions are employed to construct a total order in the human social world. A cen246

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tralist thrust runs through all these projects of making total orders. They radiate from and contribute to the absolute authority of the sage ruler: they are aspects of an authoritarianism. Based on these observations, Beijing as a whole reveals two theses: a cosmological ethics and a political authoritarianism. The first, operating on a humanheaven relationship, advocates a total harmony with nature, in which humans find their position by following the way of heaven. The second, unfolding on an inter-human relationship, aspires to the making of a totality in the social world in which individuals realize themselves through relations with others and with the authority of the sage ruler. In either case, there is a negation of an autonomous individual subject. In either case, there is an immersion of the subject into a world of ‘others’: into nature where a cosmological–ethical and ecological relation can be developed, or into the social world where a social–ethical and authoritarian system can be perfected. An immersion of the subject leads to a dispersion of the object, in a negation of the autonomous subject, object and their dualistic confrontation. An immersive-dispersive approach comes into being, in the making of space and habitat on the land surface. Space and objects are externally dispersed and internally dissected, with walls and other forms of boundary fragmenting them intensively. Human subjects are drawn to a dense world of practices and experiences, on a trajectory that forever relativizes their positions, politically, socially, aesthetically, existentially. A universal design and composition then organize the infinitesimal spaces systematically and extensively. A total construction of Beijing as a geography-city-architecture is formalized. In it one sees a persistent use of large, total and strategic dispositions and their underlying dynamism in the pursuit of authoritarianism and cosmological ethics. A strategic approach to spatial design and disposition exists in Beijing which runs through different areas of practice: ideological, social, political, religious, symbolic, existential, which also cuts across all divisions based on scale: buildings, cities, landscape and geography. The two theses, political authoritarianism and cosmological ethics, are however not of equal importance. The first relies on and derives its legitimacy from the second. There is an ultimate submission of humans to nature in full harmony. The immersive-dispersive composition, spreading humble and vast on the land surface, corresponds to the infinite line of the horizon, between the earth and heaven.

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APPENDIX Dynasties, reigns and emperors

Table of Chinese dynasties Shang Zhou Qin Han (Western, Eastern) Three Kingdoms Western Jin Northern and Southern dynasties Sui Tang Five dynasties Song (Northern, Southern) Liao Jin Yuan Ming Qing

c.1600–c.1050 BC c.1050 BC–AD 221 221–207 202 BC–AD 9, 25–220 221–265 265–317 317–581 581–618 618–906 907–960 960–1126, 1127–1279 937–1125 1126–1234 1260–1368 1368–1644 1644–1911

Ming dynasty emperors Given name Zhu Yuanzhang Zhu Yunwen Zhu Di Zhu Gaochi Zhu Zhanji Zhu Qizhen Zhu Qiyu Zhu Qizhen Zhu Jianshen Zhu Youcheng Zhu Houzhao Zhu Houcong

Reign name and period Hongwu (1368–1398) Jianwen (1399–1402) Yongle (1403–1424) Hongxi (1425) Xuande (1426–1435) Zhengtong (1436–1449) Jingtai (1450–1456) Tianshun (1457–1464) Chenghua (1465–1487) Hongzhi (1488–1505) Zhengde (1506–1521) Jiajing (1522–1566) 248

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Zhu Zaihou Zhu Yijun Zhu Changluo Zhu Youxiao Zhu Youjian

Longqing (1567–1572) Wanli (1573–1620) Taichang (1620) Tianqi (1621–1627) Chongzhen (1628–1644)

Qing dynasty emperors Given name Nuerhachi Huangtaiji Fulin Xuanye Yinzhen Hongli Yongyan Minning Yizhu Zaichun Zaitian Puyi

Reign name and period Tianming (1616–1626) Tiancong, Chongde (1627–1636, 1637–1643) Shunzhi (1644–1661) Kangxi (1662–1722) Yongzheng (1723–1735) Qianlong (1736–1795) Jiaqing (1796–1820) Daoguang (1821–1850) Xianfeng (1851–1861) Tongzhi (1862–1874) Guangxu (1875–1908) Xuantong (1909–1911)

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INTRODUCTION 1 There are two reproductions of this map which are available and have been consulted in this research. The first is Qianlong Jingcheng Quantu (a complete map of the capital city in the Qianlong reign), at a scale of 1:2600, made in 1940 by a Japanese occupying government office, Xinyayuan (New Asia institute). The second, using the same title with the suffix Jiamo (annotated and retraced), at a scale of 1:2400, was made in 1996 by Beijingshi Gudai Jianzhu Yanjiusuo (Beijing Institute of Traditional Architectural Studies). There were earlier reproductions made by the Qing court in 1870s and by the Palace Museum in 1940 (at a scale of 1:2400). All reproductions were smaller than the original but used the same format, that is, 17 rows each with 13 pages. 2 Other materials have also been studied, including: Zhou Jiamei et al. (eds) Guangxu Shuntianfu Zhi (Emperor Guangxu’s annals of the Shuntianfu prefecture), Beijing: Guji Chubanshe, 1987 (first published 1885), and Zhao Erxun (comp.) Qingshigao (History of the Qing dynasty), Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1977. 3 Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson, The Social Logic of Space, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. 4 See Thomas A. Markus, Buildings and Power: freedom and control in the origin of modern building types, London and New York: Routledge, 1993; Julienne Hanson, Decoding Homes and Houses, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998; Kim Dovey, Framing Places: mediating power in built form, London and New York: Routledge, 1999. Robin Evans’ research in the late 1970s, along with Hillier and Hanson’s work in 1984, are the pioneers of this scholarship. See Robin Evans, ‘Figures, doors and passageways,’ Architectural Design, no. 4, 1978, pp. 267–8 and The Fabrication of Virtue: English prison architecture, 1750–1840, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. 5 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison, trans. Alan Sheridan, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1977. 6 Michael R. Dutton, Policing and Punishment in China: from patriarchy to ‘the People’, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. 7 Li Zehou, Zhongguo Gudai Sixiang Shilun (studies on ancient Chinese thought), Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1986, pp. 77–105. 8 François Jullien, The Propensity of Things: towards a history of efficacy in China, trans. Janet Lloyd, New York: Zone Books, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995. 9 See Martin Jay, ‘Scopic regimes of modernity’, in Hal Foster (ed.) Vision and Visuality, Seattle: Bay Press, 1988, pp. 3–23; and Erwin Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form, trans. Christopher S. Wood, New York: Zone Books, 1997, pp. 27–31 (first published as ‘Die Perspektive als “symbolishe Form” ’, in Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1924–1925, Leipzig and Berlin, 1927, pp. 258–330). 10 Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. Richard Nice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977, pp. 1–22, 72–87.

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1 A GEO-POLITICAL PROJECT 1 See Victor F.S. Sit, Beijing: the nature and planning of a Chinese capital city, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1995, pp. 42–4; Chen Zhengxiang, Zhongguo Wenhua Dili (Cultural geography of China), Hong Kong: Joint Publication Co., 1981, pp. 101–34; Chen Cheng-Siang (Chen Zhengxiang), ‘The growth of Peiching’, Ekistics, no. 253, December 1976, pp. 377–83; and Hou Renzhi et al. (comp.), Beijing Lishi Dituji (Historical maps of Beijing), Beijing: Beijing Chubanshe, 1988, pp. 3–4. 2 Information on early Ming history is based on Frederick W. Mote, ‘Introduction’ and ‘The rise of the Ming dynasty, 1330–1367’, in Frederick W. Mote and Denis Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7: The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 1–10, 11–57. See also John K. Fairbank, ‘State and society under the Ming’, in John K. Fairbank, Edwin O. Reischauer and Albert M. Craig (eds) East Asia: tradition and transformation, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1973, pp. 177–210; and Wan Ming, ‘Kaiguo huangdi Zhu Yuanzhang’ (The founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang), in Xu Daling and Wang Tianyou (eds) Mingchao Shiliu Di (The sixteen emperors of the Ming dynasty), Beijing: Zijincheng Chubanshe, 1991, pp. 5–40. 3 See Ray Huang, China: a macro history, New York: Armonk, 1997, pp. 166–7. 4 Huang, China, pp. 169–75; Mote, ‘Introduction’, pp. 1–10; Fairbank, ‘State and society under the Ming’, pp. 177–210. 5 Huang, China, pp. 170–1; and Mote, ‘Introduction’, p. 4. For a thorough study of the absolute centralism of the Ming, which makes this point clear, see Guan Wenfa and Yan Guangwen, Mingdai Zhengzhi Zhidu Yanjiu (A study of the political system of the Ming dynasty), Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1996, pp. 1–3. 6 Mote, ‘Introduction’, p. 3. 7 Hok-lam Chan, ‘The Chien-wen reign,’ in Mote and Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7, pp. 193–202; Mao Peiqi, ‘Chengzu Wen Huangdi Zhu Di’ (the emperor Zhu Di), in Xu and Wang (eds) Mingchao Shiliu Di, pp. 55–89. 8 Mote, ‘Introduction’, p. 2; Hok-lam Chan, ‘The Yung-lo reign,’ in Mote and Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7, pp. 205–6. 9 Chan, ‘The Yung-lo reign’, pp. 236, 232–6; Fairbank, ‘State and society under the Ming’, pp. 197–8; and Mao, ‘Chengzu Wen Huangdi Zhu Di’, pp. 72–7. 10 Chan, ‘The Yung-lo reign’, pp. 220–1; Fairbank, ‘State and society under the Ming’, pp. 190–191; Mao, ‘Chengzu Wen Huangdi Zhu Di’, pp. 65–6. 11 See Edward L. Farmer, Early Ming Government: the evolution of dual capitals, Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 1976, pp. 41–57; Wan, ‘Kaiguo Huangdi Zhu Yuanzhang’, pp. 16–18; F.W. Mote, ‘The transformation of Nanking, 1350–1400,’ in G. William Skinner (ed.) The City in Late Imperial China, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1977, pp. 101–54. 12 Farmer, Early Ming Government, pp. 42–3, 51–4; Mote, ‘The transformation of Nanking, 1350–1400’, pp. 126–31. 13 Wan, ‘Kaiguo huangdi Zhu Yuanzhang’, p. 17. 14 Wan, ‘Kaiguo huangdi Zhu Yuanzhang’, p. 17; Mao, ‘Chengzu Wen huangdi Zhu Di’, p. 71; Chan, ‘The Yung-lo reign’, p. 237. 15 The following account of Zhu Di’s development is based on Chan, ‘The Chien-wen reign’ and ‘The Yung-lo reign’, pp. 184–204, 205–75; and Mao, ‘Chengzu Wen huangdi Zhu Di’, pp. 55–89. 16 The following description of Zhu Di’s transformation of Beijing into the Ming capital is based on Farmer, Early Ming Government, pp. 114–23; Chan, ‘The Yung-lo reign’, including the section ‘The new capital and its administration’, pp. 237–44; Mao, ‘Chengzu Wen huangdi Zhu Di’, p. 71; Edward L. Dreyer, Early Ming China: a political history 1355–1435, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1982, pp. 182–94; and Guo Husheng, ‘Ming Qing Beijing’ (Beijing in the Ming and Qing dynasties), Jianzhushi (Architect), no. 78, October 1997, pp. 76–81.

