Agostino Sepe

BACK TO THE ROOTS: THE IMPERIAL CITY OF AS A SYMBOL OF THE MANCHU ETHNIC IDENTITY OF THE

ABSTRACT At the UNESCO meeting held in Suzhou on the 2nd of July 2004, the Imperial City of Shenyang was listed as a World Cultural Heritage Site, so that now it is recorded together with the of as one single item: Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Ming Qing gongdian 明清宮殿. Nevertheless, the importance of Shenyang Palace is not at all due to its similarity to the one in Beijing. The part of the Shenyang Imperial City built before the Manchu conquest of Beijing in 1644 mirrors the culture of the and the institutions of its rulers in its architectural . The part built during Qianlong’s reign, on the other hand, is evidence of the devotion of Later Qing emperors (from Kangxi to Daoguang) towards their ancestors and their Manchu origins. At the same time, the palace also reflects the of the Manchus and the merging of the two different cultures and institutional systems, both in some of its buildings and in its whole. These two aspects clearly distinguish the Palace from the Forbidden City and confer it with immense historical and cultural value. It is, therefore, from these points of view that I will deal with Shenyang Imperial City in this paper, whose purpose is to demonstrate how the palace is a symbol of the origins and the history of ’s last dynasty. The most ancient sources I will base my work on are Qing shilu 清實錄 (I will mainly refer to the sections regarding the Qing emperors from to Qianlong) and Manwen laodang 滿文老檔, which is a source of the utmost importance for the study of Qing history before the conquest of Beijing.

Ming Qing Yanjiu XVI (2011) ISSN 1724-8574

Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe 1. The ’ Pavilions 1.1 Nurhaci1 conquers Shenyang The second month of the sixth year of his reign (1621), the Eight Banners led by Manchu leader Nurhaci broke into the two small centres of Fengjibao 奉集 堡 and Hupiyi 虎 皮驛 near Shenyang, opening a passage to invade the city. On the tenth day of the third month, in Sarhū 薩爾滸, near the Hun river 渾河, Nurhaci ordered his troops to convey siege arsenal to Shenyang by river; two days later, his troops encamped seven li to the East of Shenyang’s fortification walls. The battle against Ming forces was about to begin. At the time, the Ming-controlled Shenyang was guarded by generals He Shixian 賀世賢 and You Shigong 尤世功, whose army counted about ten thousand soldiers. The large quantity of cannons and heavy artillery backing the He-You troops led Nurhaci to conclude that an immediate attack would be too dangerous. But soon he learned that two more Ming contingents had just left and Fengjibao and were heading to Shenyang to prevent the Eight Banners from breaking into the fortification. Nurhaci understood that, if he waited until the arrival of the Ming reinforcements, his troops would be confronted by the enemy on two fronts and would have no chance of resisting the attack. An abrupt and decisive assault was therefore necessary. Thus Nurhaci ordered ten members of his selected to gallop towards the wall surrounding Shenyang, openly challenging the enemy. General You Shigong sent his personal guards to face them. The Ming warriors killed four of Nurhaci’s knights and triumphantly receded behind the defensive wall.

1 The great warrior and leader Aisin Gioro Nurhaci (Chinese: Aixin jueluo Nuerhachi 愛新覺羅努爾哈赤) unified all the Manchu tribes in the Liaodong region and reorganized their society by establishing the ‘Eight Banners System’. So doing, he laid the socio-economic and military basis for the Manchu conquest of China. In 1616, he founded the dynasty 後金, whose would eventually be changed to Da Qing 大清 in 1636. His rise to power, the creation of the Eight Banners and his military campaigns in Liaodong are discussed in detail in Wakeman Jr. 1985: 49-74.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots The following day, upon Nurhaci’s , other Manchu horsemen headed towards the city walls. Ming general He Shixian, hoping to finally rout his enemy, mounted an assault with his entire contingent. Feigning defeat, the Hou Jin troops let Ming forces break into their ranks. Then suddenly, the Eight Banners selected cavalry split up, surrounding Ming troops and attacking them from both sides. With the last of his strength, General He managed to break through the encirclement and retreat through the West Gate. However, the enemy soldiers followed him and took his life, his troops by now decimated. General You too, rushing to the West Gate to save his companion, was intercepted by the Later Jin cavalry and killed. At this point Nurhaci was aware that he had a good opportunity to burst through the fortification and ordered his soldiers to siege the gates and the wall. The Ming army thus resorted to cannons to try to fend off the assault (a source says that cannonades were so frequent that the cannon pipes became incandescent, causing the balls to shoot out as soon as they were loaded 2 ). Even this incredibly powerful artillery, however, couldn’t stop Nurhaci’s men, who shortly afterwards broke into the wall and took the city. When Nurhaci entered the Ming garrison city of Shenyang, the Ming reinforcements had just reached the Hun River’s shores, so Nurhaci sent the “Four Banners of the Right Wing” troops to receive them, thus ridding himself of his enemies one by one. 1.2 The new capital After the conquest, however, Nurhaci didn’t establish Shenyang as the reigning capital; in 1621, Liaoyang was chosen as the new capital of the Later Jin , a city which was already the largest economic and political center, as well as the most important military base, of the Liaodong region under the Ming. Here Nurhaci built his royal palace and ordered the remains of the Aisin-Gioro ancestors be transferred from Hetu Ala 赫圖阿拉3 to Mount Luyang 魯陽山 not far NorthEast of the city. Furthermore, the other leaders of the Eight Banners began construction of their personal residences and buildings

2 Mingshi jinshi benmo 明史紀事本末, 4:1424. 3 Hetuala was the capital of the Later Jin khanate from 1603 to 1619.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe for political activities. Thus it seemed that the khanate capital was to remain in Liaoyang. 4 Nevertheless, four years later, Nurhaci held a meeting with all the Beile 貝勒 and the Dachen 大臣（Great Counsellors) 5 and announced his intention to transfer the capital from Liaoyang to Shenyang, which was at that time a small frontier town lacking not only a royal palace but also any kind of structure which could serve as basis for the administration of power. Just as had happened with Nurhaci’s earlier relocation of the Later Jin capital,6 his plans met with opposition from princes and counsellors. But just as he had done previously, Nurhaci imposed his will peremptorily. The Manwen laodang 滿文老檔, the most ancient source about the historical facts discussed here, only reports the chronicle of the expedition from Liaoyang to Shenyang; in Qing Taizu gaohuangdi shilu 清太祖高皇帝實錄, which is a more recent (from the Qianlong period) but richer source,7 the description of the journey is preceded by a debate between Nurhaci and his princes and officials about the transfer of the capital. The Beile and Dachen held that, while Liaoyang royal palace had already been built, people’s homes were not yet finished and the harvest had been very poor that year, so setting out on a new journey would be too hard on the people and dangerous for the country. Nurhaci put emphasis on the location of the city of Shenyang, which was extremely favourable from a strategic point of view: to the West was the Ming Empire, which could be reached by crossing the Liao River at Duerbi 都爾鼻; to the North, Mongolian territories could be reached in just two or three days; finally, to the South there was Chaoxian (North ), just beyond the Qing River.

4 Wen Shuping, Wang Yanchun 2008: 3. 5 In 1613, Nurhaci conferred his five sons-in-law with the rank of Great Counsellors (Manchu: ); in 1615 he assigned four of his sons the Hošoi Beile, ‘Elder Captain’, (Chinese: Da Beile 大貝勒). In the same year he also designated four ‘Young Captains’ so that each banner was under the direct control of a Beile. See Wakeman Jr. 1985: 54. 6 Wu Bin’s work refers to the transfers of the capital from Hetu Ala to Jiefan 界藩, in 1619, and from Sarhū to Liaoyangin 1621. See Wu Bin 2007: 34. 7 See Wu Bin 2007: 38.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots The also emphasized the possibility, afforded by the river, of supplying the city with large quantities of wood, which could be used to build the palace and as firewood; moreover, the surrounding environment was extremely good for hunting and fishing. And finally, Nurhaci declared once for all that his decision was irrevocable.8 This is how Nurhaci expressed himself regarding the economic and military reasons for which the capital was to be transferred. That the Khan’s reasoning was indeed correct would be proven later, after his death, by the successes of his heir Taiji (洪太極 transliterated in Chinese also as Huang Taiji 皇台吉) in his military campaigns in Liaodong (all departing from Shenyang). Nevertheless, we have reason to believe that such an abrupt decision may have been determined by other very different reasons which the historical sources don’t mention. During the war of conquest in the Liaodong territories, Nurhaci had carried out massacres of the Han people, enslaved the survivors and ordered mass deportation of peasantry, seriously damaging the local economy (some sources report acts of cannibalism); the countless rebellions which broke out in those years were bloodily suppressed, with an extraordinarily large amount of victims9 ; later, even the Ming officials who had surrendered to the Later Jin and faithfully served the khanate for years were persecuted, manhandled and even killed in some cases. By the middle of the , the ethnic conflict between the Han and the Manchu were exasperated to such

8西征明，由都爾鼻渡遼河，路直且近；北征蒙古，二三日可至；南征朝鮮，可由 清河路以進;且於渾河、蘇克蘇滸河之上流，伐木順流下，以之治宮室，為薪，不可 勝用也；時而出獵，山近獸多；河中水族亦可捕而取之[...]朕籌此熟矣，汝等寧不計 及耶! This extract from Nurhaci’s speech is from Qing Taizu gao huangdi shilu, vol. 9:10-11 (in Qing shilu 1:126-127). 9 The most violent repression took place in 1623. Nurhaci heard that in Fuzhou there were plans for a mass exodus of some 18,000 people to Ming territories. A 30,000-soldier contingent was sent to Fuzhou with orders to spare only women and children. The massacre had extremely grave consequences on the Southern part of Liaodong, where huge cultivable areas were abandoned. On the relationship and the conflicts between the Manchu and the Chinese in the Liaodong region, see also Crossley 1999: 182-183.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe an extent that it had become a factor of instability for the Later Jin state and the court: riots, attempts and sabotages had become daily occurrences. Such a critical situation must have led Nurhaci to conclude that the excessively large Han population in Liaoyang had become a serious threat to the Jin state. In the opinion of most contemporary specialists, this is the main reason why Nurhaci decided to move the Later Jin khanate capital from large, flourishing Lioayang to a small provincial town. Three of the most important sources present no discrepancies about the duration of the journey from Liaoyang to Shenyang: 10 Nurhaci, the Beile and the court left the ex-capital on the third day of the third month of tenth year of his reign (1625) at sunrise, encamped at Hupiyi for the night, and the following day arrived in Shenyang. The one-day, extraordinarily quick journey is deemed by many specialist to be further proof of how critical the situation in Liaoyang was, leading us to consider the transfer of the capital as an escape from the perilous Liaoyang rather than as a farsighted strategic move. In any case, the fact is that in 1625 Shenyang became the Later Jin khanate capital; from then on, the new Manchu Shenyang would be writing a new chapter in Chinese history. 11

