The Forbidden City

2 min read

When the Yongle Emperor decided to move the capital, both for strategicand for sentimental reasons-the north was always under threat from the Mongols and the Manchus, and also Yongle had spent his youth in the area-he sent a minister to Beijing to carry out the appropriate work On the outer wall of the palace at each of the four corners of the forbidden City, I want four magnificent guard towers. You will take charge of managing the construction and i am giving you three months. If you fail, you will pay with your life.

When he arrived in Beijing the minister met the contractors and carpenters.

These towers must be original he told them-and i do not have the knowledge to solve the technical problems that we face. So get to work immediately because we have no model to follow and-he added nervously-I have to tell you that both my life and yours depend on building this.

How many columns are needed? How will they be connected to the beams? What type of arches should we use? Neither these nor other questions were resolved in the first month, despite all the ideas that flowed from the minds of everyone concerned.

One day tired of their fruitless calculations the minister went out for a walk and suddenly met a child who had a cricket jumping from one hand to the other. Distracted, he forgot his problems and became absorbed in the game. After a few minutes, the boy took the insect and in a single movement put it into its wicker cage. The minister was intrigued when he saw the cage and, as he studied it further his face lit up and a smile reflected his feelings.

His feet hardly touched the ground as he ran to find the engineers to show them his discovery.

Nine beams eighteen columns and seventy-two ridges the whole unit fits together perfectly -the minister shouted as soon as he saw his subordinates. One by one, they analysed the details of the structure of the cage and then almost as if they had planned it, everyone there burst out laughing.

From the cricket cage, they built a scale model and then they built the four guard towers at the corners of the walls -Whoever created this cage should be considered a genius-say the people of Beijing even today as they remember the story of the cricket and its cage That is the end of the legend. Now we are going to talk about geomancy It has a lot to do with this palace.