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17 Dreyer, Early Ming China, p. 184. 18 Chan, ‘The Yung-lo reign’, p. 241. 19 The following assessment of Zhu Di’s motives and coordination is based on Farmer, Early Ming Government, pp. 134–47; Chan, ‘The Yung-lo reign’, pp. 237–8; Mao, ‘Chengzu Wen huangdi Zhu Di’, pp. 70–2; and Dreyer, Early Ming China, p. 9, pp. 256–64. 20 Mao, ‘Chengzu Wen huangdi Zhu Di’, p. 71. 21 According to all the materials used here, fengshui assessment was not the most important factor in the selection of the site for both Beijing and Nanjing. See for example Farmer, Early Ming Government, pp. 42–3. 22 Mao, ‘Chengzu Wen huangdi Zhu Di’, p. 71. See also Mote, ‘Introduction’, p. 2. 23 Chan, ‘The Yung-lo reign’, p. 228; Farmer, Early Ming Government, p.132; and Dreyer, Early Ming China, pp. 191–5. 24 Farmer, Early Ming Government, pp. 142–3; Chapter 5 and 6 in Mote and Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7, pp. 325–38, 370–402; and Arthur N. Waldron, ‘The problem of the Great Wall of China’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 43, no. 2, December 1983, pp. 643–63. 25 Farmer, Early Ming Government, pp. 132–3, 142–3, 190–3; Dreyer, Early Ming China, p. 9, pp. 256–8. These two researchers offer in-depth accounts of the geo-political conditions of Beijing. 2 CITY PLAN AS IDEOLOGY 1 Guo Husheng, ‘Ming Qing Beijing’, pp. 76–81. In the Ming dynasty, 1 li  1/3 mile. 2 Guo, ‘Ming Qing Beijing’, p. 76; Edward L. Farmer, Early Ming Government, p. 122; Hok-lam Chan, ‘The Yung-lo reign’, pp. 240–1. 3 Chen Jie, ‘Yingzhong Rui huangdi Zhu Qizhen’ (The emperor Zhu Qizhen), in Xu Daling and Wang Tianyou (eds) Mingchao Shiliu Di (The sixteen emperors of the Ming dynasty), Beijing: Zijincheng Chubanshe, 1991, pp. 117–36, especially p. 120; Farmer, Early Ming Government, p. 128; Chan, ‘The Yung-lo reign’, pp. 241–2. 4 Guo, ‘Ming Qing Beijing’, pp. 77, 79. See also Jeffrey F. Meyer, The Dragons of Tiananmen: Beijing as a sacred city, Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1991, pp. 100, 112, 117. 5 Frederick W. Mote, ‘The Ch’eng-hua and Hung-chih reigns, 1465–1505,’ in Mote and Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7, pp. 389–402. See also Arthur N. Waldron, ‘The problem of the Great Wall of China’, p. 661. 6 Descriptions of the plan of Beijing can be found in: Liu Dunzhen, Zhongguo Gudai Jianzhushi (a history of traditional Chinese architecture), Beijing: Zhongguo Jianzhu Gongye Chubanshe, 1980, pp. 278–81; Editorial Group, Zhongguo Jianzhushi (History of Chinese architecture), Beijing: Zhongguo Jianzhu Gongye Chubanshe, 1983, pp. 48–52; and Andrew Boyd, Chinese Architecture and Town Planning, 1500 BC–AD 1911, London: Alec Tiranti, 1962, pp. 60–72. 7 For example: He Yeju, Kaogongji Yingguo Zhidu Yanjiu (A study of the planning system of Kaogongji), Beijing: Zhongguo Jianzhu Gongye Chubanshe, 1985; and Arthur F. Wright, ‘The cosmology of the Chinese city,’ in G. William Skinner (ed.) The City in Late Imperial China, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977, pp. 33–73. 8 See for example: He, Kaogongji Yingguo Zhidu Yanjiu, p. 1, pp. 171–80; and Robert P. Kramers, ‘The development of the Confucian schools’, in Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe (eds) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 1: The Ch’in and Han Empires, 221 BC–AD 220, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 747–65, 762. 9 Obviously this is not a historical but an ideological approach to the text. The question we are asking here is not the origin of the text (in the midst of the antiquity and controversies) but the theoretical work it offered at a time of cultural and ideological construction, and its impact on subsequent dynasties. Wright’s ‘The cosmology of the Chinese city’ clearly indicated and explored this approach.

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10 I have consulted the following four sources in making this English translation: Wright, ‘The cosmology of the Chinese city’, pp. 47–8; Chen, ‘The growth of Peiching’, p. 378; Sit, Beijing, p. 25; and Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, Chinese Imperial City Planning, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990, p. 33. 11 A recent discussion on this issue can be found in: Guo Husheng, ‘Guanyu Zhongguo gudai chengshishi de tanhua’ (On history of Chinese traditional cities: an interview), Jianzhushi (Architect), no. 70, June 1996, pp. 62–8. While Guo Husheng is sceptical of the dominant impact of this model in real practice, He Yeju (Kaogongji Yingguo Zhidu Yanjiu) maintains that there had been indeed major influences of the model in terms of specific and geometric arrangement. For recent research that has also placed importance on this model, see: Steinhardt, Chinese Imperial City Planning, pp. 29–36. 12 The paramount importance of the sacrifices to ‘Ancestors’ and ‘Land and Grain’ since the antiquity (Zhou dynasty, c. eleventh–third century BC), the profound symbolic meaning of left and right, East and West being associated with the two gods, and the adjacency of the sites to the palace which facilitated an easier implementation in construction, seem to be some of the major reasons behind this consistent application of the classical prescription. 13 I am suggesting here that despite the numerous interpretations of symbolism of Beijing, this overall disposition, in relation to Zhou Li and Han cosmological Confucianism, represented the essential ideas of its symbolic universe. The five agencies (wood, fire, earth, metal, water), four seasons and directions (blue dragon/East, red phoenix/South, white tiger/West, black turtle/North), three groups of stars (the middle of which is for heaven, corresponding to the palace on earth for the king), two poles (Yin and Yang), elaborated this symbolic universe (rather heterogeneously) and were represented in the positioning, naming and numerical specifications of major structures of the city and the palace. See: Jiang Shunyuan, ‘Wuxing, sixiang, sanyuan, liangji: Zijincheng’ (Five agencies, four quarters, three constellations, two poles: the Forbidden City), in Qingdai Gongshi Yanjiuhui (ed.) Qingdai Gongshi Tanwei (Studies on the history of the Qing court), Beijing: Zijincheng Chubanshe, 1991, pp. 251–60. Local mythology (references to the figure Ne Zha) and prescriptions of fengshui (northern flows as negative forces) have also been claimed as influential in determining formal aspects of the city. See Meyer, The Dragons of Tiananmen, pp. 36–9, 41–5, 127–37. 14 This and the following translations are based on Wright, ‘The cosmology of the Chinese city’, pp. 46–7. Sit’s translation was also consulted: Sit, Beijing, p. 25. 15 On the subject of ideology of Chinese planning theory, Wright’s work (‘The cosmology of the Chinese city’) remains the most pertinent. His reading of Zhou Li as part of Han Confucian ideology reflects a proper and insightful understanding of pre-Qin theories and Han synthesis in the history of Chinese philosophy. Guo Husheng’s work also offered a correct intuition on this: ‘Guanyu Zhongguo gudai chengshishi de tanhua’, p. 62. Chinese planning theory and city symbolism should be understood in the context of Han Confucianism and subsequent development of imperial ideology. In the following paragraphs, I will expand Wright’s work (pp. 44–50) and explore the relations between ideology, diagram and spatial construction. 16 Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, vol. 2, the period of classical learning, trans. D. Bodde, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1953, pp. 7–87; Kramers, ‘The development of the Confucian schools’, pp. 747–65; Kung-chuan Hsiao, A History of Chinese Political Thought, vol. 1, trans. F.W. Mote, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979, pp. 484–503. 17 Fung, A History of Chinese Philosophy, vol. 2, p. 46. 18 Fung, A History of Chinese Philosophy, vol. 2, p. 49. 19 Chan, ‘The Yung-lo reign’, pp. 218–21 (the section on ‘Formation of orthodox ideology’). 20 W. Theodore de Bary, Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-and-Heart,

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21 22

23

24 25

26

27 28 29

30 31

New York: Columbia University Press, 1981, pp. 50–4; and Feng Youlan, Zhongguo Zhexue Jianshi (A short history of Chinese philosophy), Beijing: Beijingdaxue Chubanshe, 1985, p. 338. de Bary, Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy, pp. 63, 60–6; Wan Ming, ‘Kaiguo huangdi Zhu Yuanzhang’, p. 21. The following description is based on: Hok-lam Chan, ‘The Chien-wen, Yung-lo, Hung-hsi, and Hsuan-te reigns, 1399–1453’ and Wolfgang Franke, ‘Historical writing during the Ming’, in Mote and Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7, p. 184, pp. 218–21, and p. 729; and Mao Peiqi, ‘Chengzu Wen Huangdi Zhu Di’, p. 66. Frederick W. Mote, ‘Introduction’, in Mote and Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7, p. 3, pp. 1–10; John K. Fairbank, ‘State and society under the Ming’ and ‘Traditional China at its height under the Ch’ing’, in John K. Fairbank, Edwin O. Reischauer and Albert M. Craig (eds) East Asia: Tradition and Transformation, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1973, pp. 188–93, 228–34. Feng, Zhongguo Zhexue Jianshi, p. 338. The relationship between the development of Neo-Confucianism and the making of Beijing was insightfully though briefly suggested by Arthur F. Wright, in his ‘The cosmology of the Chinese city’, pp. 33–73. Such a significant relationship, however, is hardly explored in the existing scholarship on Beijing and on Chinese cities. The following introduction to Neo-Confucianism and relevant streams of Chinese thought are based on: Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, trans. D. Bodde, vol. 1, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952, pp. 43–75, 106–31, 379–99 and vol. 2, pp. 7–87, 407–33, 498–532, 533–71, 596–622; Feng, Zhongguo Zhexue Jianshi, pp. 48–60, 83–96, 197–209, 306–22, 323–36, 337–51, 352–64; Willard Peterson, ‘Confucian learning in late Ming thought’, in D. Twitchett and F.W. Mote (eds) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 8: the Ming dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 708–88. Fung, A History of Chinese Philosophy, vol. 2, Chapter XIII, ‘Chu Hsi’, pp. 533–71; Feng, Zhongguo Zhexue Jianshi, Chapter 25, ‘Xinruxue: Lixue’ (Neo-Confucianism: the rational school), pp. 337–51. Ian Mcmorran, ‘Wang Fu-chih and the Neo-Confucian Tradition’, in W. Theodore de Bary (ed.) The Unfolding of Neo-Confucianism, New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1975, pp. 413–67. Hok-lam Chan, ‘The Yung-lo reign’ in ‘The Chien-wen, Yung-lo, Hung-hsi, and Hsuan-te reigns, 1399–1435’, in Mote and Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 7, pp. 218–21; Gao Xiang, Kangyongqian Sandi Tongzhi Sixiang Yanjiu (A study on the thought of rulership of the three Emperors: Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong), Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin Daxue Chubanshe, 1995, pp. 16–22, 24–33, 106–7. One can also catch a glimpse of this in Jonathan Spence, Emperor of China: Selfportrait of Kang-hsi, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974, pp. xvii–xix. Another helpful reading is Thomas A. Metzger, Escape from Predicament: Neo-Confucianism and China’s evolving political culture, New York: Columbia University Press, 1977, pp. 181–5. Chan, ‘The Yung-lo reign’, pp. 218–19. Jullien, The Propensity of Things, pp. 235–8, 241–6; and Ian Mcmorran, ‘Wang Fu-chih and the Neo-Confucian tradition’, pp. 413–67. 3 SOCIAL SPACE OF THE CITY

1 Zhu Wenyi, Kongjian, Fuhao, Chengshi: yizhong chengshi sheji lilun (Space, symbol, city: a theory of urban design), Beijing: Zhongguo Jianzhu Gongye Chubanshe, 1993, pp. 119–22, 124–8. 2 Professor Bill Hillier has made this observation in his Masters programme ‘Advanced Architecture Studies’ in 1988–1989 at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. See also Hillier and Hanson, Social Logic of Space, pp. 143–7, 256–61. 3 This and subsequent maps and graphs of Beijing were produced by myself during my