10 Qing Taizu gao huangdi shilu and Manzhou shilu 滿洲實錄 only report the facts mentioned above; Manwen laodang is much more detailed in the depiction of the journey and of the ritual sacrifices Nurhaci and his entourage officiated just before their departure: they offered precious silk to the ancestors’ tombs, sacrificed five bulls at the “second yamen” and officiated the traditional burning of “paper money”. “三月初三 ，汗向沈陽遷移，[…]，在其父祖墓前供杭細綢，又在二衙門殺 牛五頭，燒了紙錢，遂去沈陽，於虎皮驛信宿。”. See Manwen laodang, Taizu chao 太祖 朝 : 626-627. 11 Shenyang has a nearly two millennia-long history: during the Age of Warring States it was capital of the Yan 燕 State. The city took the name of Shenyang only under the dynasty, it had been Houcheng 候城 in the Han period and Shenzhou 深州 under Liao and Jin domination. In Ming times the fortified city of Shenyang (Shenyang weicheng 沈陽衛城) was established and the wall built (see Tie Yuqin 1989: 87). During the Yuan and Ming periods, Shenyang the city had already developed remarkably (see Wu Bin 2007: 22); with Manchu conquest and the

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots 1.3 The East Wing In the past it was believed that Nurhaci, after moving to Shenyang, lived in the new Royal Palace, but the most recent studies deny this, disclosing the true position of Nurhaci’s mansion. Manwen laodang narrates that the tower of the Buddhist temple, located to the North of the Khan’s house, had brick foundations which had been stolen by the locals. Nurhaci’s counsellors later recovered the bricks and punished the thieves and the negligent monks.12 This means that a Buddhist temple existed to the North of the Manchurian leader’s dwelling. There is, however, no trace of any temple within the city wall of the old Ming Shenyang, but it seems there was one to the North, just outside the wall, near the North Gate, Andingmen 安定門. Since the Khan’s house could not possibly be located outside the city wall, it can be inferred that it was near the Andingmen and that to the North there were only the walls and the gate. Shengjing chengquetu 盛京城闕圖, a map of Shenyang drawn between the Kangxi period and the beginning of the Qianlong period, shows a large atrium with three buildings located just inside the Northern wall, and labelled as ‘taidzu i tehe gung’, Manchu for ‘Taizu de gong 太祖住 的宮’; the location confirms what we can deduce from the analysis of Mandang and other sources. We can thus conclude that Nurhaci built his own residence, and those of some of the princes, near the North Gate (for safety reasons) and that the Royal Palace, which consisted only of dian 殿 13 , was constructed to the Southeast of the Khan’s mansion.

There is no direct evidence that the construction of the Great Hall of Government (Dazheng dian 大政殿) was finished before Nurhaci’s establishment of Nurhaci’s khanate capital, however, Shenyang’s identity was totally changed along with its destiny. 12 Manwen laodang, Taizu chao: 631. 13 Dian 殿 , usually indicates a structure in which the emperor, generals and ministers handle political business; gong 宮 were instead the buildings the emperor, empress and concubines lived in. The East Wing of Shenyang Imperial City in fact has no gong, since Nurhaci, his concubines and sons did not live there.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe death, and sources don’t prove it either. The palace first appeared in Manwen laodang as ‘Great Hall’ (Dadian 大殿) in a passage describing a court ceremony attended by all the Beile, Dachen and the Khanate’s highest officials. This passage dates back only to the first month of the first year of the Tiancong period (1627) 14 , when had already inherited the leadership of the Khanate. Nevertheless, we still have various reasons to suppose that the Great Hall of Government, at least the bare structure, was completed the previous year. Due to the rigid climatic conditions of the Northeast, it is out of the question to consider that construction could have been carried out during the winter months. It is, therefore, logical to suppose that the palace must have been finished at the latest a few months before the above-mentioned ceremony, that is to say on the ninth month of the lunar calendar in 1626. The building of Liaoyang’s Bajiao dian 八角殿, whose structure and dimensions are much the same as those of the Dazheng dian, took about thirteen months. If we consider that the timeframe for construction of the Shenyang Great Hall can’t have been much longer than for the one in Liaoyang (it could even have been shorter, thanks to the experience gained by the Eight Banners architects while building the first palace), some specialists also suspect that Nurhaci may have ordered the demolition of Liaoyang’s Bajiao dian and had its components transported to Shenyang, in order to save on wood and other construction materials. It is reasonable to believe that the Dazheng dian was built over a period of eighteen months between the conquest of Shenyang and the death of Nurhaci in August of 1626. Finally, when Hong Taiji ascended to the throne, the Liaodong region was in a state of warfare, the Khanate was constantly threatened by Ming forces and the State’s economy had recorded

14 “諸貝勒大臣及文武官員等，五更末集於大殿。各按旗序排列。黎明，天聰汗率 眾貝勒大臣詣 堂子拜天即行三跪九叩頭禮。還，汗升殿落座，眾貝勒大臣及各旗行 三跪九叩頭禮。” Manwen laodang, Taizong chao : 805. The original name of the palace was Da Yamen 大衙門. In the Chongde period it was changed to Dazheng dian, and the alternative name Dugong dian 篤恭殿(Palace of Sincere Devotion) was added. For a detailed analysis of the history of of Dazheng dian see Wen Shuping, Wang Yanchun 2008: 8-9.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots heavy losses. Undertaking new construction work at this time would have taken more funds and human resources away from the fields, aggravating therefore the already precarious situation of the kingdom. In 1627, Hong Taiji suspended all construction activities and left all the necessary repairs to posterity.15 This also confirms that the Dazheng dian is most unlikely to have been built in 1627.

Sources testify that far back in the Hetu Ala period, when court ceremony and leadership assemblies were held, the Beile’s tents were put up in front of the Great Yamen.16 The Ten Pavilions of the Kings (Shi wang ting 十王亭), or Eight Banners’ Pavilions (Baqi ting 八旗亭) of the Imperial Palace of Shenyang, fulfilling the same purpose as the old tents, were built in front of the Great Hall of Government; we can thus deduce that they were constructed at the same time as the Dazheng dian. We can thus assume that, with the erection of the Eight Banners’ Pavilions and of two Music Pavilions (Zouyue ting 奏樂亭) in front of the Great Hall, the East section (Donglu 東路, commonly Dongyuan 東 院) was completed. On the basis of the proves reported above and of further clues that I will not discuss here,17 the East Wing is nowadays believed to have been built entirely during the years in which Nurhaci ruled. The Great Hall of Government is located in the center of the North side of the Donglu, facing South. The octagonal gabled roof, and the eight removable walls it rests on, are made entirely of wood. The structure is supported by forty columns, of which twenty-four are located outside and sixteen inside the walls. The two columns of the front façade are decorated with two splendid gold-lacquered wooden with one paw outstretched and showing their teeth and

15 治國之要，莫先安民，[...]，工築之興，有防農務，[...]今修葺已竣，嗣後有頹 壞者止令修補， 不復興築. See Qing Taizong shilu 清太宗實錄, 1:9-10 (in Qing shilu 2:26). 16 This was the name of the Hetuala Royal Palace too. 17 Numerous other clues and data have come to light confirming the period of construction of the Donglu and the location of Nurhaci’s house (see Wu Bin 2007: 41-45).

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe tongues. Their bodies are decorated with flames in bas-relief. At the top of each column is a carving of a ’s head facing forward. The 1.5-meter-high foundation, which supports a balustrade with carved flowers and animals, is in sumeru style (xumi 須彌)18, typical of the traditional architecture of Tibetan Lamaism. The eight sections of the roof are covered in yellow glazed tiles in the central part and green glazed tiles on the borders. This peculiar colour combination (huang liuliwa xianglüjianbian 黃琉璃瓦鑲綠剪邊) is the one and only architectural element which would be preserved during the expansion works of the Imperial City in the Qianlong Era. The roof pinnacle is divided into two different levels; the lower one in the shape of a cup baoping 寶瓶 and the higher one a ‘pearl with flames’ huoyanzhu 火焰珠. From the pearl, eight iron chains branch off and run along the eight roof pitches; on every pitch stands a statue of a ‘Great Mongol Warrior’, Menggu dalishi 蒙古大力士, who grabs the chain and turn his heads to one side. The eight chains, which point in the ‘Eight Directions’, that is to say, the whole cosmos, converge at the pearl representing therefore the universal powers of the Khan and his domination over the whole Tianxia (‘八方歸一’). Inside the palace, of particular interest is the ceiling decorated with a ‘defeated dragon’, surrounded by scripts in Chinese and Sanskrit, testifying to the coexistence of several ethnic groups in China. These components –the massive wooden structure and the magnificent dragons representing traditional Han architecture, the Xumi base platform typical of Tibetan lama temples, the eight statues of Great Mongol Warriors and, finally, the tent-shaped roof and its colour combination characteristic of Manchu architecture– all confirm the Great Hall of Government as a symbol of the multiethnic nature of early Qing society. Among all the buildings of Shenyang Imperial City, the Dazheng dian best reflects the great impulse that the fusion of Han, Manchu, Tibetan and Mongol cultures was given by the Later Jin Khanate. At the same time it is the symbol of the new centralized political identity of the Manchu State and of the foundations that the

