Strewn across the gleaming black floor of the imperial harem like blood-stained butterflies pinned to a board, the beautiful young concubines in Beijing’s Forbidden City appeared at first to be sleeping, but the crimson pools of blood around their silken robes told a different story.
The palace soldiers had shown no mercy in slaying these fragile creatures on that terrible night in 1421.
Acting on the orders of the Ming Emperor Yongle, one of the most feared despots in Chinese imperial history, they had wielded their swords to ensure no one survived.
image: The Forbidden City: The world’s most magnificent palace
Some of their innocent victims were as young as 13, but one horrified chronicler of the time described how they had been “rent, split, ripped and torn to shreds” alongside the servant girls and eunuchs who guarded them.
In all, it is said that 2,800 people were killed in the harem as the Emperor tried to suppress a sex scandal which threatened to humiliate him at what should have been the proudest moment of his reign.
Beijing was then full of foreign dignitaries who had been invited to the unveiling ceremony of the Forbidden City, the architectural wonder which is still the largest palace in the world.
In murdering all witnesses to the scandalous developments in his own harem, Yongle hoped to keep them secret for eternity.
Drawing on long-forgotten chronicles translated into English for the first time, it shows how the building of the Forbidden City was Yongle’s attempt to legitimise his claim to be supreme ruler of all China.
Image:Tyrannical: Emperor Yongle locked up his concubine Lady Cui
In fact, he had no right to call himself emperor.
When his father, the first Ming emperor died in 1398, the true heir to the throne was Yongle’s 20-year-old nephew, Jianwen.
But Yongle was 18 years older than Jianwen and an aggressive warrior who had successfully defended China’s northern reaches against the Mongols.
Yongle believed his father should have given him the throne instead.
He was encouraged in this by an old soothsayer who appeared before him in a tavern
He told Yongle he was the true “son of heaven” and said he would one day be emperor, but only when his beard reached his navel.
Three years later, once the superstitious Yongle had grown his beard, he led his forces to Nanjing, then the capital of China, to kill his young nephew.
At first, Jianwen believed he was safe behind Nanjing’s unbreachable defences, but then he learned that one of his generals had betrayed him, opening the gates to the invaders.
Yongle’s triumph seemed assured, but he hadn’t reckoned on the intervention of his father, Hongwu, from beyond the grave.
Just as Jianwen was contemplating suicide rather than die at the hands of his bloodthirsty uncle, an old eunuch who had served under Hongwu scuttled in with an ancient vermilion box and placed it before him.
Anticipating Yongle’s fury at being overlooked as his heir, the late emperor had instructed that the box be given to his grandson in case of such an attack.
It contained a map of secret passageways under the city, orange robes and a razor for Jianwen to shave his head so he could escape into the countryside disguised as a Buddhist monk.
Image:Lady Cui (pictured here in the BBC reconstruction)
As he fled, Jianwen ordered the palace be burnt to the ground, leaving his family to die inside rather than face his uncle’s wrath.
The blackened bodies of the empress and their six-year-old son were found by Yongle and his men when the flames died down.
Alongside them was the corpse of a young man.
Although it was burnt beyond recognition, Yongle decided it must be Jianwen and declared himself emperor.
But rumours were circulating about a mysterious monk seen running from the city shortly before the fire.
From then on, Yongle was haunted by the possibility that Jianwen might return to claim his throne.
The bloodshed, which marked the rest of his reign, flowed from his determination to prove that, just as the soothsayer had said, he was heaven’s chosen agent on Earth.
(To this day, no one knows what became of Jianwen.)
His first step was to demand the official sanction of Nanjing’s political elite, in particular its most respected scholar, Fang Xiaoru.
When the old man refused to draft a document supporting his succession, Yongle ordered his men to set about him with their swords, but Fang Xiaoru had the last word – literally.
As he lay dying on the palace floor, he drew the Chinese character for “usurper” in his own blood.
In retaliation for this, Yongle purged the capital of all his political opponents, killing tens of thousands of people.
Image:The Forbidden City: The world’s most magnificent palace
To assert himself as the new and unassailable Emperor of China, he built a new capital in the province of Beijing, 550 miles to the north, where his support base was strongest.
At the heart of Beijing – the Mandarin word for northern capital – would be the palace complex of the Forbidden City.
With nearly 1,000 buildings and more than 9,000 rooms occupying 180 acres – five times as much land as Buckingham Palace – Yongle hoped this wondrous creation would show it had been built with divine approval.
The construction took 15 years, and more than a million people were press ganged into gathering building materials for the palace from every corner of the empire.
Up on the freezing plains of the north, great slabs of marble were hauled across ice.
If any were sub-standard, those responsible for finding them were beaten or executed.
There was great suffering, too, in the province of Szechuan, where unpaid workers were ordered deep into the uncharted forests to fell hundreds of thousands of giant timbers.
Hounded by Yongle’s soldiers and beset by disease, wild animals and sheer exhaustion, only half made it out alive.
The survivors rolled the trees down mountain gullies and into rivers, where they floated on a 1,000-mile journey to Beijing – a trip that took as long as four years.
As the building materials inched towards the new capital, Yongle ordered that every brick, pillar and stair of the old palace in Nanjing should be measured to ensure the Forbidden City should be “higher, grander and more magnificent”.
MailOnline
Read more:
Please Help Support BeforeitsNews by trying our Natural Health Products below!
Order by Phone at 888-809-8385 or online at https://mitocopper.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST
Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomic.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST
Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomics.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST
Humic & Fulvic Trace Minerals Complex - Nature's most important supplement! Vivid Dreams again!
HNEX HydroNano EXtracellular Water - Improve immune system health and reduce inflammation.
Ultimate Clinical Potency Curcumin - Natural pain relief, reduce inflammation and so much more.
MitoCopper - Bioavailable Copper destroys pathogens and gives you more energy. (See Blood Video)
Oxy Powder - Natural Colon Cleanser! Cleans out toxic buildup with oxygen!
Nascent Iodine - Promotes detoxification, mental focus and thyroid health.
Smart Meter Cover - Reduces Smart Meter radiation by 96%! (See Video).