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4 5 6 7 8

9

10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

doctoral research at University College London, 1989–1994. For further explanation on procedures and analyses of these and other representations, see my ‘Space and power: a study of the built form of late imperial Beijing as a spatial constitution of central authority’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1993–1994, pp. 85–134 (Chapter 3). For further explanation, see Hillier and Hanson, Social Logic of Space, pp. 143–75. Hillier and Hanson, Social Logic of Space, pp. 90–7. Hillier and Hanson, Social Logic of Space, pp. 108–14. Hillier and Hanson, Social Logic of Space, pp. 115–16. John K. Fairbank, ‘Introduction: the old order’, in John K. Fairbank (ed.) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 10: Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978, pp. 1–34 especially 20–9; and Fairbank, ‘State and society under the Ming’ and ‘Traditional China at its height under the Ch’ing’, pp. 177–210, 211–57. The following description is based on: Fairbank, ‘Introduction: the old order’, pp. 20–9, ‘State and society under the Ming’ and ‘Traditional China at its height under the Ch’ing’, pp. 184–8, 222–30; Susan Naquin and Evelyn S. Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1987, pp. 3–21; Gilbert Rozman, Urban Networks in Ch’ing China and Tokugawa Japan, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973, pp. 59–68. Rozman, Urban Networks in Ch’ing China and Tokugawa Japan, pp. 63–7. Naquin and Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century, p. 8. Rozman, Urban Network in Ch’ing China and Tokugawa Japan, p. 65. There were two national capitals: Beijing and Nanjing, the primary and the secondary capital. The capital cities of the two provinces in which Beijing and Nanjing were located were outside the two national capitals. There were therefore eighteen provincial capitals and two national capitals making up twenty largest administrative cities in Qing China. See Rozman, Urban Networks in Ch’ing China and Tokugawa Japan, p. 65. Hou Renzhi et al., Beijing Lishi Dituji, pp. 29, 31, 39, 41; Rozman, Urban Networks in Ch’ing China and Tokugawa Japan, pp. 63–8. G. William Skinner, ‘Introduction: urban social structure in Ch’ing China’, in G. William Skinner (ed.) The City in Late Imperial China, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977, pp. 521–53. Editorial Group at Beijing University History Department, Beijing Shi (a history of Beijing), Beijing: Beijing Chubanshe, 1985, pp. 249–52. The following descriptions on the overall structure of the Shuntianfu prefecture are based on: Editorial Group, Beijing Shi, pp. 249–52; Hou et al., Beijing Lishi Dituji, pp. 29, 31, 39, 41; Wu Tingxie (ed.) Beijingshi Zhigao (Annals of the city of Beijing), vol. 2. Minzhengzhi (Annals of administration), Beijing: Yanshan Chubanshe, 1989, pp. 1–13, 328–9, 370–400; Zhou et al., Guangxu Shuntianfu Zhi. Fairbank, ‘Introduction: the old order’, p. 29; ‘State and society under the Ming’, p. 187; ‘Traditional China at its height under the Ch’ing’, p. 230; and Naquin and Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century, p. 16. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, pp. 195–228. John R. Watt, ‘The Yamen and urban administration’, in G.W. Skinner (ed.) The City in Late Imperial China, Stanford University Press, pp. 352–90. Stephan Feuchtwang, ‘School-temple and city god’, in G.W. Skinner (ed.) The City in Late Imperial China, Stanford University Press, pp. 581–608. Editorial Group, Beijing Shi, pp. 274–80. Editorial Group, Beijing Shi, pp. 249–52. Fairbank, ‘Introduction: the old order’, p. 29; ‘Traditional China at its height under the Ch’ing’, p. 230; Watt, ‘The Yamen and urban administration’, pp. 357, 361; Naquin and Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century, p. 19. Gongsuo as the place for this is referred in Wu (ed.) Beijingshi Zhigao, pp. 341–3, 371.

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26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

It is found to be in an area called ‘Liulichang’. See Beijingshi Gudai Jianzhu Yanjiusuo (comp.) Jiamo Qianlong Jingcheng Quantu (A retraced and annotated complete map of the capital in the Qianlong reign), Beijing: Yanshan Chubanshe, 1996, ‘Dimingbiao’ (index of names of locations), section 8 of the 12th row, p. 12. Wu (ed.) Beijingshi Zhigao, pp. 341–3; Editorial Group, Beijing Shi, pp. 249–52. Wu (ed.) Beijingshi Zhigao, p. 328; Editorial Group, Beijing Shi, pp. 249–52; Zhou et al. (ed.) Guangxu Shuntianfu Zhi, vol. 1, chapter 8, ‘Bingzhi’ (deployment of army units), p. 213. Zhou et al. (ed.) Guangxu Shuntianfu Zhi, vol. 1, chapter 8, ‘Bingzhi’, pp. 213–78; Wu (ed.) Beijingshi Zhigao, pp. 333–4. I am using two sources that offer descriptions of the deployment: Wu Tingxie’s Beijingshi Zhigao which collected the majority of information up to the forty-sixth year of the Qianlong reign (1781), and Zhou Jiamei’s Guangxu Shuntianfu Zhi which collected information for most reigns up to the time of publication in the tenth year of the Guangxu reign (1885). Together they cover a rather stable and essentially the same system of deployment in the mid and late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Zhou (ed.) Guangxu Shuntianfu Zhi, vol. 1, chapter 8, ‘Bingzhi’, pp. 225–6; Wu (ed.) Beijingshi Zhigao, pp. 330–1. Wu (ed.) Beijingshi Zhigao, pp. 328–9, 331–2. Zhou (ed.) Guangxu Shuntianfu Zhi, vol. 1, chapter 7, ‘Yashu’ (offices), pp. 205–6; Wu (ed.) Beijingshi Zhigao, pp. 330, 340–1. Zhou (ed.) Guangxu Shuntianfu Zhi, vol. 1, chapter 7, ‘Yashu’, pp. 205–6. Zhou (ed.) Guangxu Shuntianfu Zhi, vol. 1, chapter 8, ‘Bingzhi’, pp. 225–78; Wu (ed.) Beijingshi Zhigao, pp. 333–6; Editorial Group, Beijing Shi, pp. 249–52. Zhou (ed.) Guangxu Shuntianfu Zhi, vol. 1, chapter 8, ‘Bingzhi’, pp. 225–78. Zhou (ed.) Guangxu Shuntianfu Zhi, vol. 1, chapter 8, ‘Bingzhi’, pp. 225–78; Wu (ed.) Beijingshi Zhigao, pp. 334–6. Zhou (ed.) Guangxu Shuntianfu Zhi, vol. 1, chapter 8, ‘Bingzhi’, pp. 225–78; Wu (ed.) Beijingshi Zhigao, pp. 332, 337, 340; Editorial Group, Beijing Shi, pp. 249–52. Wu (ed.) Beijingshi Zhigao, p. 339. Wu (ed.) Beijingshi Zhigao, p. 332. Zhou (ed.) Guangxu Shuntianfu Zhi, vol. 1, chapter 8, ‘Bingzhi’, pp. 226–7; Wu (ed.) Beijingshi Zhigao, pp. 329–31. Wu (ed.) Beijingshi Zhigao, p. 337. Wu (ed.) Beijingshi Zhigao, p. 337; Zhou (ed.) Guangxu Shuntianfu Zhi, vol. 1, chapter 7, ‘Yashu’, pp. 205–6. John Stewart Burgess, The Guilds of Peking, Taipei: Ch’eng-Wen Publishing Co., 1966 (first published in New York: Columbia University Press, 1928), pp. 13–18. Burgess, The Guilds of Peking, p. 16. Burgess, The Guilds of Peking, pp. 16–19. Niida Noboru, ‘The industrial and commercial guilds of Peking and religion and fellow-countrymanship as elements of their coherence’, Folklore Studies, no. 9, 1950, pp. 179–206, especially 197–201. Burgess, The Guilds of Peking, pp. 145, 174, 190, 211; and Sidney D. Gamble, Peking: a social survey, London and Peking: Oxford University Press, 1921, p. 199. Burgess, The Guilds of Peking, pp. 17, 108; and Rozman, Urban Networks in Ch’ing China and Tokugawa Japan, pp. 96, 294. Noboru, ‘The industrial and commercial guilds of Peking’, pp. 187–90. Burgess, The Guilds of Peking, pp. 108–9, 143–6; Gamble, Peking, p. 175. Colin P. Mackerras, The Rise of the Peking Opera 1770–1870: social aspects of the theatre in Manchu China, London: Oxford University Press, 1972, pp. 192–3. William Dolby, A History of Chinese Drama, London: Paul Elek Books, 1976, pp. 164–8; and Mackerras, The Rise of the Peking Opera, pp. 124–30, 145–53. Dolby, A History of Chinese Drama, pp. 158–61, 189–96; and Mackerras, The Rise of the Peking Opera, pp. 197–211.

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54 Dolby, A History of Chinese Drama, pp. 184–9; and Mackerras, The Rise of the Peking Opera, pp. 194–7. 55 Dolby, A History of Chinese Drama, p. 189; and Mackerras, The Rise of the Peking Opera, p. 206. 56 Mackerras, The Rise of the Peking Opera, pp. 199–200. 57 Mackerras, The Rise of the Peking Opera, pp. 197–9. 58 Mackerras, The Rise of the Peking Opera, pp. 200–7. 59 Dolby, A History of Chinese Drama, pp. 134–41; and Mackerras, The Rise of the Peking Opera, pp. 211–18. 60 Dolby, A History of Chinese Drama, pp. 134–41; and Mackerras, The Rise of the Peking Opera, pp. 211–18. 61 Lloyd E. Eastman, Family, Fields, and Ancestors: constancy and change in China’s social and economic History 1550–1949, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 42, pp. 41–60. 62 Tun Li-Ch’en, Annual Customs and Festivals in Peking, trans. and annotated by Derk Bodde, Peiping: Henri Vetch, 1936 and Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1965, pp. 18–24 (first published in Chinese, Beijing, 1900). See also Gamble, Peking, p. 475. 63 Tun, Annual Customs, pp. 10–11, 14–16, 28–30, 38–40. 64 Tun, Annual Customs, pp. 1–24; and Naquin and Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 84–5. 65 Tun, Annual Customs, pp. 60–2. 66 Tun, Annual Customs, pp. 18–20; and L.C. Arlington and William Lewisohn, In Search of Old Peking, Hong Kong and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 183, 352 (first published in Peking: Henri Vetch, 1935). 67 Tun, Annual Customs, pp. 10–11; Arlington and Lewisohn, In Search of Old Peking, pp. 190–6; and H.Y. Lowe, The Adventures of Wu: the life cycle of a Peking man, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982, vol. 2, pp. 187–9 (first published in Peking: Henri Vetch, 1940). 68 Tun, Annual Customs, p. 62; and Lowe, The Adventures of Wu, vol. 1, pp. 235–9. 69 On officials’ involvement, support and control of temple maintenance and worship practice, see Feuchtwang, ‘School-temple and city god’, pp. 581–608. On the temple as a primary focus of social cultural life of the population in Chinese society, see also Naquin and Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 42, 58, 62; and Eastman, Family, Fields, and Ancestors, pp. 57–9. 70 See, for example, Tun, Annual Customs, pp. 1–12, 7–8, 101; and Lowe, The Adventures of Wu, vol. 2, pp. 185, 186. 71 This can be inferred from: Tun, Annual Customs, pp. 1–24, 7–8, 101; Lowe, The Adventures of Wu, vol. 2, 185, 186; Editorial Group, Beijing Shi, pp. 274–80. 72 Dolby, A History of Chinese Drama, p. 160. 4 A SEA OF WALLS: THE PURPLE FORBIDDEN PALACE 1 See Yu Zhuoyun (comp.) Palaces of the Forbidden City, trans. Ng Mau-Sang, Chan Sinwai, Puwen Lee, ed. Graham Hutt, New York: The Viking Press and London: Allen Lane & Penguin Books, 1982, pp. 20–1. 2 These maps are developed from the first measured map of Beijing made in 1750 (scale 1:650, size 13.03  14.01 m): Qianlong Jingcheng Quantu (Complete map of the capital city in the Qianlong reign). For a latest reproduction, see Hou Renzhi et al. Beijing Lishi Dituji, pp. 41–6. 3 For a detailed description, see Yu, Palaces of the Forbidden City, pp. 32–3. 4 Unless stated otherwise, the following description is based on: Yu, Palaces of the Forbidden City, pp. 30–119; Hou, Beijing Lishi Dituji, pp. 41–6; Editorial Group, Zhongguo Jianzhushi, pp. 58–66; and Liu Dunzhen, Zhongguo Gudai Jianzhushi, pp. 286–94.