18 According to the lamaist Buddhist tradition, Mount Sumeru is located in the center of the universe. The Chinese word xumizuo 須彌座 indicates the bases of Buddha statues in Buddhist temples.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots Manchu people, and their great leader, laid for the forthcoming conquest of China. It is this second perspective that I wish to discuss here in detail, in order to be able to understand the importance of the Dazheng dian from this specific point of view. It is necessary to analyze its relationship with the other buildings of the Donglu laid out along two lines in front of it, that is, the Eight Banners’ Pavilions. 1.4 The ‘Eight Banners’ system The ‘Banner’ is a Manchu institution created by Nurhaci in 1601 by means of the re-organisation and improvement of the already existing social structures which regulated the various Nüzhen tribes occupying the region (which corresponds more or less to the current NorthEast of China), and through which the leader of the Aisin Gioro clan achieved the fusion of a large number of decentralized social nuclei into a great centralized State of power. The origins of the Banners can be found in the ancient ‘production units’ into which the Nüzhen tribes were divided: the niru (Chinese: niulu 牛錄), which formed the main cell of the Banners until after the conquest of Beijing. The niru were basically teams of hunters –hunting being the tribe’s main means of livelihood– composed of ten men under the supervision of a captain, the niru ejen (niulu ezhen 牛錄額真). In order to organize his army, Nurhaci divided his men into niru, increasing the number of members to three hundred. For each team he nominated an ejen; each five niru formed a battalion, jalan, (jialan 甲喇) and ten jalan, in turn, formed the gūsa (gushan 固山), which is the Manchu expression for Banner.19 In 1601 the Yellow, White, Red and Blue Banners were created and in 1615 the Bordered Banners were added. As previously mentioned, between 1613 and 1615 Nurhaci appointed the chiefs and the counsellors for each

19 The Chinese terms used above are phonetic transliterations of their equivalents in Manchu. True Chinese denominations classifying the various levels of the Banner leaders were coined only after the Manchurian settlement in Beijing: the Manchu niulu ezhen 牛錄額真 became niulu zhangjing 牛錄章京; jialan ezhen 甲喇額真 was changed to jialan canling 甲喇參領; later, gushan ezhen 固山額真, which indicates the Banner general, was replaced with qidutong 旗都統.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe Banner; 20 consequently, by 1615 the making of the Manchu Eight Banners could be considered complete. The distinguishing feature, and point of force, of the Banner Institution was concentrating civil power (political, economical, and administrative) and military force within the same organization. All the bannermen (qiren 旗人) were farmers in times of peace and soldiers in times of war; each ejen was both the person responsible for the agricultural productivity of his unit as well as acting as the officer of his division. The Beile and the Dachen held the highest ranks as officials of the Khanate, the immediate subordinates to Nurhaci and, at the same time, were the generals and the strategists of the Banner Army. It was thanks to this institution that it was possible to reorganize the Nüzhen society of the Later Jin in the Khanate and it was through this institution that all the pieces were put in place to conquer China. The Banner is still today the symbol of an ethnic identity and its glorious past. 1.5 The Ten Pavilions of the Kings In the Eastern wing of the Imperial City, in front of the Great Hall of Government, along two slightly divergent lines, arise the Ten Pavilions of the Kings. On the East side, from North to South, are the Pavilion of the Supreme Commanding Officer of the Left Wing, the Pavilion of the Yellow Bordered Banner, the Pavilion of the White Banner, the Pavilion of the White Bordered Banner and the Pavilion of the Blue Banner. On the Western side, still from North to South, are the Pavilion of the Supreme Commanding Officer of the Right Wing, the Pavilion of the Yellow Banner, the Pavilion of the Red Banner, the Pavilion of the Red Bordered Banner and the Pavilion of the Blue Bordered Banner. The Ten Pavilions of the Kings in the Imperial City of Shenyang formed the location where the Beile and the Dachen carried out their government and military planning. Furthermore, they also held a very high symbolic value as they represented, both in their layout and characteristics of the single elements, the achievement and the

20 See above, note 9.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots consolidation of the Eight Banners, both as a central governmental organ and administration system and also as a military force. From the foundation of the Eight Banners onwards, it was with the leaders of these that Nurhaci discussed matters of state and war strategy. Already during the Hetuala period it was customary for the Beile, on the frequent occasions they met with the Khan, to mount their tents in front of the Great Palace. At Shenyang the construction of the ten wooden pavilions in front of the Dazheng dian constitutes, therefore, an architectonic crystallization of the original environment in which the meetings were held by the Khanate leaders. The army of the Eight Banners was divided into Right and Left wings which, during reassignment of the troops, moved side by side in two parallel lines. The Banners of the Right Wing were the Yellow, the Red, the Bordered Red and the Bordered Blue and the contingents marched in this order, one after the other. Those of the Left Wing were, in order: the Bordered Yellow, the White, the Bordered White and the Blue banners. The order in which the Ten Pavilions of the Kings are laid out –with the two pavilions of the Supreme Commanding Officials to the wings of those of the two Blue Banners– mirrors the exact marching sequence of the Banners’ armed forces while at the same time portraying the layout of the tents of the army camps, dawoci 大幄次. Finally, the two lines along which the pavilions are placed, progressively diverge as they gradually move away from the Dazheng dian, taking the shape of the number ‘eight’, thus symbolizing the number of the banners. The architectural layout of the complex of the Great Government Hall and the Ten Pavilions of the Kings is the result of expert utilization of perspective techniques: in each of the two lines, the distance between the pavilions laying on consecutive levels is always identical; for example on the Western side, the distance between the Pavilion of the Supreme Commanding Officer of the Right Wing and that of the Yellow Banner is equivalent to the distance from this latter pavilion to that of the Red Banner. The divergence of the two lines is obtained thanks to the gradual increase, from North to South as you move away from the Dazheng dian, of the distance between each building along one line with reference to the building in the other line

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe directly opposite, meaning that the distance between the two pavilions of the blue banners is the longest, and that between the two pavilions of the Supreme Commanding Officers is the shortest. Observing the whole from another point of view, therefore facing North, the effect is that of seeing the two lines of the Pavilions of the Banners, which act as breakout lines, converge towards the Government Hall, which can be recognized as the focal point of the entire construction perspective. This indicates, consequently, the central position and prevailing importance of the Great Hall of Government, and exalts its magnificence. The organization of this space symbolizes, therefore, the central authority of Nurhaci and the dependence of the system of the Eight Banners on its creator, the great Khan of the Later Jin. 21 The East Wing, therefore, symbolizes the most characteristic and representative complex of buildings in the Imperial City of Shenyang: it represents the most important existing Manchu ancient finding, and probably even more importantly, forms one of the very few examples in the world of a complete, perfect architectural representation of a political and military system. As stated previously, there is no testimony that the Great Hall of Government was utilized before the first year of the Tiancong Era in 1627. After the succession of Hong Taiji to the throne, the Dazheng dian lost (at least officially) its original function as the place where the Khan discussed state matters, and instead became a ceremonial palace. It is here that in 1636 the ceremony was held in which Hong Taiji officially changed the dynastic name to Da Qing. From this year onwards sources inform us of numerous ceremonies and meetings held at the hall, all of utmost importance from a political and military point of view. Among these ceremonies, the most important were: 1) In 1636, shortly after the foundation of the Great Qing, Hong Taiji assembled all the high-ranking Manchu and Chinese officials to the Great Hall of Government and, in their presence, burned the

21 Furthermore, the distance between the two lines of pavilions decreases steadily, from South to North, up to the Yellow Banner pavilions; the distance between the two pavilions of the Supreme Commanding Officers is, instead, considerably shorter than that between the two opposite pavilions, suddenly increasing the convergence of the two lines and further emphasizing the precise centrality of the Dazheng dian.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots Shu 赤書 a document which every year the court of Beijing delivered to the Nüzhen tribe leaders, indicating the tax to be paid to the emperor. He then gave a fervent and agitated speech in which he announced his complete refusal to submit to the Ming court and underlined his determination to conquer and dominate the entire country. In fact, he then declared war. 2) Again in 1636, the Qing army managed to pass through the and the border, cross Hebei and penetrate Shandong undisturbed, with Ming troops beating in retreat. At Jinan they plundered all the riches from the Prince of Lu’s residence and then returned to Shenyang. Hong Taiji threw a magnificent celebration in the palace and invited the Mongolian and Korean princes, as well as the high-ranking officials of the Banners, to share in the spoils. 3) In 1643 news of the fall of , a Ming stronghold which had bravely resisted the attacks of the Banners for many years, reached court. Huang Taiji, in a fit of irrepressible joy, let the drums roll at the four gates of the city, then climbed the large steps of the Dazheng dian and ordered the Great Counsellors to declare victory. 4) In 1643 Fulin 福臨 was escorted to the Great Hall of Government to be nominated Emperor at the tender age of six. At court it was announced that the following year the Shunzhi 順治 era would begin. 5) The following year the new Emperor ordered his uncle, General , to lead the Banners army to the West on an expedition aimed at conquering China. It is in the Great Hall of Government in the Imperial City of Shenyang, therefore, that the foundation of the Qing dynasty was announced. It is here also that military orders were given that would allow the Manchurian dynasty to conquer the central empire.

