Who built the Forbidden City: the Yongle Emperor and 500 years of emperors

The Yongle Emperor and the construction of the palace

The Yongle Emperor was ambitious. When he took power, the capital was in Nanjing. He decided to move it to Beijing and build a palace befitting an emperor of his stature. In 1406, he ordered construction to begin. Fourteen years later, in 1420, the palace was complete. That speed, for a project of that scale, required the kind of resource mobilization only an emperor could command.

The labour was conscripted. Builders, soldiers, craftsmen and their administrators were sent from across the empire. The materials came from specialist sources: timber from the southern forests, stone from quarries near Beijing, ceramics from kilns in Jiangxi province. Moving these materials across the empire and keeping workers fed and organized was itself a major undertaking. The Yongle Emperor had the means to do all of it.

When the palace was finished, it was the most significant building project in the world at that time.

Ming emperors: the founding dynasty

After the Yongle Emperor, the Ming dynasty continued to use the palace. The Ming ruled from 1406 to 1644. Not all Ming emperors were as active as Yongle; some delegated heavily to bureaucrats. But the palace remained the seat of power throughout the Ming period.

The Qing emperors: a foreign dynasty in the palace

In 1644, the Manchu people conquered China and established the Qing dynasty. They also took over the Forbidden City and used it as their palace. This might have meant rebuilding or wholesale replacement, but it did not. The Qing emperors adopted the palace as their own and continued to rule from it. The physical structure remained largely unchanged, but the court that inhabited it shifted from Chinese to Manchu. The dynasty continued until 1912.

Some of the most famous Qing emperors — the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors — left visible marks on the palace through renovations and additions. But the fundamental layout that the Yongle Emperor created remained intact.

The last emperor and the end of the palace

Puyi was the last emperor. He became emperor as a child in 1906 and lived most of his early life in the palace. But the Chinese revolution in 1911 ended the imperial system. Puyi was allowed to stay in the palace under house arrest until 1924, when he was forced to leave. He was a young man by then, but his time in the palace was over.

With Puyi’s departure, the palace ceased to be a seat of power. In 1925, it opened as the Palace Museum. It has been a public institution ever since.

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