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5 See Yu, Palaces of the Forbidden City, pp. 48–9; and Editorial Group, Zhongguo Jianzhushi, p. 62. 6 Yu, Palaces of the Forbidden City, p. 61. 7 Yu, Palaces of the Forbidden City, p. 49. 8 Yu, Palaces of the Forbidden City, pp. 72–3; Hou, Beijing Lishi Dituji, p. 45; Wan Yi, Wang Shuqing and Lu Yanzheng (comp.) Daily Life in the Forbidden City, trans. Rosemary Scott, Eric Shipley, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1988, p. 124. 9 Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, p. 50. 10 Yu, Palaces of the Forbidden City, p. 18. 11 Jiang, ‘Wuxing, sixiang, sanyuan, liangji: Zijincheng’, pp. 251–60. 12 Hillier and Hanson, The Social Logic of Space, pp. 59–61, pp. 108, 147, 209, 219; and Hillier, Space is the Machine: a configurational theory of architecture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 29–35. 13 A map of the Forbidden City in 1627, in the late Ming dynasty, clearly demonstrates this. See Hou, Beijing Lishi Dituji, pp. 31–6, 45–6. 14 On the use of the first ceremonial route, see Yu, Palaces of the Forbidden City, p. 49; Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, pp. 14–15; and Zhao, Qingshigao, pp. 2616–17, 2621–4, 2649–50. On the use of the second functional route passing the south-eastern gate, see Yu, Palaces of the Forbidden City, p. 33; Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, p. 50; Zhao, Qingshigao, pp. 2624–25, 2689–97; and Zheng Lianzhang, Zijincheng Chengchi (the walls and the moat of the Purple Forbidden City), Beijing: Zijincheng Chubanshe, 1986, pp. 33–4. 15 It seems that all these three threshold structures could be used by the clansmen and the officials for entry and exit, except that the central gate in the Gate of the Great Qing (daqingmen, which had three gates) was reserved only for the emperor and the empress. The emperor, however, could also exit from the Western Gate of Heavenly Peace (xichanganmen). See Zhao, Qingshigao, pp. 2616–17, 2648–9, 2660–2. 16 See Xu Yipu, ‘Shilun Kangxi yumentingzheng’ (An enquiry into the ‘audience at the imperial gate’ in the Kangxi reign), Gugong Bowuyuan Yuankan (Palace museum journal), no. 1, 1983, pp. 3–19; and Silas H.L. Wu, Communication and Imperial Control in China: evolution of the palace memorial system 1693–1735, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970, p. 21. 17 See Hillier and Hanson, The Social Logic of Space, pp. 108–14. 18 The other two, the 5th and 7th cells, are entry cells to the western complexes. 19 For a detailed documentation on this, see my ‘Space and power’, pp. 204–6, 237–41. 20 See my ‘Space and power’, pp. 204–5. 5 THE PALACE: FRAMING A POLITICAL LANDSCAPE 1 Charles O. Hucker, ‘Ming government’, in Denis Twitchett and Frederick W. Mote (eds) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 8: The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 24–8. 2 Hucker, ‘Ming government’, p. 19 and Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, pp. 124–5. 3 Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, p. 124. 4 Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, p. 124. 5 Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, p. 125. 6 Hucker, ‘Ming government’, pp. 21–2. 7 Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, p. 125. 8 This office was in the early Qing divided into thirteen departments (the equivalent of that in the Ming was the twenty-four departments). See Li Hongbin, ‘Jianlun Qingchu shisan yamen’ (An outline of the thirteen departments in the early Qing) and Jiang Qiao, ‘Shisan yamen chutan’ (Preliminary enquiry on the thirteen departments), in Qingdai Gongshi Yanjiuhui (ed.) Qingdai Gongshi Tanwei (Studies on the history of the Qing court), Beijing: Zijincheng Chubanshe, 1991, pp. 41–8, 49–56.

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9 Jiang, ‘Shisan yamen chutan’, pp. 49–56. Under the supervision of the emperor, this department managed the finance of the palace, the ceremonial protocol, the compiling of court record and clan genealogy, the palace security, and the various material supplies for the imperial household. 10 Yu, Palaces of the Forbidden City, p. 72. 11 Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, pp. 74–5. 12 Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, p. 124 and Yu, Palaces of the Forbidden City, pp. 72–3, 103. 13 Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, p. 124 and Yu, Palaces of the Forbidden City, pp. 87–97. 14 Frank Done, The Forbidden City: the biography of a palace, New York: Charles Scribner, 1970, pp. 254–5. 15 Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, pp. 51, 124 and Yu, Palaces of the Forbidden City, pp. 73, 93. 16 The following information is obtained from: Qing Court (comp.) Qinggongshi Xubian (An amended history of the Qing court), Beijing: 1806, ‘guanzhi’ (palace officials: eunuchs) 1–3, juan (volumes) 72–74, ce (book) 8 (collection of the School of Oriental and African Studies Library, London University). 17 Qing Court, Qinggongshi Xubian, ‘guanzhi’ 2, juan 73, under the titles of various gates. 18 Qing Court, Qinggongshi Xubian, guanzhi 2, juan 73, under the entry of ‘qianqingmen’. 19 Qing Court, Qinggongshi Xubian, guanzhi 2, juan 73, under the title of ‘zoushichu’. 20 Hucker, ‘Ming government’, pp. 21–4. 21 Zhao Zifu, ‘Wuzong Yi huangdi Zhu Houzhao’ (The Wuzong Yi emperor Zhu Houzhao), in Xu Daling and Wang Tianyou (eds) Mingchao Shilu Di (The sixteen emperors of the Ming dynasty), Beijing: Zijincheng Chubanshe, 1991, pp. 191–213. 22 One was at the back of the Forbidden City where artificial streets with restaurants and brothels staffed by court maids were built in which the emperor often wandered around for days on end. The other was a residence called ‘leopard house’ (baofang) outside the western gate of the Forbidden City in which ‘exotic’ girls from western China entertained the emperor. See Zhao, ‘Wuzong Yi huangdi Zhu Houzhao’, pp. 193, 197. Both the private inner court of the Forbidden City and those in the resort palaces outside (and many outside Beijing) were deep and internal spaces from the viewpoint of the officialdom and the society at large. 23 Mao Haijian, ‘Xianfeng di Yizhu’ (The Xianfeng emperor Yizhu), in Zuo Buqing (ed.) Qingdai Huangdi Zhuanlue (Biographies of the emperors of the Qing court), Beijing: Zijincheng Chubanshe, 1991, pp. 300–42. 24 Jia Shucun, ‘Tongzhi di Zaichun’ (The Tongzhi emperor Zaichun), in Zuo Buqing (ed.) Qingdai Huangdi Zhuanlue, pp. 343–69. See also note 16. 25 Xu Lianda and Zhu Ziyan, Zhongguo Huangdi Zhidu (The institution of the emperor in China), Guangzhou: Guangdong Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 1996, pp. 207–8; Guan and Yan, Mingdai Zhengzhi Zhidu Yanjiu, pp. 1–2; Yang Shufan, Qingdai Zhongyang Zhengzhi Zhidu (Central political institutions of the Qing dynasty), Taipei: Taiwan Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1978, pp. 1–3. 26 Xu and Zhu, Zhongguo Huangdi Zhidu, pp. 226–9; Guan and Yan, Mingdai Zhengzhi Zhidu Yanjiu, pp. 1–4; Yang, Qingdai Zhongyang Zhengzhi Zhidu, pp. 1–3. 27 Yang, Qingdai Zhongyang Zhengzhi Zhidu, pp. 1–4. 28 Guan and Yan, Mingdai Zhengzhi Zhidu Yanjiu, pp. 4–8; Xu and Zhu, Zhongguo Huangdi Zhidu, pp. 228–9; Hucker, ‘Ming government’, pp. 74–6. 29 Xu and Zhu, Zhongguo Huangdi Zhidu, pp. 223–4, 228–9. 30 Guan and Yan, Mingdai Zhengzhi Zhidu Yanjiu, p. 9. 31 Guan and Yan, Mingdai Zhengzhi Zhidu Yanjiu, pp. 13–16. 32 Guan and Yan, Mingdai Zhengzhi Zhidu Yanjiu, pp. 24–31. 33 Guan and Yan, Mingdai Zhengzhi Zhidu Yanjiu, pp. 42–8.

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34 Wu, Communication and Imperial Control in China, pp. 84–93; Liu Guilin, ‘Yongzheng di Yinzhen’ (The Yongzheng emperor Yinzhen), in Zuo Buqing (ed.) Qingdai Huangdi Zhuanglue, pp. 146–74; Fu Zongmao, Qingdai Junjichu Zuzhi ji Zhizhang zhi Yanjiu (Studies on the organization and the function of the Grand Council in the Qing dynasty), Taipei: Guoli Zhengzhi Daxue Zhengzhi Yanjiusuo, 1967, pp. 51–91, 130–5, 450–510, 510–29. 35 See for example, Guo Husheng, ‘Guanyu Zhongguo gudai chengshishi de tanhua’, pp. 62–8. In the Sui and Tang dynasties, the government ministries and bureaus were inside huangcheng, the Imperial City. 36 Fu Zongmao, Qingdai Junjichu Zuzhi ji Zhizhang zhi Yanjiu, pp. 130–6, 450–510. 37 See note 14 in Chapter 4. 38 Li Guanglian, ‘Ming Xuanzong jiqi chaozheng’ (the Ming emperor Xuanzhong and his governance), in Xu Daling and Wang Tianyou (eds) Mingchao Shiliu Di, Beijing, pp. 100–16, especially 114–15. 39 Xu and Zhu, Zhongguo Huangdi Zhidu, pp. 142–3, 193–6. 40 This seems to be related to the particular tradition and the problem of the Qing House. On the one hand, there was a strong tradition of regency by a group of senior princes in early Qing history. On the other, the imperial clan that shared the Manchu blood and racial origin provided a safer solidarity than other forms of alliance for the emperor and the empress dowager in the time of deep crisis in the late Qing. Both of these factors, one would argue, contributed to the growth of the blood-based ‘virus’ in the Qing dynasty. 41 Jia Shucun, ‘Tongzhi di Zaichun’, pp. 343–69. 6 THE PALACE: A BATTLEFIELD 1 Wu, Communication and Imperial Control in China, p. 1. Much of this section will be based on Silas H. L. Wu’s work. 2 Wu, Communication, pp. 16–17. 3 Wu, Communication, pp. 10–13. 4 Wu, Communication, p. 21. 5 Wu, Communication, p. 23. 6 Wu, Communication, p. 24 7 Wu, Communication, p. 25. 8 John K. Fairbank and Ssu-Yu Teng, Ching Administration: three studies, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960, pp. 14–15. 9 Fairbank and Teng, Ching Administration, p. 15; Wu, Communication, p. 28. 10 Wu, Communication, pp. 40–7. 11 Wu, Communication, p. 49. 12 Wu Communication, pp. 80–4. 13 Fu Zongmao, Qingdai Junjichu Zuzhi ji Zhizhang zhi Yanjiu, pp. 106–36. 14 Wu, Communication, pp. 85–7. 15 Wu, Communication, p. 85. 16 Liu Guilin, ‘Yongzheng di Yin’, pp. 146–74. 17 Wu, Communication, p. 4, 120. 18 Wu, Communication, pp. 102–3. 1 li  0.5 km or 0.3107 mile. 19 Fairbank and Teng, Ching Administration, pp. 22, 34–5. 20 Wu, Communication, pp. 119–200. 21 Information in this section is obtained from: Qing Court (comp.) Qinggongshi Xubian, ‘gonggui’ (regulations of the palace) 4, juan (volume) 48, ‘dianli’ (rites and rules) 42, ce (book) 5; Qin Guojin, ‘Qingdai gongting de jingwei zhidu’ (The security system at the palace of the Qing court), in Qingdai Gongshi Yanjiuhui (ed.) Qingdai Gongshi Tanwei (Studies on the history of the Qing court), Beijing: Zijincheng Chubanshe, 1991, pp. 308–25; Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life of the Forbidden City, 1988, pp. 74–5. Unless otherwise specified, the system and the pattern of