2. The Imperial Palace of Hong Taiji As stated in the first section,22 the building appearing under the name Dadian in documents from the Tiancong era (1627-1636) indicate the Dazheng dian, the Great Hall of Government of Nurhaci’s Imperial

22 See par. 1.3.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe City, which remained, after Hong Taiji’s ascension to the throne, the location where the most important ceremonials were held (along with the Palace of the Supreme Government). Nurhaci’s old residence, to the North of the palace near the Andingmen gate was instead abandoned. The Khan had a new gong built to the West of the Donglu. The main area is formed, from North to South, by the Palace of Tranquillity (Qingning gong 清寧宮), the Tower of the Phoenix (Feng- huang lou 鳳凰樓), the Palace of the Supreme Government (Chongzheng dian 崇政殿) and the Gate of the Great Qing (Daqingmen 大清门). With the denomination of Dagong Neique 大宮內闕, these buildings formed the central section of the Imperial Palace of Shenyang (Zhonglu 中路). At a glance, the reasons behind the construction of new buildings to the West of the existing ones seem obvious: the position had been chosen so that the new palace would be at the center of the old city and as near as possible to the Dazheng dian and the Pavilions of the Banners. But in actuality, by analysing in detail the layout of the city of Shenyang, it becomes clear that the new buildings would have been in the exact center only if they had been built to the East of the Donglu, and therefore the chosen spot to the West was effectively off-center. Moreover, although the new palace would have been a very short distance from the old one, the two would still be separated by the road running North to South through the old fortified Ming city, a road which would later be renamed Tongtianjie 通天街, as it is still known today. Hong Taiji’s choice, therefore, must have been determined by other factors. From the Shengjing chengque tu it is possible to reconstruct the positions of the Beile palaces of the Khanate of the Later Jin at the time of Nurhaci: the Palace of the princes of the two Red Banners were located to the East of the Great Hall of Government: those of the princes of the Blue Banners to the South: Dorgon’s and those of other commanders of the Yellow Banners to the North; and finally, the Beile Palaces of the two White Banners were placed to the West of the Great Palace. Hong Taiji, before his succession to his father, was a Beile leader (zhubeile 主貝勒) of the White Banner (full), and therefore, his palace should have been to the West of Nurhaci’s Donglu, in a position corresponding to that of the new buildings of the Zhonglu. It is, therefore, presumable that Hong Taiji had simply wanted to have

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots the new palace built on the site of his own old residence from when he was a Beile.23 The period of the construction of the Zhonglu is identified between the second and the sixth year of the Tiancong era (1628- 1632). The Manwen laodang tells of a ceremony on the eighth day of the fourth month of the first year of the Tiancong era (1627) held by Hong Taiji in his residence, during which he gave a horse as a gift to his two elder brothers Daišan and Manggūltai. With the expression ‘wo jia 我家’ Hong Taiji was referring to the old royal palace, as he had only been on the throne for a few months. A passage regarding the first month of 1632 reports that the Khan uttered the following words: 自我即汗位以來，兩兄從未一至我家。今延兩兄來家，豈可空 返? “Since I have been on the throne, my two elder brothers have not come to visit me in my residence. Today I have invited them both, how can I let them leave without giving them a gift?”24 The fact that the sovereign declares that his two brothers had never paid him a visit in his residence means that he could not be referring to the jia where he was living five years before and that his brothers had certainly been to. In fact, in this instance, Huang Taiji had invited the two Beile to the neiting 內廷, which at that time –as we know from other documents– had been embellished with a ‘Gate to the Hall’, Yuanmen 院門, a ‘Biandian25 便殿’ and the ‘Southern Palace’, Nanlou 南 樓. The old palace, therefore, must have undergone renovation and extensions. Once again on the fifth year of the Tiancong era (1631), Hong Taiji declared that extensions were to be made to Shenyang, including the opening of four new gates (for a total of eight) and the erection of the Palace of the Bells and the Palace of the Drums. The project aimed to make the structure of the city more suitable for the requirements of a capital. According to the Manwen laodang, the work was finished on the eighth month of the following year.26 It is logical

23 Wu Bin 2007:45-46. 24 Manwen laodang, Taizong chao 1190; Qing Taizong shilu, 11:4, (in Qing shilu, 2:151). 25 Modest-sized palace used by royalty for resting or spending spare time. 26 See Wu Bin 2007:46.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe to imagine that the construction of the royal palace was part of a much larger project to restore the city and that it was completed before other sections of the project. This would supply another element in favour of the theory that the Zhonglu was completed within the eighth month of 1632. Two Chaofang 朝房 and two music pavilions (zouyue ting 奏樂亭) are situated on two parallel lines running South to North in the space in front of the Palace. In correspondence to the Southern entrance of the city arises the Gate of the Great Qing, Daqing men. The Gate is in actual fact a building of five rooms, with a yingshan (硬山, sloping) type of roof, with yellow glazed tiles bordered with green tiles. The three walls, facing South, East and West, are all in multicoloured glazed tiles (wucai liuli 五彩琉璃) set in mosaics portraying the waves of the sea, dragons, plants and animals representing good fortune, wealth and longevity. The images with their bright colors and the four heads of the gables, carved with floral designs, render the building exceptionally beautiful. The Gate of the Great Qing is the name that the building was given after 1636: before that, it was called Zhongmen, ‘central gate’ or Damen, ‘great gate’. Officials of every rank were called to the Daqingmen when receiving a promotion or being granted a pardon for an offence. It was normal practice that, as an expression of thanks, they would pronounce out loud the formula ‘Tian En 天恩’, looking North towards the Chongzheng dian.27 Hong Taiji occasionally went to the Gate to receive ambassadors or Korean generals. The Gate of the Great Qing was the stage, during Huang Taiji’s reign, of the bloody suppression of revolt instigated by the Shanyouhui 善友會, a secret society formed by prisoners captured by the Qing army during the frequent raids on the various Chinese provinces, and later reduced to slavery. This event testifies to the fact that, despite Hong Taiji’s conciliatory politics, there was still a burning discontent among the Han population, dominated by the army of the Banners.28 At a considerable distance North of Daqingmen, in line with it on the central axis of the Zhonglu and therefore, more or less, of the entire

27 Tie Yuqin, Changji 1985: 30; the exclamation can be translated as ‘thanks to Heaven’s benevolence’. 28 Tie Yuqin, Shen Changji 1985: 30, 31.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots Imperial City, looms the magnificent Palace of the Supreme Government, Chongzheng dian 崇政殿 which up until 1636 was called ‘Central Palace’ Zheng dian 正殿, or Jinluan dian 金鑾殿 ‘Palace of the Golden Bells’. This is the Palace where the first Qing emperor dealt with state affairs and officiated the more important court ceremonies. Essentially, all the ceremonies held in this building were of great importance from a political point of view. In order to subjugate the tribes which still dotted , and thereby safeguard the boundary lines of the Kingdom, Hong Taiji generally allowed local leaders to maintain their power over their people while at the same time imposing on all the tribes an annual contribution to be paid to the Qing court. In order to maintain a good relationship with these populations, the sovereign also periodically gathered the leaders in the Palace of the Supreme Government, where he gave them generous gifts. In many cases the emperor established alliances with the Northeast populations by means of political marriages, and it was common practice to celebrate these weddings in the Chongzheng dian. To the Ming officials who surrendered to this system, Hong Taiji offered safety, income and important positions. The Chongzheng dian was also where ceremonies were held to sanction the transfer of ex-officials and generals of the Ming Empire to the service of the Khanate Jin or to the Great Qing Court, according to the period. As a show of goodwill, the sovereign would forgive the ‘redeemed’ officials for their past offences and grant them the very high honor of being invited inside the Palace for tea. 29 The Chongzheng dian also has five rooms and a sloping, yingshan- style roof. The building stands on a high platform and, on the front and back walls, are stone banisters decorated with animals and plants representing good luck. There are lions and qilin, plum blossoms, sunflowers and lotus flowers. On the top of the sloping ridge the porcelain ‘five color’ tile mosaic represents a beautiful ‘dragon chasing the globe’ (ganzhulong 趕珠龍), and there are also two more, slightly smaller, at the base of the two gables. At the two extremities of the rooftop, instead, there are two carved ‘dragons’ (qiulong 虬龍), a special kind of dragon from Chinese mythology, often referred to as the ‘two-

29 Tie Yuqin, Shen Changji 1985: 33.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe horned baby dragon’. According to the legend, these dragons had a particularly large, thick tail which enabled them to toss the waves of the sea so high that they fell back to the ground in the form of rain. Therefore, qiulong on palaces and buildings represent the domination of fire with water, “yi shui mie huo 以水滅火”.30 The columns which support the two arcades of the two front walls have a square base. On the contrary, those which support the roof of the building have a round base and are connected to each other at the top by carved dragons, whose heads overhang the eaves and whose tails reach inside the building. These dragons are both an integral part of the structural support of the construction as well as decorative elements of extraordinary beauty which lend the Chongzheng dian royal dignity. On the inside, the borders of the ceilings and the truss chain are decorated with motifs of white clouds and ‘peaches of immortality’, xiantao 仙桃. The throne on the gold-lacquered platform and the screen behind it were added during the Qianlong Era. The same era saw the addition, on the external terrace of the building, of a sundial and a scale of the jialiang 嘉量 variety, placed on the front of the Imperial Palace, to symbolize the universal power of the Emperor, arbitrator of the fate of Tianxia. The Palace of the Supreme Government was unquestionably of great importance during the reign of the Emperor Taizong, insomuch as it was the headquarters for the administration of imperial power and the site where events of major political and military significance were celebrated. It also has an inestimable artistic value. The four buildings which separate the Chongzheng dian from the Tower of the Phoenix were built between 1746 and 1748 on Qianlong’s orders; they were used as lodgings and a library for the Emperor’s children during his expeditions to the East. All the four buildings are of the yingshan type with roofs in dark green tiles. To the North of the Chongzheng dian, at a distance more or less equivalent to that between the Palace of Supreme Government and the Gate of the Great Qing, standing on a platform nearly four metres high and rising three storeys towards the sky, is the tallest building of

30 Ibid.:31.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots the entire architectural complex of the Imperial City of Shenyang – the Tower of the Phoenix, Fenghuang lou 鳳凰樓. The middle and upper storeys were intended as rooms in which the emperor, empress and concubines could read or rest. The characteristic architectural element of the Fenghuanglou is the presence of three eaves encircling all three levels of the roof. The Tower of the Phoenix is also famous for the wonderful view the highest floor provides at dawn: Looking out at the first light of dawn from the third floor of the Tower of the Phoenix and turning one’s gaze to the East, amid the disappearing stars and the dissolving night mist, appears a big, round red sun which, little by little, lights up the many palaces in the imperial city and gives a glimpse of a multitude of houses with smoking chimneys.31 This majestic and solemnly beautiful view comforts the heart and warms the spirit. ‘The Dawn of the Tower of the Phoenix’ (fenghuang xiaori 鳳凰曉日) has consequently been defined as absolutely the most beautiful among all the ‘Eight Magnificent Views of Shengjing’, Shengjing bajing zhi shou 盛京八景之首. Numerous artistic and literary works were kept in this building during the Qianlong Era. Following the suggestion made by powerful officials at Shengjing, the Emperor gave orders, on the eighth year of his reign (1743), that the official chronicles, Shilu 實錄, should be placed in the Fenghuang lou, where they would remain until the forty- third year, and then be transported to the Chongmo ge 崇謨閣. In the fifteenth year of his reign (1750), the ‘Portraits of the Five Emperors’, wuchao shengrong 五朝聖容 (Nurhaci, Hong Taiji, Fulin, Xuanye and Yanzhen) and their empresses and concubines, were transported from Beijing to the Tower of the Phoenix. Finally in the forty-fifth year of his reign, eighty-seven paintings depicting Nurhaci’s battle scenes (Taizu zhantu baolu 太祖戰圖暴錄) were transferred here from the Qianqing gong 乾清宮 in the Forbidden City in Beijing. Crossing the bottom floor of the tower leads to a corridor which is the only entrance to the five-building complex where the private apartments of the empress and concubine were situated. The five

