The Power of Illusion - CCRU

"If you have not seen the magnificence of the Imperial Palace, how can you know the dignity of the Emperor?"

——"The Imperial Capital", Luo Binwang

Based on their own political history and traditions, Westerners tend to associate power with outward-looking or expansionist movements, such as exploration and conquest. As a result, they often find themselves deeply confused by ancient Chinese imperial power, which seems to exhibit a completely different or even opposite tendency.

The most emblematic of China’s introverted tradition is the Great Wall. Built over hundreds of years, it became a defensive barrier against the fierce steppe nomads that threatened China from the north and west, serving not only to keep out invaders but, like all defensive measures, to isolate the besieged. Yet the Great Wall was only the outermost ring of a vast concentric system of power that operated on remarkably consistent principles throughout the dynasties of the Central Plains.

From the imperial center to the empire’s borders and beyond, the Chinese emperor wielded power and influence unmatched by any Western monarch since the fall of the Roman Empire. Yet in China’s case, the projection of power seemed eclipsed by inviolability, retreat, or even disappearance. How could such a closed-door policy establish and maintain effective authority over such a vast territory? This is the central mystery of imperial China, at least for foreign visitors.

Nowhere is this problem more evident and intriguing than in Beijing’s Palace Museum, the ancient “Forbidden City,” so called because for 500 years it was completely cut off from the outside world—from the city, the rest of society, and the wider world.

Faced with the continued threat of the Mongols in the north, the third Ming emperor, Yongle Emperor Zhu Di, moved the imperial capital from Nanjing to Beijing and immediately began construction of the Forbidden City, which was built between 1407 and 1420. It is said that the project required a million workers, including at least 100,000 skilled craftsmen. The architectural design of the Forbidden City has obsessive and even paranoid characteristics, wrapping the palace layer by layer.

To fully appreciate this great attraction, visitors should start at Tiananmen in the south. From Tiananmen, head north through the Meridian Gate (where the ticket office of the modern Palace Museum is located) and enter the Forbidden City. This was the route that all visitors took to enter the palace in ancient times.

Crossing the Inner Golden Water Bridge, you will reach the Gate of Supreme Harmony, which leads to the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The Hall of Supreme Harmony, also known as the Golden Throne Hall, is the tallest building in the Forbidden City and the largest wooden structure in China. It is the largest of the three main halls in the outer court and the deepest place that envoys visiting the palace are allowed to enter.

Continuing northward into the Outer Court, you will reach the Hall of Central Harmony and then the Hall of Preserving Harmony. The Hall of Preserving Harmony is the innermost or northernmost hall of the Outer Court and the farthest point that a visiting monarch can enter.

Qianqing Gate is the main entrance to the inner court, which in ancient times was off-limits to even the most distinguished visitors. Today, it is where Starbucks, the only multinational company to penetrate the Forbidden City, is allowed in.

Continue northward and enter the inner court, passing through the three main halls: Qianqing Palace, Jiaotai Hall and Kunning Palace. Finally, through Kunning Gate, the exhausted tourists arrive at the Imperial Garden and Qin'an Hall in the garden.

To the north of the Imperial Garden is the Shenwu Gate, which is now both an exit and an entrance. However, to enter the Imperial Garden from this side is to miss the magical key to the entire site.

Although the Forbidden City was built as an imperial residence, the guiding strategy of its design was to impress—or, more accurately, intimidate—those who approached it from the outside, whether imperial subjects or foreign visitors. Each “barrier” was a theatrical performance whose only content was the emperor’s unreachable grandeur.

The architecture of the Forbidden City turns inexorably outward in artful retreat. The secret is not what is hidden but the dramatic display of that hiding. When one finally reaches the inner court, where the emperor actually lived with his wife, concubines, and children, it is the relative modesty and intimate scale that is most striking. One feels like an intruder “backstage,” where actors rest between performances and grand fantasies are temporarily put aside.

Western visitors recall The Wizard of Oz and the command “Don’t look behind the curtain.” The comparison becomes more alluring after learning that Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) literally ran the show from behind the scenes during the penultimate period of Qing rule.

Faced with these magic palaces, a new question arises: Was imperial China a huge magic show?

While the world of witchcraft is often associated with the occult and the hermetic, with things that are hidden, when a witch hides something, it is always by showing something else.

Because it was designed to conceal the seat of power, the Forbidden City makes no secret of its sorcerous aspirations. Built according to strict Feng Shui (Chinese geomancy), the Forbidden City laid out its buildings on a main north-south axis, forming a large-scale geometric pattern that dominates the city of Beijing even today. The halls and palaces are adorned with mythical animals, including imperial phoenixes and lions, clawed turtles symbolizing ancient sorcerous wisdom, cranes symbolizing longevity, and countless dragons—paired with the phoenix, playing with pearls, and guarding doorways. These mysterious animal legions are guardians and guides of secrets and meaning.

Most importantly, the witchcraft foundation of the Forbidden City is still in effect through "Numerology" (the ancient Chinese "secret study of numbers" or "mysticism").

The secret number of imperial power is nine, the highest number in the decimal system, and the Yongle Emperor took full advantage of its characteristics in numbers and calculations. The Forbidden City has 9,999 rooms, the gates are inlaid with multiples of nine, and the towers have nine beams and 18 columns each. The Yongle Emperor even built a rockery in the Imperial Garden, Jixiu Mountain, with a Yujing Pavilion on the top, to commemorate the Double Ninth Festival on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. His mysterious obsession with the number "nine" reached its peak in the circular reconstruction of the Temple of Heaven, which consists of nine concentric stone slabs, each of which is a multiple of nine, from nine to eighty-one.

The Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty inherited this astrological thought and built the magnificent Nine Dragon Wall in front of the Donghuangji Gate.

Modern visitors might dismiss the Forbidden City’s mysteries as mere eccentricities, evidence of a ruling elite whose introversion was divorced from all practical considerations. After all, wasn’t imperial China also blinded by the potential spectacular effects of gunpowder, failing to use its invention for military purposes? Yet such condescension risks being blinded in turn, thereby ignoring an important lesson of China’s imperial history. Mystical wonders may produce illusions, but illusions can be the currency of power.