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22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40 41

deployment introduced in this section refer to the standard practice of the mid-Qing before 1800. Qin, ‘Qingdai gongting de jingwei zhidu’, pp. 311–14 and Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life of the Forbidden City, p. 75. This and the following two figures are obtained from: Qin, ‘Qingdai gongting de jingwei zhidu’, pp. 311–12. Qing Court, Qinggongshi Xubian, ‘gonggui’ (regulations of the palace) 4, juan (volume) 48, ‘dianli’ (rites and rules) 42, ce (book) 5. I am referring to: Qing Court, Qinggongshi Xubian, ‘gonggui’ 4, juan 48, ‘dianli’ 42, ce 5; and Qin, ‘Qingdai gongting de jingwei zhidu’, pp. 308–25. This reconstruction is based on my ‘Space and power’, p. 331. Qin Guojin, ‘Qingdai gongting de jingwei zhidu’, pp. 315–16. From the early nineteenth century, more forces were added to this system. Besides, in all periods, eunuchs were also placed at the key gates and buildings to assist the security forces. Neither of these two is included here. Qing Court, Qinggongshi Xubian, ‘gonggui’ 4, juan 48, ‘dianli’ 42, ce 5; Qin, ‘Qingdai gongting de jingwei zhidu’, pp. 317–19; and Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life of the Forbidden City, p. 75. Qing Court, Qinggongshi Xubian, ‘gonggui’ 4, juan 48, ‘dianli’ 42, ce 5; Qin, ‘Qingdai gongting de jingwei zhidu’, pp. 317–19. Qing Court, Qinggongshi Xubian, ‘gonggui’ 4, juan 48, ‘dianli’ 42, ce 5 Qing Court, Qinggongshi Xubian, ‘gonggui’ 4, juan 48, ‘dianli’ 42, ce 5; and Qin, ‘Qingdai gongting de jingwei zhidu’, pp. 317–19. Qing Court, Qinggongshi Xubian, ‘gonggui’ 4, juan 48, ‘dianli’ 42, ce 5; and Qin, ‘Qingdai gongting de jingwei zhidu’, pp. 319–20; and Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life of the Forbidden City, p. 75. There were 30 check points with a total staff of about 500, and 12 stations with a total staff of about 200. See my ‘Space and power’, p. 332 and Qing Court, Qinggongshi Xubian, ‘gonggui’ 4, juan 48, ‘dianli’ 42, ce 5. The following description of the later reigns of the Ming is based on Xu Daling and Wang Tianyou (eds) Mingchao Shiliu Di (The sixteen emperors of the Ming dynasty), Beijing: Zijincheng Chubanshe, 1991, pp. 191–213, 263–93, 300–19, 320–55. Xu and Wang, Mingchao Shiliu Di, p. 274; Xu, pp. 146, 194–5, The following description of the later reigns of the Qing is based on Zuo Buqing (ed.) Qingdai Huangdi Zhuanlue (Biographies of the emperors of the Qing court), Beijing: Zijincheng Chubanshe, 1991, pp. 175–235, 236–62, 263–99, 300–41, 343–69, 370–406, 407–32. Susan Mann Jones and Philip A. Kuhn, ‘Dynastic decline and the roots of rebellion’, in John K. Fairbank (ed.) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 10: Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part I, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978, pp. 107–62. Zuo, Qingdai Huangdi Zhuanlue, pp. 343–5. Zuo, Qingdai Huangdi Zhuanlue, pp. 376–8. Zuo, Qingdai Huangdi Zhuanlue, p. 412. Zuo, Qingdai Huangdi Zhuanlue, pp. 430–1. 7 CONSTRUCTS OF AUTHORITY

1 Fung, A History of Chinese Philosophy, vol. 1 the period of the philosophers, pp. 327–30. 2 This group was led by Shendao (c.395–15 BC). See Fung, A History of Chinese Philosophy, p. 318; Roger T. Ames, The Art of Rulership: a study of ancient Chinese political thought, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994, pp. 65, 72, 87–94; Editorial Group, Hanfeizi Jiaozhu (an annotated and examined translation of Hanfeizi), Jiangsu: Jiangsu Renmin Chubanshe, 1982, pp. 298, 570. 3 This group was represented by the work of Shangyang (?–338 BC). See Fung, Chinese Philosophy, pp. 319–21; Editorial Group, Hanfeizi Jiaozhu, p. 589.

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4 This was best represented by the work of Shenbuhai (c.385–37 BC). See Fung, Chinese Philosophy, pp. 319–21; Editorial Group, Hanfeizi Jiaozhu, p. 589. 5 Fung, Chinese Philosophy, pp. 320–1; Editorial Group, Hanfeizi Jiaozhu, p. 589. 6 Fung, Chinese Philosophy, pp. 318–21; Ames, Art of Rulership, pp. 72, 87. 7 Editorial Group, Hanfeizi Jiaozhu, pp. 570–1; Fung, Chinese Philosophy, p. 318. 8 Editorial Group, Hanfeizi Jiaozhu, pp. 297–8; Fung, Chinese Philosophy, pp. 325–6. 9 Ames, Art of Rulership, pp. 90–1; Editorial Group, Hanfeizi Jiaozhu, pp. 34–9. 10 Jullien, Propensity of Things, p. 50. I owe a great deal to Jullien’s work for the understanding of shi. 11 Li, Zhongguo Gudai Sixiang Shilun, pp. 96–7. Li Zehou was one of the earliest scholars to explore this connection between The Art of War, Daoism and Legalism in contemporary analysis of classical Chinese philosophy. François Jullien’s work on shi, on the other hand, offers a broad interpretation of this stream of thought in the Chinese tradition. 12 Fung, Chinese Philosophy, p. 332. 13 Jullien, Propensity of Things, p. 49. 14 Editorial Group, Hanfeizi Jiaozhu, p. 38. 15 Gérard Chaliand, The Art of War in World History: from antiquity to the nuclear age, Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1994, p. 17. I am describing the author and the book as generally accepted. Some scholars suggest that the book may have been written in the Warring States period (480–221 BC). See Samuel B. Griffith, Sun Tzu: The Art of War, London: Oxford University Press, 1963, pp. 1–19. 16 Tao Hanzhang, Sun Tzu: The Art of War, trans. Yuan Shibing, Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Reference, 1993, p. 105; Griffith, Sun Tzu, pp. 77–8; Wang Jiandong, Sunzi Bingfa (Sunzi: the art of war), Taipei: Zhongwen Chubanshe, 1982, p. 73. 17 Tao, Sun Tzu, p. 107; Griffith, Sun Tzu, p. 87; Wang, Sunzi, p. 111. 18 Tao, Sun Tzu, p. 108; Griffith, Sun Tzu, pp. 88–9; Wang, Sunzi, p. 111. 19 Tao, Sun Tzu, p. 110; Griffith, Sun Tzu, p. 93; Wang, Sunzi, p. 139. 20 Tao, Sun Tzu, p. 110; Griffith, Sun Tzu, p. 93; Wang, Sunzi, p. 139. 21 Tao, Sun Tzu, p. 110; Griffith, Sun Tzu, pp. 92–5; Wang, Sunzi, p. 139. 22 Ames, Art of Rulership, p. 65; Jullien, Propensity of Things, pp. 59–61. 23 Tao, Sun Tzu, pp. 111–13; Griffith, Sun Tzu, p. 100; Wang, Sunzi, pp. 163–4. 24 Ames, Art of Rulership, p. 65; Jullien, Propensity of Things, pp. 59–61; Li, Zhongguo Gudai Sixiang Shilun, pp. 77–105. 25 Fung, Chinese Philosophy, pp. 330–5; Jullien, Propensity of Things, pp. 51–2; Li, Zhongguo Gudai Sixiang Shilun, pp. 88–97. 26 Jullien, Propensity of Things, pp. 64–9; Fung, Chinese Philosophy, pp. 279–311. 27 Li, Zhongguo Gudai Sixiang Shilun, pp. 103–5. 28 Jullien, Propensity of Things, p. 68. 29 See for example Michael I. Handel, Masters of War: classical strategic thought, London: Frank Cass, 1996 and Jullien, Propensity of Things, pp. 34–8. 30 Handel, Masters of War, pp. 19, 47, 150–1; Jullien, Propensity of Things, pp. 34–8; Chaliand, Art of War in World History, pp. 17–18 (‘Sun Zi’s conceptual breakthrough’). 31 Peter Paret, ‘The genesis of On War’, in Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, pp. 3–25, 14–17; and Jullien, Propensity of Things, pp. 36–7. 32 Plato’s Republic may be excluded because it does not look at politics from this materialist, functionalist point of view. 33 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985; Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1946, pp. 491–8 (Book 3, Chapter iii, ‘Machiavelli’); Jullien, Propensity of Things, pp. 54–5. 34 Jullien, Propensity of Things, p. 55. 35 Russell, Western Philosophy, pp. 531–41 (Book 3, Chapter viii, ‘Hobbes’s Leviathan’). 36 Russell, Western Philosophy, pp. 596–616 (Book 3, Chapter xiv, ‘Locke’s Political Philosophy’).