31 Ibid.:35.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe palaces are all built on the same high platform as the Tower of the Phoenix, and along with the Tower, they are surrounded by two brick boundary walls. The space between them, called gengdao 更道, was the route used by the guards who watched over the bedrooms. This makes the totality of the five buildings a separate, elevated space, giving it the impression of being isolated from the rest of the Imperial City, as if it were a ‘palace within the palace’.32 It was this section of the Imperial City which Emperor Huang Taiji referred to as neiting or directly as ‘jia’; the personal apartment of the sovereign was situated, in fact, in the building at the center of the Northern complex, the Palace of Tranquillity, Qingning gong, in front of the Palace of the Phoenix. On the Eastern side lie, from South to North, the Palace of Eternal Happiness, Yongfu gong 永福宮 and the Palace of Amorous Attraction; on the West side, again from South to North, are the Palace of Long Life, Yanqing gong 衍慶宮 and the Palace of the Unicorn Hooves, Linzhi gong 麟趾宮. The four lateral buildings present the same architectural structure, with yingshan-type roofs in yellow glazed tiles, and a single floor with five rooms. These apartments were designated for the four highest ranked of Hong Taiji’s spouses, all princesses from Mongol tribes, allies of the Khanate, and all of who carried the name of the powerful Borjigit33 clan (Chinese Boerjijite 博爾濟吉特), descendants of Chinggis Khan.34

32 Wang Yangchun, Wen Shuping 2008:68-70. 33The Empress was called Jere (transcripted into Chinese as Zhezhe 哲哲), from the Korcin (Keerqi 科爾其) tribe. From the same tribe were the Empress’s two nieces: Hailanju (Hailanzhu 海蘭珠), who lived in the Guanju gong, and Bumbutai (Bumubutai 布木布泰), who resided in the Yongfu gong. Nam-rung (Namuzhong 娜木鐘) and Batma 巴特瑪 were from the Chahar 察哈爾 tribe; see Wen Shuping and Wang Yanchun 2008: 70-72; Xu Che, Zhang Shu 2008: 202-209. 34 Claiming kinship with Chinggis Khan was the only way Manchu leaders could legitimize their leadership as ‘Khans’, and the Borjigit clan had related itself to the Chinggisit by marriage. A marriage connection with the Borjigit lineage had already been established by Nurhaci with his spouse Yehenara Mongo, mother of Hong Taiji (see Crossley 1999: 210-211). Regarding the problems between the Manchu state and the and the legitimacy that Hong Taiji and later Qing emperors claimed as successors of Chinggis Khan, see Crossley 1997: 95-101.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots The abovementioned names were the ones given to the buildings after 1636. The denominations of the apartments of the Mongol princesses whom Hong Taiji had married are more inspired by Han culture, insomuch as they make reference to the classics of Chinese literature and philosophy. In particular, the name Guanju gong is taken from the first verses of the Book of Odes, Shijing 詩經:

關關雎鳩, Guan-guan go the ospreys, 在河之洲, on the islet in the river. 窈窕淑女， The modest, retiring, virtuous, young lady: 君子好逑 for our prince a good mate she.35

The name thus refers to the important role of the king’s spouse. With this name, therefore, the sovereign wished to express the “boundless love” that he nourished for Boerjigit Hailanju, niece of the Empress. The name Linzhi gong also evokes lines from the Book of Odes,36 while the “unicorn feet” represent charity and wisdom, virtues which Hong Taiji attributes to Borjigit Nam-rung. Qingning gong, on the other hand, is taken from a passage of the Laozi: “天得一以清，地得一以寧” (the sky reaches singularity and becomes pure; the earth reaches singularity and becomes peaceful37), exalting the virtues of the empress and the four princesses. The names of these buildings, reminiscent of the masterpieces of classical Chinese literature, are inscribed on the plaques of the façades alongside their version in the (on the left). Such bilingual plaques are also present in Beijing’s Forbidden City, but with an important difference: the Manchu characters on plaques in the Forbidden City are used merely to render the pronunciation of the Chinese text. For example, the of Baohe dian (保和殿, Palace of the Preservation of Harmony) in Beijing is nothing but a transcription in Manchu characters of the sounds of the Chinese ‘bao he dian’. On the contrary, if we take the inscription at Daqing men, we find the Manchu ‘Daicing duka’, with ‘duka’ meaning men 門(gate or

35 Shijing, I, 1 (國風，關雎). Tr. by James Legge, 1865: 1. 36 Shijing, I, 11, (國風，麟之趾)。Legge 1865: 19. 37 Daodejing, chap. 39.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe door), which is an original Manchu lexical element. Let us take now as an example the sign at Qingning gong. The Manchu Genggiyen elhe gung38 is clearly not a transcription of Chinese, except for gung, which obviously stands for the Chinese gong. We can thus state that the inscription of Manchu names of the palaces in Shenyang’s Imperial City are in ‘true’ Manchu language. The coexistence of original Manchu denominations of buildings alongside literary Chinese names is not only a further contribution that Shenyang Palace is able to make towards research into Manchu language and culture, but also a further testament to the fusion of two cultures that formed the Imperial Palace. The building which, from an architectural point of view, best represents the ‘neiting’ of the Imperial City is the Qingning gong. The external structure has a yingshan roof in yellow glazed tiles bordered with green tiles: it differs from the other four gong insomuch as the structure has both an anterior and posterior corridor. The interior is made up of five rooms with the entrance opening up on the East side: an isolated room at the Western extremity, called the Nuange 暖閣, was the bedroom for the emperor and empress. A wall at the center of the room divides it in two sections, one to the North and one to the South. The remaining four rooms on the Western side are situated one inside the other in a ‘pocket’, (koudaishi 口袋式) structure, and are surrounded, at their far external Northern, Southern and Western perimeters, by a kang 炕, which due to its shape was called wanzikang 萬字炕. This is a sort of heated platform used to sit and rest during the day and to spread out blankets to heat them for the night. The layout of the ‘pocket’ rooms and the presence of the kang are two architectural elements typical of Manchurian architecture. Such structures were able to keep in the heat, keeping the environment warm and comfortable even during the icy Northeast winter. In the Manchurian settlements in the Liaodong region, or even further North, this type of organization of internal spaces was absolutely indispensable. Also, the function of the ‘koudaigong’ was strictly connected to Manchu culture. “Pocket” rooms were in fact used for liturgical Rites based on the ancient beliefs of the Nüzhen populations;

38 See Stary 1996: 24.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots the Rites were carried out by the Manchu shamans, shaman 薩滿, also called chama 叉瑪, who wore an iron belt and hats or masks symbolizing the spirits as they sang prayers to the many idols of Manchu mythology, accompanying themselves with drums. During the ceremonies it was the custom to tie up a black pig and pour warm liquor into its ears. The animal would start to shake its head frenetically from the pain, thus showing that it had become an intermediary between the world of the spirits and that of men. The pig was then killed and the meat was eaten, after being boiled in a large iron pot taken from the ‘Room of the Spirits’.39 Overall, by looking at the buildings of the central section of the Imperial City of Shenyang, it is clearly evident that the architectural style is one that has broken away from Manchu cultural roots to draw closer to ancient and Han ethnicity. The individual buildings themselves have lost the characteristic ‘tent’ shape inspired by Nüzhen traditions and, moreover, the layout retains no element reminiscent of the system of the Eight Banners: these are the two elements which give an incalculable artistic and symbolical value to the architectural complex of the Great Hall of Government and the Ten Pavilions of the Kings of the Donglu. Other elements demonstrate, however, that during Hong Taiji’s time, even though the Manchu state, society and institutions were absorbing Chinese beliefs and culture and already witnessing profound metamorphic effects, the knowledge of the true origins of the sovereign and the court were anything but weak and were far from being obscured by the influence of ‘Chinese’ culture as intended in a strict sense. Let’s demonstrate this assumption with a clear example.