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37 Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, ed. Miran Bozovic, London: Verso, 1995; Russell, Western Philosophy, pp. 740–7 (Book 3, Chapter xxvi, ‘The Utilitarians’); Jullien, Propensity of Things, pp. 55–6. 38 Bentham, Panopticon, pp. 33–4. 39 Bentham, Panopticon, p. 31. 40 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, pp. 195–228. See also Michel Foucault, ‘The eye of power,’ in Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge, ed. Colin Gordon, Brighton, Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1980, pp. 146–65. For architectural research concerning the design of the Panopticon, see Paul Hirst, ‘Foucault and architecture’, AA Files, no. 26, 1993, pp. 52–60; Markus, Buildings and Power, pp. 118–30; Evans, The Fabrication of Virtue, pp. 195–235. 41 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 205. 42 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 222. 43 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, pp. 213–17, p. 216 44 Jullien, Propensity, pp. 56–7. 45 J.M. Roberts, The Penguin History of the World, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976, pp. 531–2, 558. 46 This point has been indicated in Jacques Gernet, ‘Introduction’, in S.R. Schram (ed.) Foundations and Limits of State Power in China, London: School of Oriental and African Studies and the Chinese University of Press, 1987, pp. xv–xxvii. I am most grateful to Jacques Gernet’s article which played a crucial role in forming the argument in this section. 47 Roberts, History of the World, pp. 553–4. 48 Roberts, History of the World, pp. 676–87; John Bowle, A History of Europe: a cultural and political survey, London: Pan Books, 1979, pp. 483–95. 49 Gernet, ‘Introduction’, p. xviii. 50 Gernet, ‘Introduction’, p. xxii, pp. xvi–xxv. 51 Gernet, ‘Introduction’, p. xxii. 52 Gernet, ‘Introduction’, pp. xxvi–xxvii. 53 This comparison was first explored in my ‘Space and power’, pp. 462–89. A subsequent encounter with François Jullien’s The Propensity of Things in 1996 encouraged me to consider the Beijing-Panopticon connection more closely, as reflected in my ‘A Chinese mode of disposition: notes on the Forbidden City as a field of strategy and representation’, Exedra, vol. 7, no. 1, 1997, pp. 36–46. 8 A RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE 1 This is based on E.T. Williams’ translation. See E.T. Williams, ‘The state religion of China during the Manchu dynasty’, Journal of the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, no. 44, 1913, pp. 11–45. 2 See notes 17 and 18 in Chapter 2. 3 Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith, London and New York, Routledge: 1972, pp. 26–30, 71–6, 86–7, 116–17. 4 The following descriptions of the rites at the imperial court are based on: Zhao Qingshi Gao, ‘li’ (rites) 1–12, juan (volume) 82–93, ce (book) 10, pp. 2483–761. 5 Zhao, Qingshi Gao, ‘li’ 1–6, pp. 2485–614. 6 Zhao, Qingshi Gao, ‘li’ 6–8, pp. 2595–656. 7 Zhao, Qingshi Gao, ‘li’ 9, pp. 2657–72. 8 Zhao, Qingshi Gao, ‘li’ 10, pp. 2673–88. 9 Zhao, Qingshi Gao, ‘li’ 11–12, pp. 2689–761. 10 The Chinese calendar combines lunar month and solar year to make both full moon and the four seasons predictable. Twenty-four terms based on a solar year are combined into the calendar for the convenience of farm work. Although generally uncertain in their location in date and month (until 2 years in advance when the calendar is prepared), the four key solar terms, the two equinoxes and two solstices, are always

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11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

located in the central months of the four seasons, that is, in the second, fifth, eighth and eleventh months. See Joseph Needham and Colin Ronan, The Shorter Science and Civilization in China, vol. 2, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 182–3. See my ‘Space and power’, pp. 526–37. Zhao, Qingshi Gao, ‘li’ 7, juan 88, ce 10, pp. 2616–17. See also Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, p. 14. Zhao, Qingshi Gao, pp. 2621–2. See also Wan, Wang and Lu (comp.) Daily Life in the Forbidden City, p. 15. Zhao, Qingshi Gao, pp. 2622–3. Zhao, Qingshi Gao, p. 2624. Zhao, Qingshi Gao, ‘li’ 8, juan 89, pp. 2649–50. Editorial Group, Zhongguo Jianzhushi, p. 70 and Liu, Zhongguo Gudai Jianzhushi, p. 347. Williams, ‘The state religion of China during the Manchu dynasty’, pp. 26–7. Zhang and chi are units for measuring length used in China. 1 zhang  10 chi  3.3333 metres. The following description of the worship of Heaven is based on Zhao, Qingshi Gao, ‘li’ 2, juan 83, pp. 2503–7 and Williams, ‘The state religion of China during the Manchu dynasty’, pp. 28–38; and Wan, Wang and Lu, Daily Life in the Forbidden City, pp. 292–3. 9 FORMAL COMPOSITIONS: VISUAL AND EXISTENTIAL

1 Roland Barthes, Empire of Signs, trans. Richard Howard, New York: Hill and Wang, 1982, pp. 30–2. 2 Meyer, The Dragons of Tiananmen, pp. 61–2. 3 Wang Qiheng, ‘Fengshui xingshi shuo he gudai zhongguo jianzhu waibu kongjian sheji tanxi’ (An analysis of a fengshui theory of xing-shi and the design of exterior space of architecture in traditional China), in Wang Qiheng (ed.) Fengshui Lilun Yanjiu (Research on the theories of fengshui), Tianjin: Tianjin Daxue Chubanshe, 1992, pp. 117–37. 4 Wang, ‘Fengshui xingshi shuo’, p. 120. Chi is a unit of length used in China. 1 chi  0.3333 metre. 5 Jullien, Propensity of Things, pp. 91–105, 151–61. 6 Boyd, Chinese Architecture, p. 73. 7 Guo Xi and Guo Si, ‘Linquan gaozhi’ (Lofty ideas of forests and springs), in Yu Jianhua (ed.) Zhongguo Hualun Leibian (An anthology of theories of painting in China), Hong Kong: Zhonghua Shuju, 1973, pp. 631–50. See also Ye Lang, Zhongguo Meixueshi Dagong (An outline of a history of aesthetics in China), Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 1985, pp. 277–94. 8 See, for example, Wan-go Weng and Yang Boda, The Palace Museum, Peking: treasures of the Forbidden City, London: Orbis Publishing, 1982, pp. 174–5. 9 This argument is first developed in my ‘Visual paradigms and architecture in postSong China and post-Renaissance Europe,’ in Maryam Gusheh (ed.) Double Frames: Proceedings of the First International Symposium of the Center for Asian Environments, Sydney: Faculty of the Built Environment, University of New South Wales, 2000, pp. 147–65. 10 Boyd, Chinese Architecture, pp. 73–4. 11 Boyd, Chinese Architecture, pp. 72–3. 12 Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, vol. 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part III: Civil Engineering and Nautics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971, p. 77. 13 Li Yunhe, Huaxia Yijiang: Cathay’s Idea – Design Theory of Chinese Classical Architecture, Hong Kong: Guangjiaojing Chubanshe, 1984, pp. 129–33; Edmund N. Bacon, Design of Cities, London: Thames and Hudson, 1967/1974, p. 249.

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14 Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form. 15 Alberto Pérez-Gomez, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, 1983; Alberto Pérez-Gomez and Louise Pelletier, Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge, Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, 1997; Robin Evans, The Projective Cast: architecture and its three geometries, Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, 1995; Lise Bek, Towards Paradise on Earth: modern space conception in architecture, a creation of renaissance humanism, København: Odense University Press, 1979; and Peter Eisenman, ‘Visions’ unfolding: architecture in the age of electronic media’, Domus, no. 734, January 1992, pp. 20–4; reprinted in Kate Nesbitt (ed.) Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996, pp. 556–61. 16 Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting, trans. John R. Spenser, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956, pp. 43–59; Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form, pp. 27–31; Martin Kemp, The Science of Art: optical themes in Western art from Brunelleschi to Seurat, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990, pp. 9–23; Samuel Y. Edgerton, The Renaissance Rediscovery of Linear Perspective, New York: Basic Books, 1975, pp. 143–65. 17 Pérez-Gomez, Architecture and the Crisis, pp. 174–5; Pérez-Gomez and Pelletier, Architectural Representation, pp. 56, 58, 65, 74; Evans, The Projective Cast, pp. 111–13, 121, 141–2; Bek, Towards Paradise on Earth, pp. 157–63, 232–3; Eisenman, ‘Visions’ unfolding’, pp. 20–4. 18 Peter Eisenman has made this point in many places. See for example, Peter Eisenman, ‘Blue line text’, Architectural Design, nos 7–8, 1988, pp. 6–9; reprinted in Andreas Papadakis (ed.) Deconstruction: omnibus volume, New York: Rizzoli, 1989, pp. 150–1; and ‘The end of the classical: the end of the beginning, the end of the end’, Perspecta: The Yale Architectural Journal, no. 21, 1984, pp. 154–72; reprinted in Kate Nesbitt (ed.) Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture, New York, pp. 212–27. 19 I have made this argument in: Jianfei Zhu, ‘Visual paradigms and architecture’, pp.147–65. 20 Zhu, ‘Visual paradigms and architecture’, pp. 151–2. 21 Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form, pp. 63–6. 22 Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Alan Sheridan, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978, p. 86. 23 Martin Jay, ‘Scopic regimes of modernity’, pp. 3–23. See also Martin Jay, Downcast Eyes: the denigration of vision in twentieth-century French thought, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993, pp. 69–82. 24 René Descartes, Discourse on Method and the Meditations, trans. F.E. Sutcliffe, London: Penguin Books, 1968, pp. 53–60; Roger Scruton, A Short History of Modern Philosophy: From Descartes to Wittgenstein, London and New York: Ark Paperbacks, 1981, pp. 29–49. 25 Zhu, ‘Visual paradigms and architecture’, pp. 151–2. See also notes 13, 14 and 15. 26 Zhu, ‘Visual paradigms and architecture’, p. 152. 27 Zhu, ‘Visual paradigms and architecture’, pp. 152–3. 28 Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgement, trans. James Creed Meredith, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952, pp. 2–50, 75–80, 90–3. 29 Roberts, The Penguin History of the World, pp. 531–58. 30 Robert W. Berger, A Royal Passion: Louis XIV as patron of architecture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 53–72, 107–42; Jean-Marie Pérouse de Montclos, Versailles, trans. John Goodman, New York, London and Paris: Abbeville Press, 1991, pp. 44–73; Spiro Kostof, A History of Architecture: settings and rituals, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 534–6. 31 Zhu, ‘Visual paradigms and architecture’, p. 155, 161, 163. I have worked on this elsewhere. See my ‘Constructing a Chinese modernity: theoretical agenda for a new architectural practice’, Architectural Theory Review, vol. 3, no. 2, November 1998, pp. 69–87; and ‘Gouzao yige xin xiandaixing: configuring a new modernity’, Chengshi yu Sheji: Cities and Design, nos 5–6, September 1998, pp. 43–62.

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Zhao Erxun (comp.), Qingshigao (History of the Qing dynasty), Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1977. Zhao Zifu, ‘Wuzong Yi huangdi Zhu Houzhao’ (The Wuzong Yi emperor Zhu Houzhao), in Xu Daling and Wang Tianyou (eds) Mingchao Shilu Di (The sixteen emperors of the Ming dynasty), Beijing: Zijincheng Chubanshe, 1991, pp. 191–213. Zheng Lianzhang, Zijincheng Chengchi (The walls and the moat of the Purple Forbidden City), Beijing: Zijincheng Chubanshe, 1986. Zhou Jiamei et al. (eds), Guangxu Shuntianfu Zhi (Emperor Guangxu’s annals of the Shuntianfu prefecture), vol. 1–2, chapters 1–18, Jingshizhi (Annals of the capital), Beijing: Guji Chubanshe, 1987 (first published in 1885). Zhu, Jianfei, ‘Space and power: a study of the built form of late imperial Beijing as a spatial constitution of central authority’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1994. ——, ‘A celestial battlefield: the Forbidden City and Beijing in late imperial China’, AA Files, no. 28, Autumn 1994, pp. 48–60; reprinted in Chinese as ‘Tianchao shachang’, trans. Xin Xifang, Jianzhushi (Architect), no. 74, 1997, pp. 101–12; and also in Wenhua Yenjiu: cultural studies, no. 1, 2000, pp. 284–305. ——, ‘A Chinese mode of disposition: notes on the Forbidden City as a field of strategy and representation’, Exedra, vol. 7, no. 1, 1997, pp. 36–46. ——, ‘Gouzao yige xin xiandaixing: configuring a new modernity’, Chengshi yu Sheji: Cities and Design, nos 5–6, September 1998, pp. 43–62. ——, ‘Constructing a Chinese modernity: theoretical agenda for a new architectural practice’, Architectural Theory Review, vol. 3, no. 2, November 1998, pp. 69–87. ——, ‘Visual paradigms and architecture in post-Song China and post-Renaissance Europe’, in Maryam Gusheh (ed.) Double Frames: proceedings of the first international symposium of the Center for Asian Environments, Sydney: Faculty of the Built Environment, University of New South Wales, 2000, pp. 147–65. Zhu Wenyi, Kongjian, Fuhao, Chengshi: yizhong chengshi sheji lilun (Space, symbol, city: a theory of urban design), Beijing: Zhongguo Jianzhu Gongye Chubanshe, 1993. Zuo Buqing (ed.), Qingdai Huangdi Zhuanlue (Biographies of the emperors of the Qing court), Beijing: Zijincheng Chubanshe, 1991.