39 For a detailed explanation of the complex shamanic liturgies which were held in the Qingning gong see, amongst others, Di Cosmo 1999; Wu Bin 2007: 289; Tie Yuqin, Shen Changji 1985: 35-37. Shamanism is deemed by Chinese specialists to be the authentic, original religion of the Manchu. Some Western scholars, on the other hand, believe that this cult was “identified by Qing emperors with Manchu tradition and used to create Manchu identity” (Rawski 1998: 231). For a detailed discussion of Shamanism as the religion of the Qing court and its role in the building of the Qing state and its ideology see Rawski 1998: 231-244.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe The ‘Three Great Palaces’ of the Forbidden City in Beijing all rest on a raised platform of white jade, causing them to stand out against the sky and soar above the apartments of the Emperor and his wives. In the Imperial Palace of Shenyang this proportion is diametrically opposed. The podiums of the Chongzheng dian and the Dazhengdian, in fact, do not reach two meters in height. On the contrary, as mentioned before, the complex of the six buildings of the Fenghuanglou and of the five imperial residences (bingjian wugong 並建五宮) are built on a four- meter-high platform and, therefore, just like the Tower of the Phoenix, the private rooms of the Emperor and his wives (gong 宮) actually look down on the dian 殿 , the public buildings used for political administration and hosting court ceremonies. Gong gao dian di 宮高殿 低 (the gong rising above the dian) therefore, represents a characteristic aspect of the Zhonglu and also of the entire Imperial City. The construction of habitable rooms in such an elevated position finds its roots in an ancient custom of the Nüzhen people living in the mountainous NorthEast, who built the living quarters of their tribe leaders at the highest points of the encampment. The houses of the villagers, moreover, were often built on high wooden platforms.40 As a result, the elevated gong must be considered, just as Nurhaci’s Donglu, a rare example of Manchu architecture, unique in its value. These buildings constructed in Han style architecture, with names taken from the classics of Chinese literature, but rising on such high foundations to provide hospitality to Mongol Princesses and act as the site for Manchu shamanic Rites, constitute a setting symbolic of the fusion of two very ethnically different cultures which was taking place during the reign of the first emperors of the Qing dynasty. To the South of the Qingning gong, on the Western side of the neiting, is a red lacquered wooden pole suolun 索倫. It has a stone base, square at the bottom and round at the top. On the top sits a tin bowl, which was filled during shamanic Rites with rice and pig offal to feed the ravens. A Manchu legend tells that the progenitor of the Aisin Gioro and Bukuri Yongshun (Bukuli yongshun 布庫裏雍順) clan, was born from one of the three goddesses living in the sky after having eaten a ‘red fruit’ given to her by a celestial magpie. Bukuri Yongshun was

40 Wen Shuping, Wang Yanchun 2008: 68-69.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots born with an adult body and had the gift of speech. His mother gave him the task of restoring peace among the ‘three tribes’ who were fighting each other in Odoli (Eduoli 鄂多理), a town in the region of Omohui (Emuhui 鄂漠輝), also called Sanxing 三姓. Arriving in Eduoli by river on a raft, the son of the nymph revealed his identity to the local habitants, who, recognizing his divine nature, agreed to cease all hostility and accepted him as their new sovereign. The descendents of Bukuli yongshun, however, proved to be tyrants, persecuting and famishing their people, who in turn revolted by killing the entire royal with the exception of Fancha, the youngest. Fancha ran away in desperation and hid amongst the brushwood. Exhausted, he lay down in the grass awaiting for the fatal end. At that point a flock of ravens came to rest on his body, hiding him completely from the view of his persecutors. When they arrived they thought that they were looking at a fallen tree where a multitude of ravens had perched and they gave up the search. Fancha was saved and the Aisin Gioro family was able to perpetuate.41 Thus, the Suolun pole, also called Shengan 神桿, ‘pole of the spirits’, was used to feed the birds and thank them for their kindness. Also right at the heart of the Imperial City of Shenyang, between the buildings where the emperor and his wives lived, a suolun pole was placed, offering a tribute to the birds which had saved the life of the forefather, founder of the Qing dynasty.

3. Return to the Origins In the first year of the Shunzhi Era (1644), Emperor Fulin (Qing Shizu 清世祖) decreed the last transfer of the capital of the Manchu dynasty from Shenyang to Beijing: Shenyang, therefore, lost its function as home of the Imperial Palace. However, the Liaodong region and the city of Shenyang would go on throughout the centuries to play a very important role for the Qing court and its empire. The residences of a large number of imperial family members, and many headquarters of the officials of the Eight Banners, were in the NorthEast, and new soldiers for the Banner Army could be recruited

41 See Manzhou shilu 1:7-17 (in Qing shilu: 4-9).

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe from the area; in addition, from these bases they could manage the thriving local productions of wood, leather and ginseng, from which they reaped huge profits. Moreover, Dongbei remained an important area for the recruitment of soldiers for the Eight Banners army, and its position, with the coast to the South, Chaoxian to the East, Russia to the North and the Mongol territories to the West, was extremely important from a strategic point of view. For these reasons Shenyang became a secondary capital of the empire (peidu 陪都 or peijing 陪京) with the name of Shengjing 盛京. Here remained the branch offices of five of the six ministries of the new capital (the Ministry of Revenue, Hubu 戶部; the Ministry of Rites, Libu 禮部; the Ministry of War, Bingbu 兵部; the Ministry of Works, Gongbu 工部; the Ministry of Justice Xingbu 刑部)42, and they continued periodically to nominate ‘Generals of Liaodong’ Liaodong jiangjun 遼東 將軍)43, whose task was to protect the ex-capital and the surrounding areas. The political position of Shenyang, in 1644, became unquestionably that of a second city of the empire. The Northeast, and Shenyang above all, continued to be of great importance to China under the Qing dynasty not only for economic, political and military reasons, but also because was the fatherland of the ethnic group which had been united in the Khanate of the Later Jin by Nurhaci. It was the place which had witnessed the birth and the development of the Manchu state where the Banners had been created and above all it was the birthplace of the Emperor. Not far from the city of Shengjing, moreover, two tomb complexes had been built for Nurhaci and Hong Taiji, and Fuling and Zhaoling respectively, the first to the East and the second to the North of the palace. In 1671 Kangxi officially launched the Dongxun 東巡, the ‘Expedition to the East’ with the purpose of honoring the ancestral fathers, founders of the dynasty. Kangxi, Qianlong, Jiaqing and

42 The five ministries together took the name of Shengjing wubu 盛京五部, the ‘the five ministries of Shengjing’. The officials were all Manchu (see Zhang Guohua 1995: 1). 43 These commanders later took the name of Fengtian jiangjun 奉天將軍 and Shengjing jiangjun 盛京將軍; see Wu Bin 2007: 60.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots Daoguang took part in all ten expeditions to the Northeast. During their stay, they resided in the Imperial Palace of the ex-capital, where they held important and magnificent ceremonies to which they dedicated inscriptions in verses and prose, expressing their personal attachment to the Palace of the two great Khans and to the area, which was, after all, the land of origin of the dynasty itself. It was Fulin who first had the idea to make an expedition to the East, but immediately after the conquest of Beijing the political situation of the empire was quite unstable, and between the tenth and the eighteenth year of his reign (1653-1661) a string of natural catastrophes, in particular droughts and floods, made Fulin abandon his intention: to move away from the capital during such a state of emergency would have stolen time and energy from the tasks of rescue and reconstruction.44 At the beginning of the tenth year of his reign, therefore, Kangxi felt the duty to carry out his father’s unfulfilled wish, and to honor the tombs of his ancestors, which had been abandoned for many years and were now covered with weeds. That year no political tension or other adversity came between the new emperor and his achievement of the first Expedition to the East.45 Kangxi made two more visits, in 1682 and again in 1698. Analyzing the significance that these expeditions to the East had for the history of the Qing dynasty, some scholars have placed emphasis on the military and political aspect, stating that the main objectives of the emperors was to keep the Tsarist Empire under control, in order to avoid Russian invasions of the Qing State, and

44 “兼之旱澇頻仍，小民失所，一應養兵恤民，措置規劃 […] 東行往返，未免延 曠時日，有稽政務，欲專心化理，則難展至情。若亟遂孝思，又慮乖民望，再四躊 躇，我太祖太宗原以天下生民為念，如天下未按，無以上慰太祖太宗在天之靈，朕 心亦何能安，為此今歲停止東行，侯他年有暇，再行展遏爾部即行傳知。See Qing Shizu shilu, 清世祖實錄, 85: 11-13 (in Qing shilu 3: 671-672). 45 “今思太祖太宗創業垂統，功德隆盛，山陵在望，刻不能忘，去年恭謁孝陵禮 成， 今已數月，若再久延，孝思莫殫，朕懷靡寧。茲當海內無事，欲乘此躬謁福陵 昭陵以告成功，用展孝思” in Qing Shengzu shilu, 清聖祖實錄, 34: 1-5 (in Qing shilu 4: 456-458).

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe also bring supplies to the Mongol bases in the area.46 This point of view is confirmed, for example, by the fact that during his 1682 visit Kangxi gathered his generals in the Dazheng dian in order to instruct them on the battle strategies that the Qing army had used that very same year to defend against an invasion by the Tsar.47 Nevertheless, the value of the Dongxun institution lies principally in the great influence that the expeditions had on the fate of the Imperial City of Shenyang and the tombs of the Manchu emperors of the city. In the years between the conquest of Beijing and the first expedition, the Imperial Palace of Shenyang was not once used nor had any maintenance ever been carried out, despite the fact that many buildings were in severe disrepair. The year after his first expedition, Kangxi gave instructions to the Imperial Household (neiwufu 內務府) and the Minister of Works to manage all the restoration works and to store materials for the new decorations whom the Emperor wanted to be added. In addition, he organized for 678 soldiers to perform guard duty across all the gates of the city. After the first of his four visits to Shengjing (1743, 1754, 1778 and 1783), Emperor Qianlong began construction of the Eastern and Western buildings, (Dong gong and Xi gong) of the Zhonglu, and also the Western wing of the palace. It was only after these buildings had been completed that the Imperial Palace of Shenyang assumed the dimensions and the general appearance it has today. In conclusion, Kangxi’s expeditions to the East ‘saved’ the Imperial City of Shenyang, which escaped the fate which had befallen the previous capitals of the Khanate of the Later Jin, in which the buildings had all been left to deteriorate, or in some cases had even fallen into a state of ruin. Qianlong’s additions further enriched the Imperial City with splendid new buildings, and, thanks to the Dongxun, orders were given to proceed with the restoration and extension, on a large scale, of the tomb complexes of Fuling and Zhaoling.48