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absolutism: state and society 89; in China and Europe 184–6, 235; see also centralization of state power adjacency to the emperor: eunuchs’ 131; ladies’ 122–3; spatial and corporeal 126, 131–2, 144 Alberti, Leon Battista 236 Altar of Agriculture 32, 201 Altar of Heaven 32, 197, 201–5, 211–20, 245 Altar of Land and Grain 32, 101, 201, 205 Altars of the Earth, the Sun and the Moon 32, 201 An Dehai 167 andingmen 61 annual calendar, religious structure in 203 Art of War 7, 172, 176–7, 179; Daoist influence in 177 Ascension to the Throne 205 audience 101, 108, 145; ‘behind the curtain’ 125, 133, 146, 167, 169; ceremonial versus functional 115; ‘at the imperial gate’ 101, 108, 115, 130–1, 140, 150, 199, 206 (see also transitional space); see also Grand Audience; Normal Audience Auspicious Rites 199, 200–1, 203 authoritarianism 173, 184, 188, 247; in the use of spatial and social resources 188 autocracy 223, 241 autocratic: machine of the throne 154; rule 185 automatic and autonomous, operation of power 175, 182, 187, 192 axial and diagonal routes 108–12, 140–1; see also diagonal route; inward movement axis 29, 42, 223, 227; axial layout 235, 237–8, 240; optical 240; optical versus organizational 242–4; organizational 242

Bacon, Edmund N. 235 Banners 62, 67, 70, 74, 150, 155 baojia system 67–9, 74–5, 89 Barthes, Roland 223–4 battleground, imaginary: across the country 155, 161; urban 74–5 beautiful 240, 242; see also sublime Beethoven, Ludwig van 179, 240 beichizi-nanchizi 60 Beijing and Cartesian Perspectivalism 234–5, 242–4, 245; see also Cartesian Beijing and the Panopticon 7–8, 10–11, 187–8, 192–3, 246; see also Panopticon design Beijing Gazette 151–2 Bek, Lise 236–7 Bentham, Jeremy 7–12 passim, 180–6, 225, 246; and Han Fei 182, 187–8, 192; see also Beijing and the Panopticon; Han Fei; Panopticon design Bianliang 17 bi-nuclei urban structure 65–6 blood politics, of the Qing 133, 145, 164, 167, 169 body: as discourse 210, 218–19; of the emperor 168–9, 190–1, 218–19 body-person and head-ruler, of the emperor 132, 143–4, 190; see also body Bonaparte, Napoleon 8, 179, 184 Boullée, Etienne-Louis 179, 237–42 Bourdieu, Pierre 12–13 Boyd, Andrew 8, 225, 227, 234–5, 242 Brunelleschi, Filippo 236 bureaucracy 62, 184–6, 193; see also civil bureaucracy Capital City 29, 32, 34, 46–78 passim, 83–4, 101, 119, 137–8, 155, 158, 190 Cartesian: epistemology 238; perspectivalism 239; see also subject; subjectivity

275

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Cartesianism 238–42; see also Cartesian cell maps see space syntax Cenotaph for Isaac Newton 237, 240 Censorate 62, 186; see also censors censors 62–3, 66, 150, 186 centralist design: centralism 35–6, 223, 246–7; centrality 91–2, 189, 201, 222–3, 245–6; negation of 227, 231, 234–5, 244–5; spatial and institutional 188; see also concentric layout centralization of state power 8, 179–80, 182, 184–8, 192 centre and periphery, in religious layout 201, 221; as Palace City and Altar of Heaven 218–20 centre, inside the Palace City: ceremonial versus functional 113–15; symbolic 101 centres of social interactions 79–88 passim; see also foci of social interactions ceremonial and functional routes see axial and diagonal routes; diagonal route; inward movement ceremonies 8, 200, 205; see also terrestrial and celestial Changan 17 Checkpoints 71, 74, 159, 161, 191 Chen Hao 39 Chen Yi 39 cheng 45–6 Cheng De 164–5 child emperors 125, 133, 163 167, 169 chongwenmen 61 Chongzhen 163 Cian 125, 133, 145 167 Circular Altar 201, 212, 214–16, 220; see also Altar of Heaven city plan: as formal representation 41, 44; as a whole 42; symbolic meaning of 222, 245; see also formal plan and actual space; symbolism city planning: abstract configuration in 32, 36; Chinese approach to 32–4, 222; see also town planning civil bureaucracy 62; in Beijing 66–8; see also Shuntianfu prefecture Cixi 125–6, 133, 145–6, 167, 169 Clausewitz, Carl von 240; and Sun Zi 179, 182; see also Sun Zi Commending Rites 199–203, 206 composition: formal and aesthetic 222–3, 225, 227, 231, 245; overall and symbolic 93 concentric layout: as disposition 246; functionalist 192; symbolic 48–50, 178, 203, 221, 222–3

Confucian ideology see imperial ideology Confucianism 8, 35–6, 42, 91, 182, 222, 242–3; see also Confucianism and Legalism; Neo-Confucianism Confucianism and Legalism: contrast between 173; synthesis of 41–2, 44, 92, 177–8, 193, 246 corporeal space see space cosmic aura 234, 244–5; see also heavenly cosmological ethics 39, 186, 188, 193, 198, 222, 246–7 court letters 152–4 courtyard-boundary maps see space syntax cross-cultural: comparison 4, 236; dialogue as method 10 cul-de-sac alleys 54–5 Dadu 4, 19, 28 dao, in Confucianism 35, 39–40 Daoguang 145, 164, 167 Daoism 175, 177, 182, 225, 242 Daxiang Dian 29 Declaration of Imperial Decree 205, 207 deep space see space deliberative system 149 deployment of forces 70, 74, 155–6; see also war-machine depth: deepest 108; in depth–height relationship 154, 161, 170–1, 188, 191–2, 246; overall 108, 189, 190; progression of 107–8, 113, 118; spatial 50, 106, 107, 246; of Yongzheng’s palace 115–6 depth–height relationship see depth Descartes, René 238–9; see also Cartesian; Cartesianism; subject design: as disposition 192; political and strategic 170; urban and architectural 97; see also spatial design diagonal route 108–12, 115, 118, 138, 140, 142, 190, 246; see also inward movement dianmen dajie 61 disciplinary society, in Foucault and China 67, 182 discourse practice, religious 199, 210–11, 215, 219–21, 245 dispersion 235; of the centre 244; of the object 242; see also immersive–dispersive composition distancing 138, 140, 155 division: horizontal 75; spatio-political 75–6; vertical 75; vertical and horizontal 92, 224, 231 Dong Zhongshu 35–9, 198 donglindang party 145, 163 dongzhimen 61

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Dovey, Kim 10 duality of Beijing 44; see also Confucianism and Legalism; formal plan and actual space; li and shi; wangdao and badao Dutton, Michael 11 eastern areas of Beijing 60–1, 108, 138, 189 Eisenman, Peter 236–7 emperor–minister relationship 7, 134–5, 139–40, 142–6, 149, 164, 168–9, 190–1, 246 emperorship see tectonic of the throne empress dowagers 125–7, 133, 144–5, 167–8; see also Cian; Cixi eunuchs of the imperial court 120–1, 127–35, 144–6, 162–3, 168; of the Ming 132–3, 145 Evans, Robin 236–7 examination system 68, 185 eye-power, of the throne 4, 7, 11, 155, 171–2, 187, 191, 246; see also gaze fa 173, 175 face of the throne 210 fairs see temples fengshui 23, 225–7 Fengyang 20 festivals see temples figure-ground map of Beijing 51–2 First Emperor of China 182 five-level urban structure see hierarchy foci of social interactions 87–8; see also guilds; temples; theatres Forbidden City see Palace City form and propensity 225–7, 230–4, 244–5; as local forms and global outlines 225–7 formal plan and actual space 3, 6, 41, 44–5, 48–9, 91–3, 103, 178, 188, 246 formlessness, strategic 176–7 Foucault, Michel 10–11, 67, 182, 187; see also Beijing and the Panopticon; Bentham, Jeremy; disciplinary society; discourse practice; Han Fei; modernity Four Books 37 French Revolution 184–5 fuchengmen 61 functionalist, aspect of the Chinese mind 11 Gate of Grand Qing Empire 207 Gate of Heavenly Peace 101, 207–8 Gate of Heavenly Purity 101, 108, 129–31, 150–1, 158, 205–8, 215 Gate of Supreme Harmony 206 gates, as thresholds 49, 92

gaze: imperial 4, 155, 187, 192; in linear perspective 236 geo-architectural construction 5, 27, 91, 93, 246; see also Grand Canal; Great Wall geographical configuration, of Ming China 22–3, 25, 27; geo-political 23; global dimension of 23; as posture 23 geographical importance see site of Beijing geo-political construction 5 Gernet, Jacques 185–6 globalization 1 gongsuo 68–9 Grand Audience 101, 203–8, 220 Grand Canal: in geo-architectural construction 5, 27, 91, 93, 246; reopened 22–4, 26, 91 Grand Council 102, 121, 135–6, 139, 154, 164, 168, 170 Grand Secretariat 61, 102, 121, 135, 137, 139–40, 149, 151–2, 170 Grand Secretariat and Grand Council 116–18, 136, 138–9, 152, 190–1 Great Wall 23; expansion of 24, 29, 91; in geo-architectural construction 5, 27, 91–3, 246 great within 102, 113, 127 Guangxu 133, 167–8 Guest Rites 200–1 guilds 80–3, 87, 89 Guo Xi 230, 242 Hall of Middle Harmony 205–6 Hall of Supreme Harmony 101, 205–8, 210, 216, 220, 234 Hall of Yearly Harvest 212, 214–15 Han Fei 7, 10–12, 172–92 passim, 246; and Jeremy Bentham 182, 187–8, 192 Hanfeizi 172, 177, 179 Hanson, Jullien 10; see also space syntax harem, imperial 121–7; as rear palace 144–5 Haussmann, Baron 237 He Shen 164, 168 Heaven, sacrifice or worship to 199, 201, 203–4, 212, 220 heavenly: aura 199, 245; decree 198; mandate 199 hierarchy: five-level urban structure 66; imperial government 62–3; logic of 75; overall 88, 92; social 48; as a socio-spatial tectonic 75–7; spatial 46, 50, 54, 57, 60; spatial and institutional 138 high ground, spatio-political 48, 63, 76–7, 88, 92, 170, 175, 177; see also pyramid Hillier, Bill 10; see also space syntax

277

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Kangxi Nanxuntu 228–9 Kant, Immanuel 179, 238, 240, 242 Kantianism 239 Kaogongji 32–4 kowtow 210, 216–19, 221

Hobbes, Thomas 180, 182, 184, 187 Hongwu (Zhu Yuanzhang) 19–22, 37, 42, 44, 91, 134–5, 170, 185, 191, 223, 246 horizontal scroll painting 8, 227, 230 horizontality 231 Hu Weiyong 134 Hua Yuanlong 28 immersive–dispersive composition 242, 247 Imperial City 29, 46, 52–64 passim, 70–1, 74; as gap between the palace and the government 138 imperial edict 152 imperial gaze see gaze Imperial Household Department 102, 121, 156 imperial ideology: content of 198, 221; and cosmological ethics 198, 222; dissemination of 69; and ideal city plan 34, 42, 91; of kingship 34–6; making of 205; representation of 199, 203, 246 Inauspicious Rites 200–1 inequality (asymmetry): of the boundary 172; centre–periphery 180–1; inside– outside 171, 189, 190, 192; of seeing 172, 175, 181–2, 187, 191–2; see also seeing inner and outer court 6–7, 133, 143–4, 146–7, 170, 189–90 inner court 99, 169; see also inner and outer court inside–outside differentiation 246; see also inequality institutional space see space institutionalization, of urban space 224, 231–4, 244 invisibility see walls inward movement, of offices, officials and documents 140, 142, 144, 146–8, 171 inward–outward flows 171; see also inward movement Jay, Martin 12, 239 Jiajing 28–9, 32, 145, 214 Jiaqing 163–4 Jingcheng Quantu 5 jingjie see night curfew jingju see Peking Opera jingshan qianjie 60 Jullien, François 10–12, 178, 182, 225–7 jun-chen relationship see emperor–minister relationship junjichu see Grand Council Kangxi 41–3, 68, 121, 150–1, 170, 185–6, 192, 205

Lacan, Jacques 239 ladies of the imperial court 119–27, 132–3, 145–6, 168–9 Lao Zi 11, 39 Learning of the Way 38 Legalism 42–4, 92, 172–3,175, 185, 192–3, 244, 246; Daoist influence in 175 li (reason) 39–41, 44, 42, 92, 246; see also li and qi; li and shi li and qi 40–1, 92 li and shi 41, 44, 92, 246; see also Confucianism and Legalism Li Yunhe 235 Li Zehou 10–11, 178 Li Zicheng 163 Lin Qing 164, 166 Linan 18 linear perspective 8, 12, 236–9 lines, as streets 53 Linquan Gaozhi 230 Liu Jin 132, 145, 162 liulichang 68 Locke, John 180 Longfusi 85–7 Louis XIV 8, 184–6, 241 Lu Jiuyuan 39 Luoyang 17 Machiavelli, Niccolò 7, 180–7 passim machine: as apparatus 182, 187, 189; as institutional set-up 175, 187; of the state 6, 7, 246 maritime expeditions 20–1, 91; see also Zheng He Markus, Thomas 10 materiality of the text, religious 220; see also discourse practice mega-architecture 189 mega-cities 1 memorials (benzhang) 150–2, 169, 191; see also palace memorials (zouzhe) Mencius 37–40 Meridian Gate 101, 206–8, 211, 216 Meyer, Jeffrey 224–5 Military Rites 200–1 military system 62; in Beijing 66, 69–75, 155–61; see also war-machine modernity: in imperial China 11; in Michel Foucault 67; Western 187; see also Beijing

278

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and the Panopticon; functionalist; traditional and modern monumentality, in China and Europe see town planning mountain of the empire, spatio-political 63, 77; see also high ground Nanjing: capital of the Liao 19; capital of the Ming 4, 20, 22 Needham, Joseph 235, 242 neige see Grand Secretariat neiting see inner court neiwufu see Imperial Household Department Neo-Confucianism 36–8, 42, 92–3, 103, 178, 198, 221, 222 night curfew 71 nodes: social 54; spatial 53; urban and social 78–9; for urban governance 68; see also lines Normal Audience 205–6 north and south, symbolic 210, 215, 218, 221 object 237–8; dispersed 242; see also immersive–dispersive composition; subject–object relationship One Hundred Day Reform 167 open space as a network 52–4, 54–61, 89 Opium War 164 organized migration: demography expanded 27; households resettled 22 Outer City 29, 32, 48, 65; as ‘another’ space 90; centre of theatres 82–3; outer court 6–7, 99, 142; see also inner and outer court Palace City 6, 29, 31, 46, 52, 59–61, 64, 68–71, 97–133, 155–61, 165–8, 187–92 passim, 224, 234 palace memorials (zouzhe) 151–2, 154, 191 Palace of Heavenly Purity 101, 115 Palace of Mental Cultivation 102, 115, 121, 124–5, 127, 167 Panofsky, Erwin 12, 236, 238 Panopticon design 8, 10, 180, 182, 187–8, 192, 225, 231, 246 Paris 237 patrol system 158 Peking Opera 82–3, 89 Pelletier, Louise 236–7 Pérez-Gomez, Alberto 236–7 pole: of multiplicity 204; of purity 203–4 popular religion 83–4 postal system 150–3, 191

power see centralization of state power; eyepower; power relations; pyramid; space power relations 3; in a geo-political diagram 23; a map of 6, 175; a triangle of 7, 146, 149, 170, 180, 190; see also pyramid prime-ministership 19, 44, 134–5, 170, 185, 191, 223 psychology, of Ming emperors 20 Purple Forbidden City see Palace City pyramid: spatio-political 48, 50, 75–6, 92–3, 154–5, 170–8, 188–9, 192, 246; visual 7, 155, 236 qi 230, 244–5 Qianli Jiangshantu 230–3 Qianlong 42, 121, 136, 163, 214 Qie, Lady 163 Qin empire 182, 184 Qinian Dian 29 quarantine cities 67 rationalism, of the Ming empire 44 restrictions, on social life and space 83, 89 resurgence, of Ming China 29 Ruan An 28 Sacred Edict, recitation of 68–9; see also imperial ideology, dissemination of sacrifices 8, 200, 205, 211–20, 245; see also Heaven; terrestrial and celestial sage ruler 37, 40, 42, 92; see also wangdao scale (largeness) 97, 99, 118, 187, 223–5, 231–5, 241, 244–5, 247; in relation to power 223, 241 secrecy, of transmission of documents 151–2; institutionalization of 154 seeing 3, 236–8, 241–4 passim; apparatus of 154; asymmetrical 11, 175, 181–2, 187, 191–2, 224; pyramid of 7, 155, 236; and subjectivity 12; see also eye-power; gaze; linear perspective shi 173–7, 182, 187, 192, 227, 230, 234, 244–6; see also form and propensity; li and shi shop fronts 78–9 shu 173, 175 Shuntianfu prefecture 66–9, 75 Shunzhi 198 site of Beijing 18, 19, 22; geo-political centrality of 25; strategic importance of 23, 24, 91 Skinner, William 65–6 social life 78–9, 87–9, 92; see also guilds; social; space, temples; theatres

279

INDEX

Son of Heaven 6, 198, 220, 221, 245 space: actual or real 6, 41, 44, 45, 103, 118; analytics of social 10; ‘another’ 90; composition of 8; corporeal 6, 132–3, 168, 189; deep or inner 97, 99, 112, 115, 118, 143, 169, 189–90, 234, 244; of the empire 5; as a field of practice 3, 48; infinitesimal 231, 234, 245; institutional 6, 142, 187, 190; and power 3; social 10, 222, 224; of society 6, 87–8; of the state 6, 75–7; system of 187; temporality of 231; see also depth; formal plan and actual space; spatial design space syntax: analysis of connectivity 56; analysis of integration 56, 112–18 passim; analysis of integration core 58–9; analysis of steps 103–12 passim; cell maps 105,116, 127; courtyard-boundary maps 104, 116, 117; method 3, 10 space–time relationship, in the Palace City 99 spatial design, Chinese approach to 1, 4, 9, 12, 235, 247; see also dispersion; immersive–dispersive composition; subject; subjectivity; town planning; urbanity spatio-temporal structure, religious 204 state–society relationship 88–90, 92–3 strategic: compositional 245; control, geographical 91; political 246; propensity in a disposition 177, 179, 189, 192; see also shi; spatial design streets: as element of urbanity 79; as networks 78, 88; as a spatial form 78; for stalls and vendors 79; see also lines; open space as a network subject: Cartesian 8–9, 239, 242; centric 239, 245; Chinese 9, 12, 245; immersion of 242, 247; as inter-subjective 242; in seeing 241–2; see also seeing; subject–object relationship; subjectivity subjectivity: Chinese 9, 12; imperial 221 subject–object relationship 239–42 sublime 240, 242 Sun Zi 7, 11, 172, 176–8, 187, 192; and Carl von Clausewitz 179, 182 Sunzi Bingfa see Art of War suppression on space and movement 159, 161, 191; see also division; restrictions symbolism: of the formal plan 222, 245; and naming 103 tectonic of the throne 143, 146 Temple of Ancestors 32, 101, 201, 205 Temple of Yearly Harvest 201

temples 83–7; as ‘another’ space 90; as centre of public life 87; fairs at 84–9, festivals at 86–9; spatial articulation of 85; temporal framework of the use of 84 temporality of space see space terrestrial and celestial: as ceremonies and sacrifices 200, 205, 245; rites 204, 220; sites 201 theatres 82–3, 89; see also Outer City theories of imperial rule 7 three-fold structure, of the imperial government 62, 75, 92, 133; see also Censorate; civil bureaucracy; military system Tianqi 163 Tokyo 223–4 Tongzhi 125, 133, 167 totalitarianism 173, 188 totality 36, 42, 91–3; in disposition 245, 247; in a total order 246–7 town planning, Chinese and European 234–6; see also Beijing and Cartesian Perspectivalism traditional and modern, in Chinese imperial rule 186, 188, 193 trajectory, of Chinese capitals 17–8, 23, 91 transitional space, between inner and outer court 101–2, 115, 140, 148, 158 triangle, of power relations at the imperial court see power relations urban social life 92; see also foci of social interactions; guilds; temples; theatres urbanity, Chinese and European 52, 79, 92 urban–rural relationship 90 ‘u-space’, in the Palace City 106, 108, 113–14, 159, 161, 189 vermilion endorsement 151–3 Versailles, Palace of 235, 237, 240–2 View of an Ideal City 238 Villa Madama, Rome 237 Villa Rotonda, Vicenza 237 waichao see outer court waiting see outer court walls 45–6, 48–9, 97, 103, 106; abstract 161; complex of 189; and invisibility 223–5; social 155; system of 50; use of 92, 118, 223–5, 231, 243–4 Wang Fuzhi 41, 44 Wang Hui 228–9 Wang Qiheng 225

280

INDEX

Wang Shouren 39 Wang Ximeng 230, 242 Wang Zheng 145 Wang Zi 145 wangdao 6, 8, 40 wangdao and badao: separation of 40; synthesis of 41, 42–4, 92 Wanli 145, 162–3, 168 war-machine, of the state 70, 75 Wei Zhongxian 145, 163 Western ideas and methods 9–10; see also cross-cultural White Lotus sect 164 Winter Solstice 8, 199, 203–4, 206, 212, 215–16, 218, 220 wooden fences 71, 92 Xianfeng 133, 145, 164, 167 Xianyang 17 xing and shi see form and propensity Xu Da 22, 28 Xuantong 133, 167–8 xuanwumen 61 yamen 67

Yangxindian see Palace of Mental Cultivation Yi Jing 38–9 Yin-Yang cosmology 35–9, 91, 103, 182, 214, 242 Yixin 145, 164, 167 Yonghegong 87 Yongle (Zhu Di) 4–7, 20–5, 28–9, 36–8, 42, 44, 91, 135, 170, 185, 192, 223, 246 Yongzheng 42, 44, 68, 115–18, 135–6, 151–2, 154, 170, 185, 191–2, 246 Zhang Juzheng 162 Zheng He 20 Zhengde 132–3, 162 Zhengtong 28–9 Zhongdu 19 Zhou Li 32–6 Zhuang Zi 39 Zhu Di see Yongle Zhu Houcong see Jiajing Zhu Xi 37–41, 44 Zhu Yuanzhang see Hongwu Zhu Yunwen 22 Ziwei Palace 103

281