46 Wu Bin 2007: 147. 47 Zhang Guohua 1995: 1. 48 Not far, to the Southeast of Shenyang, lie the tombs of four generations of Nurhaci’s ancestors: the tomb complex Yongling 永陵 was included, in July 2004, in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, along with Fuling and Zhaoling.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots Several reasons drove Qianlong to start the expansion works on the Imperial Palace of Shenyang. It can be asserted, however, that his overriding purpose was to construct buildings where the Emperor and his retinue could live during the expeditions. Lodging in the gong, once the home of his forefather Hong Taiji and his wives, would have been considered an enormous lack of respect towards the ancestors. It was for this reason that when his grandfather had visited Shengjing he had never lodged in the Imperial City itself and had, therefore, created a precept that his grandson was forced to respect. In preparation for the first expedition to the East, Kangxi had ordered his assigned officials to have a small house built in front of the Palace of the August Government, where however, according to a report made at the time,49 he slept only for one night, lodging instead for most of his stay in the houses of three high-ranked officials to the North of the city. For the other two expeditions the Emperor had the Xiaoxiang fang 小 廂房 in front of the Chongzheng dian demolished and had other temporary dwellings set up. As Qianlong was about to leave on his first expedition, he ordered an architectural report on the total complex of the Imperial City to be drawn up, including the general conditions, in order that he could plan where to stay once he had arrived in Shenyang. The report 50 put emphasis on the poor state of the buildings of the Zhonglu and on the very limited space between the buildings themselves. According to these officials, only on the South of the Chongzheng dian on the East side and in the Donglu in front of the Dazhengdian was there enough space to build new living quarters. The Emperor, however, decided not to follow their recommendations and erected a Menggubao 蒙古包 to the South of the Fenghuang lou, a military camp tent (for generals) in Mongol style.51

Yongling, however, was the destination of only a few of the Qing emperors’ expeditions, including Kangxi’s in 1682. 49 Kangxi qiju zhu 康熙起居註, see Wu Bin 2007: 61. 50 Heitudang 黑圖檔: 42-44, see Wu Bin 2007:61. 51 This type of tent was also known by the name Yuzhang 禦帳, ‘emperor’s tent’; in most of the contemporary sources use the expression bucheng 布城, ‘cloth house’.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe After Qianlong’s first visit to Shenyang, the ceremonies held in honor of the ancestors during a given Expedition to the East, started to be classified rather rigidly. The Emperor would have to go to Shengjing quite often, in order to officiate these rites personally. He also decreed that his descendants would continue the custom. However, the lack of buildings in the Imperial Palace of Shenyang suitable to provide hospitality to the emperor and his wives became a problem which needed to be urgently resolved. When, in the eleventh year of his reign, Qianlong initiated the extension works of the Imperial City, he stated that the main goal of the new buildings would be to preserve the Genealogical Trees (Yudie 玉牒) and the Veritable Records (Shilu 實録) in Shenyang. From the final result of the buildings, however, we can clearly see that behind the project were ulterior motives, revealed unintentionally by the Emperor himself in the notes to one of his poems52 (Ti Diguangdian liu yun 提迪光殿六韻, Six Rhymes on the Illuminated Government Palace), confirming that Chongzheng dian, Fenghuang lou and Qingning gong were uninhabitable and adding that he wished to construct the Palace of Harmony (Yihedian 頤 和殿) on the ‘East side’ to lodge the Empress Mother and another building, on the West side, to which he did not give a name, for his own use.53 The two buildings would have become part of the two

52 Amongst the poems in which the Emperor underlines the importance of the expeditions and expresses his wish that his descendants continue to go to the Northeast to honour the forefathers is Shengjing 盛 京賦 , ‘Ode to Mukden’, composed both in Manchu and Chinese. Qianlong commissioned it in 1743 and contributed a preface (a part of which, in both the Chinese and Manchu version, is analyzed by Crossley 1999: 268-270). In this and in other compositions, the Emperor confirms that the journeys to visit the tombs of the forefathers and the relative ceremonies were a form of worship to the ancestors and a way of honoring the memory of the origins of the dynasty: “jingzhong zuxian, bu wang genben 敬重祖 先，不忘根本” (worship the forefathers and never forget your roots). See Wu Bin 2007: 62. 53 “崇政殿為盛京宮正中臨朝之所。其後為鳳凰樓，又後為清寧宮祀神之處，皆不 可居。 丙寅（即乾隆十一年——引者註）春，於東廂構頤和殿以奉聖母駐憩，西廂 即此。” in the poetic collection Qing Gaozong yuzhishi 清高宗禦制詩, vol.53. See Wu Bin 2007: 62.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots rows of buildings Dong gong 東宮 and Xi gong 西宮 which had been added by Qianlong right to the sides of the Zhonglu’s main buildings. We learn from other testimonies that the Emperor had built, for his personal use, the ‘Palace of the Preservation of Greatness’ (Baoji gong 保極宮) South of the Study of Constant Thought, (Jisi zhai 繼思 齋), between this latter and the Illuminated Government Palace. The building has five rooms with a yingshan 硬山 type roof. Nine corridors branch off from either side, connecting it directly with the Diguang dian, the last building South of the Xi gong. The Baoji gong would become, later on, the lodgings of the Emperor Jiaqing during his own expeditions to the East. Contrary to what Qianlong had previously planned, the Empress Mother was made to lodge in the Palace of Eternal Happiness (Jiezhi gong 介趾宮), and not in the Palace of Harmony, which was instead used as the office for official Rites. Behind the pavilion where she lived, the Empress Mother has access to the area around the Yihedian, similar to a small park, where she could walk and relax. Worthy of mention is also the Illuminated Government Palace, to which Qianlong’s abovementioned poem is dedicated. The last of the Eastern buildings, in order from North to South, this was where Qianlong carried out state affairs whenever he was in Shenyang. It seems clear that the true intentions of the Emperor was to create buildings where he and his entourage could lodge during the Dongxun; nevertheless, his decision to preserve the genealogies of the imperial family, the veritable records and, as we will see later, an enormous amount of literary works, was further motivation to rebuild and enlarge the Shenyang Palace to what it is today. In the eighth year of his reign (1743), Qianlong decreed that copies of all the Shilu, one in Manchu and one in Chinese, would be taken to Shengjing. He gave dispositions that the scholars appointed to make the copies of these volumes had to consult the Officials of the Ministry of Rites in order to prepare for the consignment ceremony. The Ministry of Rites carried out, therefore, a survey of the entire architectonic complex of the palace and informed the Emperor that the building most suitable to accommodate the collection was the Fenghuang lou, in the Zhonglu.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe On the fourteenth day of the ninth month of the ninth year (1744), shortly after returning to Beijing from his first Expedition to the East, the Emperor received a new document from the Ministry of Rites, in which the officials suggested that, as for the Veritable Records, the nine Genealogical Trees (Yudie 玉牒) of the imperial family written from the eighteenth year of the reign of Shunzhi, as well as those which would be written in future, should also be stored in Shengjing. The proposal received the official approval of the Emperor that very day. The Ministry of Rites thus informed the officials in charge of the new project at Shenyang and asked them if the Fenghuang lou was ready or not to receive the new documents. If it was not, they would have to consult the Ministry of Rites in order to find an alternative solution. From the discussion it emerged that, since the Chronicles and the future Genealogical Trees were now to be sent there, the Fenghuang lou would not be large enough to contain such a large quantity of documents. At this point it was the Emperor in person who intervened with a peremptory decision: in order to house the Veritable Records and the Genealogical Trees of the Imperial Family in the city of the forefathers, they would build, to one side of the Dagong 大宮(which indicated the Zhonglu), several special buildings. 54 The name Qianlong gave to the project, Jingdian ge deng gongcheng 敬典閣等處工程, mentions the building used to preserve the Yudie, the ‘Palace of Respect for the Canons’ (Jingdian ge 敬典閣). Looking Northward, the building is situated at the center of the Northern atrium of the Eastern buildings (Donggong): it has two storeys and a xieshan 歇山 type roof and is made up of three rooms. The glazed tile gate on the Southern side of the palace makes the atrium of the Jingdian ge feel like a separate space, as if to underline the dissimilar use of the building from those in the Southern atrium, which were used to lodge the Empress Mother. In the fifteenth year of Qianlong’s reign (1750), the first series of Genealogical Trees was gathered in Beijing and transported to Shengjing. After a ceremony, the Yudie were deposited in the Jingdiange. Later, in 1760, ‘68, and ‘78 three further

54 “盛京宮殿規制莊重，作法崇古，經年久遠，理宜增飾。今我皇上特旨於大宮左 右 添 建 樓 閣 ， 尊藏《玉牒》、《實錄》以昭垂萬祀 。” in Zongguan neiwufu fengxiaodang 總管內務府奏銷檔, point 214, see Wu Bin 2007: 63.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots series of Yudie were taken to the palace of the ex-capital, with the Emperor establishing that the custom must be continued even after the end of his reign.55 In the Northern atrium of Western buildings (Xigong), positioned simmetrically to the Palace of Respect for the Canons, rises the Pavilion of the Respect for Intentions (Chongmo ge), with which it shares the same architectural characteristics. Due to the proximity of the Chongmo ge and the building immediately to the South (the Study of Constant Thought), no wall was built to separate the respective atriums, making the Chongmo ge appear less isolated compared to the Dong gong. This is the most obvious difference in terms of the arrangement of the buildings of the complexes to the East and those to the West of Hong Taiji’s Zhonglu. In the forty-third year of his reign (1778), Qianlong ordered the generals of Shengjing to chose a favourable day to transport to this pavilion 56 the Veritable Records and the ‘Imperial Edicts of the Five Dynasties’ preserved since the eleventh year of his reign in the Fenghuang lou. In addition, the Pavilion of Respect for Intentions houses the Manwen laodang, one of the most important sources for the study of the history of the Manchurian dynasty before the conquest of Beijing, as well as for study of the historical evolution of the Manchu language and script. In 1741, Qianlong ordered several scholars to reorganize it, dividing it into volumes (the result was 81 volumes for the era of Nurhaci and 99 volumes for the era of Hong Taiji, of which 61 for the Tiancong Era and 38 for the Chongde Era, for a total of 180 volumes) and then to make two copies, one in ‘Old Manchu’ and one in ‘New Manchu’. In 1778, the copy in New Manchu was sent to a library in Beijing, whereas the copy in the ordinary Manchu language was sent, along with the Veritable Records and the edicts, to the Pavilion of Respect for Intentions in the Imperial City of Shenyang.57

55 Tie Yuqin, Shen Changji 1985: 42. 56 Ibid. 44, 45. 57 Tie Yuqin, Shen Changji 1985: 45, 46. In 1599, Nurhaci ordered the baksi (translated into Chinese boshi 博士, the literati of the court of the Later Jin) Erdeni 額 爾德尼 to adapt the Mongol characters to write down the Manchu language. That is why the Manchu language was born without circular signs, a script which goes under

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe These were, substantially, the buildings that Qianlong had built for the enlargement and reconstruction of the central section of the Imperial City. When the work was completed, the Zhonglu had been enhanced by a large number of structures and had taken on an overall more symmetrical and harmonious appearance compared to earlier. It had, in the end, become the custodial site for many documents of great importance. But the most outstanding contribution of the Emperor to the Imperial Palace of Shenyang, the one which truly granted the city its current dimensions and gave it a completely new look, was the construction of the West Wing (Xilu 西路) with its four palaces: the Study of the Admiration of Prosperity, Yangxi zhai 仰熙齋; the Imperial Tribune, Jiayin tang 嘉蔭堂; the Theatrical Stage, Xitai 戲 臺 and the most important, most representative building of Qianlong’s Shengjing – the great library of the Imperial City of Shenyang, by the name Pavilion of the Sources of Culture or Wensu ge 文溯閣. Since the activities held within the other buildings in this wing are strictly connected to the library, it is presumable that the construction period of the Wensu ge coincides with that of the rest of the Xilu: unfortunately, however, there is no source which systematically gives us a precise timeline of the beginning and the end of its construction. To determine these dates, therefore, we must rely on a passage from the Qing Gaozong shilu and a report of the General Office of Shengjing58 to the Emperor. The annotation in the Qing Gaozong shilu of the first month of the forty-seventh year of his reign (1782), speaks of allocations for funds and the transport of columns and other materials from Beijing to Shenyang for the construction of the Wensuge59. From this source we can infer that the decision to build the library must have been made the year before, i.e. in the forty-sixth year the name of ‘old Manchu’. In 1632 Hong Taiji ordered another scholar, Dahai 達海, to rework the old script. He added circular marks, which became characteristic of the new Manchu. The Manwen laodang is a privileged source for the study of the society and the history of the Manchu people, of its geography and, as already said, of the Manchu language. 58 Heitudang (seventh year of the Jiaqing Era) vol.728; see Wu Bin 2007: 76. 59諭：“由內庫撥銀七萬兩，交榮柱等帶往盛京建蓋文溯閣應用。” Qing Gaozong shilu 清高宗實錄, vol.1449 p.2 (in Qing shilu 23: 398).

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots of his reign, and the relative projects accomplished in the same year, so that construction could have started in the first months of 1782. According to the report, however, Qianlong ordered the construction of the palace only in the fifth month of the forty-seventh year. We can reasonably believe, then, that the official date for the beginning of the construction of the library itself was decreed in the fifth month, and that in the preceding months works for the preparation of the space to be occupied by the library were carried out. This meant the demolition of old structures and the levelling out of the building site. Another report,60 in which the supervisors of the works in Shenyang informed Qianlong of the completion of the library and the connecting buildings, dates to the ninth month of the forty-eighth year of his reign. The entire building process of the Wensu ge and of other buildings in the West Wing can be pinpointed between the fifth month of the forty-seventh year of his reign and the seventh or eighth month of the forty-eighth year. A complete list of all the other constructions (whose functions are connected with the library) is supplied by the first report mentioned, dating back to the seventh year of the reign of Jiaqing (1802). Viewing it from the outside, the Wensu ge appears to be only two storeys, but in reality the internal space is structured on three storeys with five rooms each. The two arcades of the first floor, one anterior and one posterior, have rich decorations with backgrounds in blue or green, recalling the green of the columns supporting the racket of the eaves and lending a particular elegance to the whole building. The most interesting aspects of the structure, however, are the tiles on the roof sections, which are black, whereas those at the borders are green, like those of other buildings in the Imperial City. The additions from the Qianlong Era had mostly lost the ethnic style characteristic of the pre-existing buildings (especially those in the East Wing) but retained the chromatic combination of yellow and green for the roofs. In contrast, black was chosen for the roof of the Pavilion of the Sources of Culture. According to ancient Chinese fengshui, the colour black represents water; the books preserved in the libraries are easily

60 Shengjing huanggong he guanwai sanling dang’an 盛京皇宮和關外三陵檔案, 174, see Wu Bin 2007: 76.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Agostino Sepe inflammable and therefore the black roof sheltering the numerous bookshelves of the Wensu ge serves the purpose of “taming the flames with water” (yi shui ke huo 以水克火), and underlines the importance of preserving, within the Imperial Palace of Shenyang, a copy of the largest and most important collection of books of Chinese history, the 四庫全書.61 In 1772 (the thirty seventh-year of his reign), eleven years before the Wensuge was finished, Qianlong started to have a collection made of all the books of the empire. The emperor ordered that, once the collection was completed, the gigantic quantity of volumes was to be copied seven times and the copies would be preserved in the most important libraries in China. The enormous task of collecting, reorganizing and copying more than 36,000 volumes took ten years with approximately 9,000 participants. The costs in terms of human and material resources is practically incalculable. Amongst the seven libraries chosen for the preservation of the Siku Quanshu, was also the Wensu ge of Shengjing. From the sources it is not clear when Qianlong ordered that a copy of the collection was to be preserved in the library at Shenyang. If the order had been given before the forty-sixth year of his reign (1781), the year in which construction of the library started, we cannot exclude that Qianlong had the new additions to the palace done with the precise intent of preserving the collection there; in other words, the Wensu ge may have been erected exactly for this purpose. However, it is also possible that the Emperor made the decision after construction of the Wensu ge had already begun, or while the works were being carried out. The insufficient evidence can neither refute nor prove the thesis that the Wensuge was conceived, projected and completed in order to preserve the Siku Quanshu. The first copy of the collection was stored in the library of the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Wenyuan ge 文淵閣(The Hall of Literary Profundity), in the spring of 1782. Although the second copy was

61 Tie Yuqin and Shen Changji 1985: 48; Tie Yuqin 1989: 99, 100. The books were to be divided according to four categories: the classics (jing 經) historical texts (shi 史), philosophical texts (or books of the doctrine of the great masters, zi 子) and texts of various nature (ji 集), hence its name.

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots finished only in the spring of the following year, those sections that were complete were already being transported to Shenyang in the winter of 1782. What prompted the Emperor to face such an arduous venture during the harsh NorthEast winter was his plan to make his fourth expedition to the East during the spring of 1783, and had expressed his desire to hold, in the new library of the Imperial Palace of Shenyang, a ceremonial reading of the great collection. In the second half of the ninth month of 1783, after the ritual visit to the tombs of the ancestors, Qianlong went to Shengjing for what would be his last time, and as on the previous occasions, he held numerous Rites and celebrations. On the twentieth day of the ninth month, accompanied by his eleventh son Yong Xing 永瑆, his fifteenth son Yong Yan 永琰, his seventeenth son Yong Lin 永璘 and the academicians of the Neige 內閣 (the Inner Council, or Grand Secretariat), he entered into the newly completed Pavilion of the Sources of Culture and laid his eyes upon the volumes of the Collection of the Works of the Four Categories sitting on the shelves of the new library in what had been the Imperial City of his ancestors. The project he had dedicated himself to, body and soul, for ten years – as well as his dream to “remember the venture of our ancestors who created the dynasty” and show his descendants a magnificent example of “preservation of literature” (不忘祖宗創業之艱，示子孫守文之 模) – had been accomplished. From 1671, the tenth year of the reign of Kangxi, until 1829, the ninth year of the reign of Daoguang, over a span of 150 years, the four emperors of the Qing dynasty, Kangxi, Qianglong Jiaqing and Daoguang, made ten expeditions to the East, during which they performed Rites near the tomb complexes of Fuling and Zhaoling in favour of the ancestors who had founded the Manchu dynasty, and lodged in the city of Shenyang. Of particular importance were the contributions made by Kangxi and Qianlong, the two greatest emperors of the last dynasty. The former prevented the Palace from being abandoned by ordering a series of restorations and giving orders for it to be adequately guarded by a large number of soldiers, making it possible for the Imperial Palace of Shenyang to remain intact today. The latter ordered the Palace to be widened and demanded it be given the great honor of preserving the greatest collection of writings on

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Conclusions

As I have tried to demonstrate in this essay, the Imperial City of Shenyang not only symbolizes the Manchu origins of the Qing dynasty present in its culture, its state institutions and its two great leaders; it also testifies to the Qing emperors’ veneration of their Manchu ancestry and their awareness of their Manchu roots. The palace best represents, therefore, the ethnic identity and the origins of the last imperial dynasty of China. The four emperors who undertook the ten Expeditions to the East to visit the tombs of their Manchurian ancestors dedicated many writings, in both verse and prose, to the various buildings of the Imperial City of Shenyang. It was Kangxi who composed the first passages and introduced a sort of tradition which his descendants respectfully carried down. Dedicating verses to the palace became such a common habit that, today, the themes appear to be of little interest from a literary point of view, and yet, because they contain ample descriptive passages of both the single buildings and the overall structure of the city, they are considered sources of great value for the study of the Imperial Palace. Moreover, much of the writing is infused with a very strong sense of belonging and reverence towards the ancestors. There is one in particular, written by Qianlong about the Dazhengdian, which probably better than any other expresses the sentiment, common to all the Qing emperors, of their devotion to their origins. The dedication, painted onto the drapes hanging behind the throne in the Great Hall of Government read: 神聖相承恍睹開國宏猷一心一得 子孫是守常懷紹廷永祚蔔事蔔年 Here, I feel the holiness transmitted to me, and I can see the soul and the virtue with whom the Ancestors created the Empire; May posterity always remember this place and venerate their Ancestry, and May the Dynasty prosper throughout the centuries!

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Downloaded from Brill.com10/05/2021 08:09:09AM via free access Back to the Roots In front of the Dazheng dian, before his eyes, the Emperor seems to relive the scene of his ancestors who were accomplishing the ‘great achievement’ of creating the dynasty, feeling that his descendants must always remember this place and worship their predecessors: only in this way would the state prosper in harmony and good fortune.

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Map of the Imperial City of Shenyang

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Great Hall of Government

A view of the East wing, standing between the two lines of the Eight Banners Pavilion and Facing the Great Hall of Government

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Palace of the August Government

The Qingning Palace

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“Suolun”Pole

Draw of the Whole Imperial City

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Pavilion of the Sources of Culture

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